Women help drive growth at Genesis Autoworks

GENESIS AUTOWORKS IS a business on the rise. Founded in April 2020 by Nick Manolis, Genesis offers general servicing and maintenance services across all vehicle brands and has expanded from its first workshop site in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo to comprise three locations across the city.

Considering the month and year it was established - just as the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdowns were first being felt - the growth of the business (and there are plans for further expansion) has been dramatic.

COVID-19 could actually be credited with playing a part in the Genesis Autoworks success story. The automotive repair sector was deemed an essential industry during the early pandemic lockdowns so was spared mandatory closure, and with the public looking to follow social distancing guidelines and steering clear of public transport and ridesharing services, the humble car became an even more vital means of getting about. The result was, for Nick at least, a phenomenally busy start for his business.

Not surprisingly, it was a sleepless time for the 34-year-old who, having worked as a mechanic for a decade before working for five years in finance, had returned to the automotive industry to start Genesis.

Nick Manolis established Genesis Autoworks in 2020

And as trade ramped up, it meant Nick needed to tackle the challenge faced by many in the automotive sector – finding enthusiastic staff who could become an integral component of the business and its bustling beginning and rapid expansion.

That is not a simple task. Staffing an automotive workshop is not easy and is an issue that is well documented. For example, key points of the 2021 State of the Nation report from the Capricorn Society (a survey of more than 2000 of that organisation’s automotive industry members) included 43 per cent of respondents naming the lack of qualified staff as a top-five challenge for their business, and 53 per cent saying they were very or extremely concerned about the issue of skills shortage.

Importantly, the report also notes that only four per cent of automotive businesses employ women mechanics, fitters, or electricians. With women making up around 50 per cent of Australia’s population, there clearly is a vast, untapped talent pool waiting for those workshops willing to take on female apprentices and technicians.

For Nick, anxious to be able to service the many potential customers knocking on his door in those early days, whether someone was male or female wasn’t a consideration – he wanted enthusiastic, passionate, hard-working staff. And this pragmatic attitude led him to his first full-time employee, Emily Wilson.

“We got very, very busy and couldn’t find enough staff to keep up with the demand and the work that was being asked of us,” said Nick. “I was scouring every source possible to find someone to fill these roles and found Emily through an advert she had put online looking for work. She came for an interview, was keen, had a real interest in cars, and so we gave her a shot, and it has worked out really well.”

She came for an interview, was keen, had a real interest in cars, and so we gave her a shot, and it has worked out really well.

Now in the second year of her light vehicle apprenticeship, and working at the Genesis Autoworks’ Coorparoo shop, 26-year-old Emily grew up around the industry. Her grandfather was a mechanic, and her father owned a service station with a mechanical workshop attached, so working in automotive was something she had always wanted to do. Unfortunately, the road to an auto career was bumpy.

Emily Wilson is in the second year of her light vehicle mechanical apprenticeship

Initially finding work in retail, Emily was always on the lookout for the opportunity of an apprenticeship and, after being made redundant from her administration role, she briefly went to Western Australia to take an apprentice role there before heading back to Queensland. Finding a similar job here was the problem.

“I got pushed back because I am a woman,” she said. “I actually had one guy say to me that although I looked good on paper, they didn’t think they could take me on because I was ‘too small’. That was, it seems, why I didn’t get that job – I was perfect for the role, but I am a woman.”

That’s a demoralising thing to happen to anyone, but Emily pushed on, taking a somewhat unorthodox route in her search for a job.

“I put an advert on Gumtree saying I wanted to start an apprenticeship and after a while Nick found it, called me, and I went in to meet him.”

A half-day trial swiftly turned into a full-time job and Emily signed up for an apprenticeship within a week.

“Emily came in for that trial and we ran through a basic service together and I could see straight away that her attention to detail was really good,” said Nick.

Someone who comes to me who wants to be mechanic is someone I’ll give a job. If it’s something they genuinely want to do, at the very least I’ll give them a chance.

“She wanted to be here too,” he added. “And that’s what I look for. I want someone who wants to be working on cars, not just someone who has applied for 100 different roles and takes whatever comes up. Someone who comes to me who wants to be mechanic is someone I’ll give a job. If it’s something they genuinely want to do, at the very least I’ll give them a chance.”

About a year later, in mid-2021, Nick was ready to take on another apprentice, and the online world played a part once again in finding his next employee.

26-year-old Crystal Muller had, like Emily, been searching for a way into a mechanical career. She had grown up in a family that worked on their own cars and, like Emily, had worked in retail for a few years as she searched for the opportunity for an apprenticeship. The parallels between the two continued even further when Crystal took to the internet to ask what path she might follow to realise her dream.

Crystal Muller started her light vehicle mechanical apprenticeship in 2021

“I was asking on social media how to get into the trade,” said Crystal. “Should I be doing a TAFE course first? Should I just be applying for jobs? What do I do?

“A lot of people were quite negative about it, saying that they didn’t enjoy the trade or that it was very hard to become a matureaged apprentice because people have to pay you more. But then Nick came along, and he said that the fact I was looking and asking was a bonus and showed I was quite committed. He asked me to come out to the Cooparoo shop to see how it all worked and it went from there.”

A few weeks later, Crystal was in the workshop and signed on as an apprenticeship.

While both Emily and Crystal have made their mark already and are proving to be gifted, hard workers, it is true that being a mechanic is a physically tough gig – the excuse that Emily encountered when turned down for an apprenticeship a few years ago. However, both have found ways to adapt and respond well to the tasks presented to them, and have found an environment at Genesis that, while supportive, expects nothing more than for a job to be done well.

“You work out how to do things,” said Emily. “There isn’t anything that you can’t do. You find ways to get it done.

“At the start, I was feeling that I had to prove myself. However, once I knew what Nick was like and that he wasn’t going to treat us any differently, I felt I could actually breathe - I could still work to the same high level but also know that I didn’t need Nick to see that I could do it better than a man.”

You work out how to do things. There isn’t anything that you can’t do. You find ways to get it done.

Emily and Crystal recognise that they are unusual in that they are women in the workshop. Both also recognise they can forge a really exciting career at Genesis and are aiming to grow and advance with the business.

And that is just fine with Nick. Employing women in the business might not have been an official part of his start-up plan, but in an industrystarving for enthusiastic employees, and with half of Australians being female, encouraging women to apply for the roles on offer is a no-brainer.

“I had not actually worked with a female mechanic before, so it wasn’t a conscious decision at the start, but once Emily had begun working here and I could see the value, I realised we had essentially opened ourselves up to a pool of people twice the size,” he said. “Emily set the standard and demonstrated that we really need to look at the other half of the population.”

Nick is representative of a new generation of workshop owners. Young, driven and ambitious, the only thing that matters is delivering brilliant service to customers. And he makes it clear that the old attitudes around gender and jobs are relics of the past.

“This isn’t a conversation we should be having really,” he said. “If there is someone willing to do the job, you give them the job. They do it well, you move on. That’s it.”

We couldn’t agree more.