I 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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alfredauto
We got into the habit of selling a mileage service when doing cabin air filters. If the tech notices low flow or foul air from the vent I'll suggest a 30k mile service. That way we get paid 2 or 3 hours to change the filters and wipers and the customer gets on a maintenance schedule. Most of the mileage maintenance is easy but important. Normally if the cabin filter is clogged the whole car is overdue for the scheduled maintenance service.
As for small repairs that take less than 10 minutes I normally dont charge labor, the word of mouth advertising is worth it. It's a fine line I guess between giving away time and providing outstanding customer service.
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mmotley
I charge labor on just about everything except wiper blades. $10 for air and cabin filters, $15 for bulbs, etc. Some are super easy to do, others suck. It evens out. Also, my employees incentives are based on hours sold, so I would be cheating them if there wasn't any billed hours.
... I pay 0.2 for filters, 0.3 for bulbs, 0.5 for tire rotations. Obviously I adjust the labor rate for these specific jobs. This is where you want to start watching effective labor rate and such.
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5 Star Auto Spa
We do not typically charge any labor for air filter or cabin filter. We do make exceptions for some cabin filters that are more difficult to install. For marker/parking/tag light bulbs we have been charging $5 for labor but after reading this post I think I might increase it. What do you all charge for labor for headlights? Do you go by estimated labor or do you have a general price for most vehicles?
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xrac
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