ROANOKE, Va. — Advance Auto Parts Inc. received one of eight 2014 Head of Class Awards for excellence in company education and training practices from the Auto Care Association Education Committee. The Head of Class Award recognizes companies within the auto care industry that continually invest in enhancing the quality and level of learning and skill development offered to employees.“Advance understands that in order to best serve our customers we must not only invest in quality parts and services, but also in training and retaining the most knowledgeable Team Members in the aftermarket,” said George Sherman, president of Advance. “We’re honored to receive the Head of Class recognition for our training and certification practices and will continue to strive to provide all our employees with the information and experience that helps best partner with shops to improve operations and drive sales.”

Advance is dedicated to serving customers’ needs with more than 10,000 ASE-certified parts specialists. In the past year Advance has added new staff to its education and training team, constructed a training center at the Company headquarters and introduced new training initiatives including:

•General manager onboarding program focused on best practices in store management
•District manager immersion program emphasizing team leadership and operational processes
•Video-based Automotive Systems Training Curriculum to keep Team Members up-to-date on safety, parts identification, common repair problems and automotive systems most important to commercial shops

“Businesses of all types can introduce and implement education and training programs to meet the professional and personal needs of our auto care industry family,” said Auto Care Association President and CEO Kathleen Schmatz in a statement. “In each case, the company has noted improvements in teamwork, morale, sales and customer satisfaction while at the same time reducing turnover.”

Advance also has additional training programs specifically targeted for its Commercial Team Members, which include weeklong onboarding for Commercial Account Managers, focused on leveraging the tools to support and help our Customers grow their business; Sales Process Training for Commercial Team Members, designed to help Team Members establish partnerships and build lasting relationships with customers and Commercial Sales Manager Onboarding, a 3-day hands on training. Commercial Customer Representative Onboarding is also a week long session to train entry-level sales Team Members the basics around sales, partnership building and the fundamentals for growing customers’ business.