Tech pay for maintenance work

[Art_Mopar]

I asked in a previous post about "skill level" pay in ADP. Now I would like to hear if anyone is paying a "flat" amount for the easier maintenance type work such as brakes, oil changes, tire rotations etc. I pay some guys as little as $14.00 to replace front brakes and machine rotors and some guys as much as $57.00! How are you guys paying your techs?

[robc]

I'd like to second that request. Readers know I am a big supporter of moving competitive maintenance items off flat rate and into flat fee. I've long suggested paying techs a flat $5 per LOF versus a flat rate time. This not only helps normalize costs, it discourages high flat raters from taking low paying (for the shop) work and it possibly helps to remove the service from manufacturer effective rate calculations.


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

[$teve]

Why would you want to "discourage" any Tech from doing maintenance work??? Not only would they be less motivated to do it, they would have less incentive to FIND IT AND RECOMMEND IT IN THE 1ST PLACE! No shop is percectly balanced in Tech skills, and you can't take a % to the bank. Sell the HOURS and work to balance your cost of labor with lower skilled guys (if you can find any worth employing).

[Art_Mopar]

My intentention is not to try to get away with paying minimum wage here. It has been my experience that the higher skilled (and priced) techs are no different (and often times worse)than the lower skilled/priced techs when it comes to looking a vehicle over for required maintenance because for years they just sat back and did the driveability or transmission repair and picked up whatever related work they saw and moved on. I was shocked when I found out that the majority of my skilled techs did not even set tire pressures when doing a oil change, check for a needed tire rotation, or even look at the oil change sticker on the windshield. It was a shame that I had to "bribe" my "skilled" techs with .2 to get them to utilize a simple 16 point check sheet just to find some basic maintenace needs! Ask your parts mananager how many air filters you sold last year and work the number down to per day. Ifound out that my department sold less than ONE per day! My problem is this: warranty work is drying up and what little bit there is left either requires a very skilled tech or a very low skilled/apprentice tech. Couple this with the fact that maintenance intervals are getting spread out and the competition out there for it is fierce what is a dealer to do? I do not have enough "specialized" work to keep my big ticket guys busy. I don't know about the rest of you folks but I can't survive on paying a tech $25 per hour to mount and balance a tire, do a lube,oil & filter (let alone any free/promo ones) or to hang a set of mud flaps.

[This message has been edited by Art_Mopar (edited 04-24-2004).]

[robc]

Read it again. I never said discourage from doing ... I said discourage from taking. If there are two jobs in the rack one is "veh stalls occasionally" and the other is "brakes squeal" which do you think a senior tech if he's paid the same hourly rate.

"Can't spend percentage" sounds like ATcon's philosophy that I totally disagree with that if we just hire a shop full senior master techs we'll be make millions. PMI in some respects is complete BS (as the quicky lube places prove out every day). There are so many variables to PMI that it just doesn't make sense for every store. New flash - not every senior tech is some super efficent superstar at taking care of customers, and not every starting tech is a hack. (As a funny side, no senior tech today ever thinks they were a hack back in the day. They'll admit they didn't know as much but that's about it. It's like they went from high school to B-tech overnight.)

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

[Jim Lloyd]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and have a quick question as it relates to ADP. Does the flat-cost $ amount on a particular labor op cause problems in the office. The last thing I need is our office manager on the warpath.

Our techs get a print out (RTH, I think) every morning and I'm wondering how that will show up? Hours? Dollars? The ADP system is new to me and I'll be the first to admit I haven't got it figured out yet. Thanks for the advice.

Jim

[Doug]

Rob, I agree with most of what you are saying.

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that the "can't take % to the bank" was referring to being so concerned with tweaking everything to the point where we forget what matters: sell the job, bill the labor, make some profit.

We all know how our shops we be run in a perfect world where work mixes were always predictable and we had the "right tech for the right job" each and every time. But, hey, that ain't the way it happens. If there's an opportunity to sell a brake job and all our lower paid techs are busy but a higher-paid guy has available time, then he's gonna do the job and we're gonna get it out the door. Sure, the profit percentage shrinks a bit, but a little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothin'

I gotta tell ya, when we stopped fussing so much over percentages and hours-per-repair order...and started thinking "any sale is a good sale"....our *dollars of profit* went up dramtically. Right now our effective labor rate and gross % on labor are as low as they have ever been in years.....and departmental net profit in *dollars* has never been better.

We have seventeen techs (excluding detailers and accessory installers). Two are lube guys, and three are heavy line. Beyond that, the other twelve do whatever job they are capable of doing, regardless of pay rate or the type of work. With 5 carlines and the crazy work (and brand) mix that we have coming thru the door, there's just no way to "fine tune" things. But, hey, that's us. As we all know, what works in one store make not work elsewhere...for about a hundred different reasons.

Cheers everybody

Doug

[$teve]

Thanks Doug, you got my meaning.

Changing pay plans to improve gross may have the unintended consequece of reducing your hours upsold. Naturally, we'd all like to have the "cheaper" techs perform the "menu" priced work. This may not be possible on all cars at all times. I'd still want my higher paid techs at least looking for upsells on the cars they touch, and I'd take their additioanl hours, even at a reduced gross %.

[Art_Mopar]

My intent is not to micro-manage the shop but listen to what you all are saying. Be satisfied with lower percentages and higher sales. Souldn't this apply to the techs as well? For the first time in my life my phone is ringing with "top gun" techs looking to make a move because they are no longer needed at their present shop. I started out at $3.50 per hour and was making a really good living before I got into management and my work ethic never changed. I was buried in the dreaded A604 transaxles while guys around me may have made a little less per hour than me but where making a killing by hanging struts or screwing in spark plugs by "cherry picking" at the service desk. You are all correct in the statement that there are all different types of people out there but if I had a tech pass on calling a needed brake job because it now pays a couple of bucks less then I don't want him working for me anyway. There once was a time when techs were paid a percentage of the labor sale...really!