Shopforeman

[RPMGeorge]

Hi, What is the correct Job description for a Shopforeman and what should or should not be a job specific task. What would be the average pay for such a position and how can we justify the expense?

[Alan D. Goff]

I am a shop foreman at a mid to small dealership. First I wont post my salary here (too open) but will do it privatly if you email me (will reply after vacation, around March 30th). I am salary with a bonus on department profit. My job description (which I more or less wrote) is to report to the service manager, develope and implement procedures to insure consistant repairs, insure technician training is being completed in areas required, maintain shop equipment, maintain service information systems, assist technicians with vehicle repairs when needed, assist service advisors as needed with customers on test drives and contacting extended warranty companys, handle emegency repairs as needed, and what ever comes in for the day (this includes every thing from handleing difficult customers to shoveling snow to 30 second diagnose of vehicles in the service drive).

The position of shop foreman I feel is required in some cases where the service manager either has too much on the front end to deal with or has come into this industry from the managing end and not from the technician end. It comes down to my job is to make the life of the service manager, service advisor and technician as easy and profitable as possible.

[mbowers]

I think that's as a good a description of the Shop Foreman job as you'll find.

One of the problems I've noticed with the job, though, is that many shop foremen see themselves as senior technicians instead of shop supervisors or assistant managers. Since the shop foreman is usually on a salary with some override on shop production, I see them too often jump in to handle jobs where the techs can't make money, instead of teaching the techs how to do the job.

[Alan D. Goff]

The hardest part of going from being a technician to a shop foreman is considering yourself part of management and not a technician.

I have told my service manager before that I really do not need a tool box, because if there is a problem vehicle I should be working directly with a technician to repair it. Also a large part of my job is not giving direct answers to technicians but informing them of where the answer is, either in service information or who in the shop has seen the same concern before.

And yes I have taken some vehicles where we have ran out of shop time or money and repaired them, but I always make sure the tech who worked on the vehicle to start with knows what I am doing and if there was a repair what the fix is. This is always done at the service managers direction.

[Benjamin]

That is a great description of how, why and what a shop foreman should do!

Thank you