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By Joe Marconi in Joe's Blog5 commentsI recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
Judging from personal experience as a shop owner and from what I know about the auto repair industry, I can tell you that other than a few exceptions, the turnover rate for technicians in our industry is too high. This makes me think, do we have a technician shortage or a retention problem? Have we done the best we can over the decades to provide great pay plans, benefits packages, great work environments, and the right culture to ensure that the techs we have stay with us?
Finding and hiring qualified automotive technicians is not a new phenomenon. This problem has been around for as long as I can remember. While we do need to attract people to our industry and provide the necessary training and mentorship, we also need to focus on retention. Having a revolving door and needing to hire techs every few years or so costs your company money. Big money! And that revolving door may be a sign of an even bigger issue: poor leadership, and poor employee management skills.
Here’s one more thing to consider, for the most part, technicians don’t leave one job to start a new career, they leave one shop as a technician to become a technician at another shop. The reasons why they leave can be debated, but there is one fact that we cannot deny, people don’t quit the company they work for, they usually leave because of the boss or manager they work for.
Put yourselves in the shoes of your employees. Do you have a workplace that communicates, “We appreciate you and want you to stay!”
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By J.P. GLENN
Anyone using alignment stands on a 2 post lift? How are they for daily use?
I have a smaller shop with 2 techs and 3 bays, We have 2 lifts and 1 small "flat" bay. We are Japanese specialty shop that is growing and we were planning to add a new lift to the flat bay. The bay is not deep enough for a true 4 post alignment lift, so I was planning to purchase a new 2 post lift and add stands with an alignment machine in the near future. In searching for the right lift to be used with stands, I was just offered a used 2 post Hunter alignment rack that would fit in the bay for the same price as the 2 post with stands... and that really got me thinking...
We do an average of 25 cars a week on 2 makes and we are adding 3 more early this year (thus the need for another lift). We just started doing tires this past year and only sublet alignments when they are absolutely necessary. Our situation is pushing us towards needing an alignment machine in house, but we could use another lift for "over flow" just a much.
Knowing that we will be doing alignments out of necessity in the near future, I am leaning towards having a dedicated alignment lift. My questions are:
1. Does anyone regret purchasing their stands over an actual alignment lift?
2. Does anyone do "other" work on their alignment lift?
3. And how many alignments should I really expect?
If space were a major issue, what would you do?
(Drive-on alignment lift -OR- 2 post lift with alignment stands?)
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By xrac
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By J.P. GLENN
Anyone using alignment stands on a 2 post lift? How are they for daily use?
I have a smaller shop with 2 techs and 3 bays, We have 2 lifts and 1 small "flat" bay. We are Japanese specialty shop that is growing and we were planning to add a new lift to the flat bay. The bay is not deep enough for a true 4 post alignment lift, so I was planning to purchase a new 2 post lift and add stands with an alignment machine in the near future. In searching for the right lift to be used with stands, I was just offered a used 2 post Hunter alignment rack that would fit in the bay for the same price as the 2 post with stands... and that really got me thinking...
Knowing that we will be doing alignments out of necessity in the near future, I am leaning towards having a dedicated alignment lift. We do an average of 25 cars a week on 2 makes and we are adding 3 more early this year (thus the need for another lift). We just started doing tires this past year and only sublet alignments when they are absolutely necessary. Our situation is pushing us towards needing an alignment machine in house, but we could use another lift for "over flow" just a much. Here are my questions:
1. Does anyone regret purchasing their stands over an actual alignment lift?
2. Does anyone do "other" work on their alignment lift?
3. And how many alignments should I really expect?
If space were a major issue, what would you do?
(Drive-on alignment lift -OR- 2 post lift with alignment stands?)
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By alfredauto
What do you guys use to push cars into the shop that are dead? Whenever possible I have the tow truck drop the car in a bay, but if it's busy that's not always an option. We currently push them in the old fashioned way - by hand or I use my truck. Risk of damage is high if I use my truck, we've been lucky so far using old tires as a cushion but there has to be a better way.
I was thinking about rigging up a push bar to my farm tractor bucket and using that, I tried using a garden tractor (20hp craftsman mower actually) but that didn't work out so well, it is useless on the ice.
Pictures would be nice, with the cold we have been pushing in 10 cars a week and it's stressful.
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