Employee Productivity help!

[Fit]

We have a lot of work that needs to be done but our employees just take their time on jobs and realllllly stretch it out instead of working faster and getting the job done so they can move onto the next one. They are payed hourly and I think that is part of the problem. We do custom work and our jobs are usually pretty random so I cant pay them by the job. Any suggestions?

[mspecperformance]

If you don't have an incentive based system like flat rate its just basically hoping what kind of mood they are in when they start the day.

[PAPShop]

We are in the same boat as you. There just isn't book time for example a 1965 AMC Marlin or an AC Cobra. As a result we developed a pay scale with incentives for our guys. They earn their hourly rate and a percentage/commission on the hours that are billed, not the hours they take to do the job. The owner gives the tech an idea of what it should take to finish the job based on the quote given to the customer. They earn a percentage of the labor rate per hour billed to the customer, when the customer pays for the hours - which means customer pays for hours when the job is done. The percentage is based on tech's skill level and length of time with us.

[alfredauto]

The slowest employee needs to be the first one sent to the unemployment line. I pay hourly plus bonus, but I also work in the shop. I expect my guys to work as fast as me, if not they figure it out real quick that if I can do their job faster why should I bother paying them? Right now my top tech outworks me, he also makes a bigger paycheck than I pay myself. Slackers need to be sent packing asap, its hard but needs to be done.

[stowintegrity]

The owner gives the tech an idea of what it should take to finish the job based on the quote given to the customer. They earn a percentage of the labor rate per hour billed to the customer, when the customer pays for the hours - which means customer pays for hours when the job is done. The percentage is based on tech's skill level and length of time with us.

I really like this idea, and we've tried implementing an hourly + bonus, based on actual billed hours weekly. Can you give me an idea of how you structure the commission, or percentage basis? I really like that it;s based on skill/efficiency as well as time with your company. If you don't want to share publicly, I'd love to learn more about your process if you want ot message/email me.