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I have a shop / stall problem which is going to require the implementation of a second shift. I have tons of fleet business that will be bringing their vehicles in for maint during the second shift. My problem. I am EXTREMELY land and stall locked and my second shift will be made up of two skill level techs and 5 ASSET students that each have a minimum of 3 years experience working in a tire store. My question is stall availability at shift change time and pay structures for the afternoon / evening team. Any suggestions?

Bob....

We operated a night shift for many, many years. As for the pay..our technicians that volunteered were paid at the same rate as they were during the day. We had no apprentice techs..experienced only. One night parts manager..$750 wk flat salary.
The obviously anticipated problems existed with techs sharing space initially.Such as...day shift complained night tech using his space did not clean stall properly, etc,etc. This all smoothed itself out rapidly once everyone fell into the pace. The night shift techs worked Monday thru Thursday. Shift started around 6PM. Most techs walked in around 5PM to get a feel for the work lined up for the night, catch up on gossip, meet to all have dinner prior to working while parts dept gathered their parts. Most nights wrapped up around 3am.Depended obviously on volume or extent of work scheduled.
The value of the Parts night manager was someone to clean and re-stock the tech counters supplies..filters, plugs..additives..and also to meet and greet our DDS driver who arrived at 2am. Most nights he was able to receive and stock the parts. Sweep and mop entire department..therefore the parts department was always white glove clean , stocked...and special order parts were sitting ready for morning techs..charged on tickets..ready to go.Copious notes always left between shifts.
Our productivity went through the roof. Like you..we were limited in stalls..yet selling close to 400 new units per month and close to 200 used.We chose this over Saturday hours..advertised it liberally to our customers. Customers loved the ability to drop their vehicle off on their way home..pick up a waiting rental unit..and have their general maintenence work done overnight in place of being stuck jockeying family vehicles around on a Saturday..and wasting a weekend day hanging in a service department. We were the first to do this in Atlanta and our customers were huge fans. We made picking their vehicle up on their way to work next morning a snap and handled almost all transactions and rentals over the phone via credit card.The customers car was parked outside and the rental or loaner was simply dropped. One morning person dedicated to go to night shift key board..bill < paid receipt> on board with customers keys attached and off to work they went. We closed the service drive at 7pm. We initially kept it open until 10pm..however..no kidding here..we were next to several restaurants and found some customers returned later to pick up their vehicles intoxicated and argumentative. The later hours also dictated having to man the cashiers office. Therefore..night was dedicated to simply dropping off vehicles..and picking up in morning.
Our employees loved this. The night employees worked Monday through Thursday..had Friday until 5PM Monday off..so was obviously popular with the *single* staff who loved to hunt, fish, ski and take weekend mini-trips. The efficient and experienced techs made great money..and over time.. some of the day techs ended up taking advantage of the new hours.. staying to wrap up extensive jobs. They loved being able to stay on the job instead of stopping an involved job when on a roll..only to pick back up next morning. They too became more productive.
These hours can be used to attend to Used car reconditioning, New vehicle accessory additions, Quick LOFs..lots of applications !
Hope some facit of this helped.

Sounds like Paradise has quite a handle on this, I will throw in one additional thought, then raise another related question.

If you put together a single page form, we called it a "hand-off" sheet, that will allow techs to literally hand off a job to the second shift, it will help to keep the natives calm and the work progressing. I know, "you aren't going to be having the second shift techs do any work on the day shifts vehicles". Yes you will. It is going to happen, be ready for it. You will then find the productivity raised even higher. The sheet will just simply facilitate everything getting done, and everyone getting paid.

Just my thoughts. Now, give a look to the next post and see if you can help me! <grin>

We had our mail server crash, I lost all my mail which included a few requests for the "hand-off" sheets we have used. If anybody still wants a copy, I can fax them to you if you e-mail me again, I cannot e-mail a copy to you, so please include a fax number.