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The dealership I work at is doing a trial run on a team pay. We have some techs getting really difficult diagnostic work that takes a couple days, and some techs just hanging and banging riding a gravy train.
To fix this issue our bosses are trying out team pay. As a Beta test its me (lube tech/C tech), 2 B techs and 1 A tech.
And I have no idea how this works…..
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And when your Boss desided to go to this “Team Pay” system , did you ask him how it would work? The only team pay system I’ve heard was by paying employee’s a flat hourly wage and then a bonus if the weekly total billable hours were above a set amount *bonus’s based on hours over what was exspected* . That being said there’s a million different ways they could be doing it, so you really need to ask your boss to explain it to you.
I can tell you how it DIDN’T work at a Nissan dealer who tried this crap. One of the techs there was 10 minutes late every morning, took 1.5 hours for lunch with his girlfriend, etc, etc. After 2 days I was already down a 100 bucks on my average and pxxxxx off.
The clincher came on Day Three when the company’s lot porter came up to me and told me something that he was very uneasy about.
He discovered that the company had put him on the team plan and he did no work that contributed to the hour pool as his job was courtesy rides to customers, chasing parts, etc.I went in and told the service manager I wanted off that plan and the SM chose to lip off to me. That led me to kicking the chair he was in and slamming him against the wall. He was then invited to step outside and get his butt whipped. He froze so I exited the office, opened the overhead door, and told him he had a free pass to the outdoors. He took off running for the front and locked the door behind him.
I started packing my tools and every mechanic in the shop did so at the same time. The general manager came out and walked to talk things over in his office so we were all in there telling him it was a load of BS and he can get somebody else. The GM said nothing when I asked if he was going to put his fat salary into the pool also……
The service manager (feeling brave now I guess..) chose to pop off to the mechanic on my left who lunged over the desk and took a roundhouse swing at him. The SM flopped back out of the way to keep from getting coldcocked and rammed his head into the concrete wall when the chair rocked backwards. Kind of sounded like a coconut hitting the floor.
While the SM was sitting there rubbing the back of his head and trying to hold tears back the GM axed the team plan and we all went back out into the shop to go back on the individual flat rate we were using.
That’s my experience with it……………. :whistle:
Very quickly; all inside of a few minutes. When I went into the SM’s office I was polite about stating I wanted off the team plan.
He gave me a sneer and said, “What you will do is shut your mouth and go back to work.”.About 2 milliseconds later is when my boot connected with the chair he was sitting in and the ruckus was on.
The thought of me, and the other mechanics, paying the salary of the lot porter just wasn’t going to fly and that’s essentially what it would be doing.
What’s funny about it is that after I picked up my tools I sabotaged a Nissan head gasket job by pulling the tool out that keeps the chain tensioner depressed. This means the balancer and chain case has to come off to fix it. Let the next schmuck do it.
The GM hired us all back on the spot and when I went back out in the shop I remembered that sabotage job. So off I go to the SM who is now back in his office and told him someone pulled some crap on me and I was getting extra time for fixing it.
He willingly agreed at which point I said, “You wouldn’t have been the one to screw me over would you….”. Rub it in a little……Our team plan lasted less than 3 days.
[quote=”Pitt” post=126204]The dealership I work at is doing a trial run on a team pay. We have some techs getting really difficult diagnostic work that takes a couple days, and some techs just hanging and banging riding a gravy train.
To fix this issue our bosses are trying out team pay. As a Beta test its me (lube tech/C tech), 2 B techs and 1 A tech.
And I have no idea how this works…..[/quote]
Sounds good on paper, but like anything else like it, it’s just a form of socialism/communism. Slackers get a free ride, while someone else busts their butt. It never pans out for the hard workers. A socialist/communist is someone who has read Karl Marx’s work. A capitalist is someone who understands Karl Marx’s work.
The obvious thought that occurred to me when this plan was first implemented was why should a guy who is a slackard draw the same paycheck as someone who is busting their tail all day long?
One guy flags 60 hours, the slackard flags 30, so the slackard gets 15 of the 60 and both have 45. B & S; not Briggs and Stratton…
Why should I subsidize someone who wants to hang around the coffee pot, play Farmville, or call in sick so they can go fishing.
The harder I work the more they get is a pretty lousy business model from a mechanic standpoint.I love the Karl Marx, socialism communism references. I agree 100% and I’ve been telling a buddy of mine why this won’t work.
I’ve been saying that this system will fail, and fall apart. It’s not a surprise the old school techs want nothing to do with it. I don’t have a choice because the lube techs are being thrown onto the team pay system to help pad the hours. That alone tells me it won’t work.
I’ll keep you guy updated.
Is your boss’s last name Marx?
Your dealership is about to lose some of their more productive techs.
Communism doesn’t work, and you’re about to see Why.
I’ve studied socialism and communism, and people like Karl Marx at length. All through college for engineering.
I spoke to my boss and aired my concerns. One thing he couldn’t answer, and its the same thing Marx didn’t think of is ;pride. Who turns more hours for the team. Who has bragging rights.
He said they won’t tell anyone who got certain hours for the team. But people already keep track. He’s very aware this could blow up in our faces because of one lazy person. And he thinks he knows which three guys are gonna be the problem.
I said the three names and he agreed.
He feels it will fix a lot of issues. And only create a few more. So in the end we will start with 6 problems, and be left with 2.
Personally I said hire a dispatcher, and fire the techs that refuse to take on challenging work.
We already got rid of one guy.
I think that it’s going to create morale issues in the shop and foster some discontent among the techs.
For instance. Say the techs all get along fine with each other. A tech doesn’t show up for work one day and calls in because he’s sick.
The seed then gets planted in the minds of the other techs is he really sick or is he a no-show because he decided to go fishing or has a bad hangover from too many the previous night?What if a tech gets hung up on a job, or more than one, for whatever reasons that are not his fault. Do the other techs start thinking that he’s sandbagging things and proceed to get irritated with him; or even hate his guts?
I could see something like this turning everyone in the shop against everyone else.
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