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If you’re producing 125% and not flat rate you’re being taken advantage of. Let me be blunt, if I can make an honest living and someone else cant, it aint the system
[quote=”iron” post=172289] We had a rule in the shop, if you have to borrow it more than twice, need to buy one of your own. Which worked well. .[/quote]
I’m a bit different. If it’s a 15mm socket, wrench or other everyday tool, they better have it. That $300 tool that gets used once every 2 months, if I have it there is no reason for the next guy to buy it, I have it. But the next rare tool and we’ll trade off.
I’m the senior tech and one of the team leaders. We’ve slowed up quite a bit in the last few weeks. Today the service manager told me that the hour;y techs will be sent home if there is no work. Not the first time this has happened, wont be the last. Hourly techs are not immune, they lose also.
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=182670][quote=”Yak” post=182665][quote=”Bluesnut” post=182662]Flat rate can be a good thing IF the shop is run right. Unfortunately, very few are run right so flat rate sucks.
Service managers are so spineless they will cower to every complaint from a customer and try to lay it off on the mechanic even if the mechanic is not at fault. Translation; mechanic does another freebie job to pacify the customer and get the service manager off the hook.
New car warranty times? Ha. When the warranty flat rate is a whopping .2 hours to replace almost every seal in an A/C system or .5 hours maximum for the diagnosis and repair of any electrical problem no matter how mightmarish then there’s a problem; and it ain’t with the technician.[/quote]
You have a warranty administrator issue[/quote]
No. There was no warranty administrator issue. I went through this as both a mechanic and service manager. The warranty books says you’re going to get X hours for a certain repair and that’s it. Period. Run into snags? Takes 3 hours to do something that pays .3 when everything goes smooth? Take it or leave it. A halfshaft replacement for .2 hours? That’s it. Love it or leave it.
Believe me. I’ve been around and around with them and they would not budge.[/quote]I know how flat rate works, I’ve been working it for 40 years. My final thought on this, if someone can’t make money flat rate, maybe it’s not the system.
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=182662]Flat rate can be a good thing IF the shop is run right. Unfortunately, very few are run right so flat rate sucks.
Service managers are so spineless they will cower to every complaint from a customer and try to lay it off on the mechanic even if the mechanic is not at fault. Translation; mechanic does another freebie job to pacify the customer and get the service manager off the hook.
New car warranty times? Ha. When the warranty flat rate is a whopping .2 hours to replace almost every seal in an A/C system or .5 hours maximum for the diagnosis and repair of any electrical problem no matter how mightmarish then there’s a problem; and it ain’t with the technician.[/quote]
You have a warranty administrator issue
[quote=”Redneckmanwv99@yahoo.com” post=182461][quote=”Yak” post=182077]Flat rate or some kind of incentive is the only way to keep techs producing. After 43 years in the business I know this for a fact. I have 4 hourly techs in the shop right now and they average about 15hrs a week.[/quote]
Well I think unfair labor times are largely to blame for this ever increasing “hour shortage” problem. Cars get more and more complex, and labor times just seem to shrink and shrink. They want to pay you less to do more, but I know that’s not just the auto industry. You say that techs just don’t produce without some kind of push or incentive, but what do you mean when you say “keep them producing”? I’m of the mindset that doing something fast and doing it right at the same time are not possible, and while I do believe that you should be as efficient at doing the repair as you can be, but I don’t believe in rushing through to get a job done because a customer is in a hurry. If they don’t have the time to get their car fixed right, then I don’t want them as my customer.
What is the problem with these hourly techs? They don’t know what they are doing? Are they are goofing off instead of working? Are they unnecessarily milking the jobs they do get? There is this very pervasive sentiment that people who are paid hourly are lazy or slow, but I think that problem lies more on the unrealistic time expectations that are placed on you as a tech. I’m not making excuses for techs who don’t belong in the field because they either don’t know what they’re doing or don’t care, but I do think that the job is stressful enough, being pressured to fix every car as fast as you can and fix it right (which again, is not the way things should be), techs shouldn’t have to worry about losing their ass and not being about to pay their bills because they didn’t turn enough hours that week. The business owner should be the one taking the loss for slow times, but instead dealers can unload the slow times on the techs and just sit back and say “Well, there’s no work so you have to stand around for free.” I would rather see the techs have the power to screw over the shop with an hourly or salary plus commission based pay rather than the shop screwing the techs with flat rape, but then again I am always on the side of the little guy, the underdog, whoever has less power.[/quote]
let’s see, you want to screw over the shop??/ That will get you far! You’ve spent three years as a lube tech?? And you have all the answers?? When we get slow the first ones sent home are the hourly techs. There is no difference between, a dealer, McDonalds or a landscape contractor, someone started the business to make money and if employees don’t produce, they’re gone. You, sir, have a lot to learn!
[quote=”Cammed 05″ post=182130][quote=”Yak” post=182077]Flat rate or some kind of incentive is the only way to keep techs producing. After 43 years in the business I know this for a fact. I have 4 hourly techs in the shop right now and they average about 15hrs a week.[/quote]
Jesus. No work or no will to work? I flagged close to that myself just in today
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]
Lack of proper training. They come out of the for profit tech schools with little real knowledge about the auto repair business.
Flat rate or some kind of incentive is the only way to keep techs producing. After 43 years in the business I know this for a fact. I have 4 hourly techs in the shop right now and they average about 15hrs a week.