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We offer them and I'm sure it varies by state. It's a pain but I think to remain competitive it's a must. We pay for 75% of the employee only for a HSA (High Deductible) plan as the base plan. The employee has the option to upgrade to a traditional PPO plan or an Hybrid HMO plan as well as add their spouse or family. We also pay 100% for a LTD plan and a $30K Life & Accidental Death Plan. I use a third party company to manage it and shop the plans each year. It seems we have to switch health insurance companies about every 2 years. The forms are numerous as each company has it's own forms they want. We also offer Dental and Vision but at 100% cost to the employee.

The reason we pay 100% for the LTD is that as a self employed owner it is very expensive for me to purchase a plan outside the company. It is much cheaper to purchase it as a group plan. For what it would cost me on the outside I can provide all my employees a plan plus myself for less cost. I have about 15 employees on the plan.

We also offer a SEP Retirement plan that matches dollar for dollar up to 3%. If you run the numbers, or for us at least in Texas it cost me very little because of the reduced taxes and I am able to shelter funds for myself.

Be ready to spend considerable time set it all up. I use a third party provider to handle all the benefits as well as payroll processing. I tried ADP Total Source but found their fee structure a little expensive and they did not have a good import for Quickbooks, I also tried another company but the people where incompetent. Now with my new payroll/benefits company I go on-line to a web portal and enter the payroll, I can delegate this to another employee now and don't have to schedule vacation around pay dates. I can also enter it if need be while away from the shop. Last year I did it while diving in Honduras. The payroll company sends me a QB import file that has it all broken up into departments that I set up as well as the QB account numbers that I want various costs to hit. Actually QB integrated payroll does this well and it's easy. But now the payroll/benefits company has all my employee numbers and is able to shop for insurance much easier without me having to send them numbers and census information. I chose an outside company for future scale-ability as we grow and open up another location.

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Also let me add that most of the dental plans are not that good. We used to pay 100% for them but the employees rarely used it, that's why I made it optional. I feel the employees have to pay something to see the real benefit. If the employee is willing to kick in something then I want to help them also, if they don't care about it then I don't care about it for them.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

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      Auto shop owners are always looking for ways to improve production levels. They focus their attention on their technicians and require certain expectations of performance in billable labor hours. While technicians must know what is expected of them, they have a limited amount of control over production levels. When all factors are considered, the only thing a well-trained technician has control over is his or her actual efficiency.
      As a review, technician efficiency is the amount of labor time it takes a technician to complete a job compared to the labor time being billed to the customer. Productivity is the time the technician is billing labor hours compared to the time the technician is physically at the shop. The reality is that a technician can be very efficient, but not productive if the technician has a lot of downtime waiting for parts, waiting too long between jobs, or poor workflow systems.
      But let’s go deeper into what affects production in the typical auto repair shop. As a business coach, one of the biggest reasons for low shop production is not charging the correct labor time. Labor for extensive jobs is often not being billed accurately. Rust, seized bolts, and wrong published labor times are just a few reasons for lost labor dollars.
      Another common problem is not understanding how to bill for jobs that require extensive diagnostic testing, and complicated procedures to arrive at the root cause for an onboard computer problem, electrical issue, or drivability issue. These jobs usually take time to analyze, using sophisticated tools, and by the shop’s top technician. Typically, these jobs are billed at a standard menu labor charge, instead of at a higher labor rate. This results in less billed labor hours than the actual labor time spent. The amount of lost labor hours here can cripple a shop’s overall profit.
      Many shop owners do a great job at calculating their labor rate but may not understand what their true effective labor is, which is their labor sales divided by the total labor hours sold. In many cases, I have seen a shop that has a shop labor rate of over $150.00 per hour, but the actual effective labor rate is around $100. Not good.
      Lastly, technician production can suffer when the service advisors are too busy or not motivated to build relationships with customers, which results in a low sales closing ratio. And let’s not forget that to be productive, a shop needs to have the right systems, the right tools and equipment, an extensive information system, and of course, great leadership.
      The bottom line is this; many factors need to be considered when looking to increase production levels. While it does start with the technician, it doesn’t end there. Consider all the factors above when looking for ways to improve your shop’s labor production.
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