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Technicians Are Demanding More Pay

Joe Marconi
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I am paying the highest ever at $42.5 and my lead is about to get a bump again. Christian brothers is advertising $60 an hour in my area, although looking at Glassdoor reviews, that number is mythical, and the bar is often raised making your goal post to reach that pay constantly moving. I am also curious what others are paying now. As far as how to afford it, simple. Every time my tech gets a raise, the shop gets a raise x2, so if tech rate goes up $2, shop labor rate goes up $4, this covers the extra tax burden with a small raise for the shop also.

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weighit Enthusiast

weighit

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When I had employees I paid them $2.00 more per hour than any of the competition paid their guys. One, I knew they all worked hard for me and deserved what I was able to pay. Two, I didn't want the the competition to try to steal them away from me. I knew what I made every year working for a dealership, and when I opened my shop I knew what I needed to do to attract good help, pay them well and say thanks often.  While I made more, they made more. I suppose by now with the way things have changed they would all be in the mid 30's to low 40's per hour. By the same token, I would be earning mre too.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

    • Joe Marconi
      Technician Production is More Complicated than You Think
      By Joe Marconi in Joe's Blog
         0 comments
      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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