Brick wall at $20.00 flat rate hour

[joe r]

How many of you pay some of your techs more than $20.00 per flat rate hour?
If you do, how did you break down the wall that most dealers have set up at that amount?
A lot of techs are making the same as they were ten or fifteen years ago. With inflation, there standard of living has gone down. And we wonder why we can't keep or attract better techs.


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[robc]

While working with dealerships the topic of technician pay often comes up and Joe is right there seems to be this block on $20 per hour.

However, industry benchmarks peg an average tech's pay is around 25% of your effective retail rate. (Fringe benefits should tack on another 5-10% of those costs.) So unless your effective retail rate is hovering in the $75-$80 per hour area, I don't know if $20 is really key.

A lot also depends on shop efficiency. A tech that can routinely flag at 110% is being paid in theory more per hour of actual work. I know of shops who only pay $14-15 per hour, but their techs are routinely running at 150%+ (meaning that they making $21 - $22.50 per actual hour).

Many of these higher dollar pay decisions I know are being influenced by such concepts as "per man hour invested" and other matrixes.



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** Rob, Editor WD&S **
Help is only a message post away!
robc@dealersedge.com

[sallen1]

Rob's got it right: Calculate the true hourly rate based on wages paid divided by time at work.

Anyway, we just raised our labor rates and have three skill levels the highest pays $24 per hour. So. California is rather competitive for people and we are always looking to grow.

scott