flat rate/incentive program.

In response to Max Dodge 's post. I thought everyone should know:

LOL denny may or maynot agree with me.....its sucks.

you get paid say 14 hours for a 5.2L engine swap (IRRC this is book time for the BR/BE and the AN/i forget the body desg for the durango) now this IS the pay, doesnt matter if you spend 24 hours or 8 hours doing the work. of course you REALLY want to be able to do the work in 8 hours right?

same goes for other stuff, there are recalls that pay as alittle as .2 of an hour. warranty rates are less for the same job as what customer pay is (these are usually lunch eaters when it comes to engine work witch was what i did when i worked in the dealership)

needless to say if your not turning a wrench your not getting paid....and sometimes just because you are turning a wrench doesnt always mean you are getting paid....or atleast not being paid for all your time anyways.

i didnt mind the pay so much when i was single. but it really sucked during slow times when i was married and a kid (i was the only income for quite some time)

does any of that answer your questions?

Says a lot about why I insisted the company offering me a job give me a base salary with a guaranteed COLA and a bonus/incentive program to cover the possibility of billing more than my actual work time. Basically, I negotiated a cost of living increase as well as performance bonuses.

My next question, since I'm going to be part of the brain trust putting this system together, is if someone has a bonus system, what sort of hours are worked/billed for what rate of bonus?

Other neat things I've been promised are training by the manufacturers and a say in how the shop operates and is physically set up.

As far as benefits, I've been offered a 30/70 (they pay 70%) health care program and 401k.

That's about the way it was when I was doing it in the '70's. It's why I got out of it and into construction. The work isn't a whole lot better but at least there aren't schemes to not pay you for working.

Pontiac had a recall on V6 Sunbirds. The fuel line came up the transmission tunnel to the back of the engine where they put the rubber fuel line/vibration connection. Unfortunately, that's where Buick put their EGR valve. So the rubber line was too close sometimes. The recall paid .2 hours. They'd hand you the work order with a piece of rubber hose, two clamps and send you to work. The rubber hose was in case the hose was damaged, never found one that was. If there was no damage, the procedure was to bend the metal line to gain more clearance. Takes less than a minute. I asked the service writers to tell me when someone brought one in for just the recall and I'd do it on the line so the people wouldn't have to leave their car for the day. No dice, wouldn't do it. So sometime during the day when they'd decide to issue the work order to me, I'd take my "bending tool" (big honkin' screwdriver) out to the parking lot, perform the procedure and walk back to the desk. That didn't work either, I guess it didn't waste enough time to suit them, you MUST drive it into the shop, perform the recall and then drive it back to the lot. NOW it's taking 15~20 minutes to perform and they're happy and I'm GONE.

My brother in law worked for a Chevy Dealer who paid by flat rate and did it for 20 years. The good mechanics will end-up getting most of the work because customers will insist on them. He was in a small town and got lots of work, most of the BS and recalls were done by others. He got yearly bonuses based on his salary and repeat customers his benefits sucked but he was pulling in 70 to 120 K $$ a year. They switched to flat rate when he had 10 years with the company and he did go to a lot of training. The fact is the flat rate is a wind fall for the dealership because when there is no work you do not get paid reducing the overhead costs.

To start off with, Chris hit the nail on the head. I can't really add any more to it.

You got a fantastic deal. That would never have happened in the Lima area.

The ones that I've heard about are for example..... Up to 40 flat rate hours per week you are paid xx.xx dollars. From 40 to 45 fl you are paid xy.xx dollars. Over 45 hours you are paid xz.xx dollars. It sounds good but you can manipulate it once you learn how. For example.... You are on pace to get

48 hours this week and it's down to the last afternoon for work. You get handed a used car to do, get it checked over and get 7 hours of work ok'd. You flag all the time on that job for this week even tho the work is not done. Now you hit your next highest pay bracket and are happy....till you realize that you have to work next week for 'free' to get that car done. So you wiggle some more time to "catch up". It's a vicious circle that sometimes management don't catch.

Another one is if the shop hits it's goal hours for the week, everyone gets a bonus. That one seems to work but it rewards the one that doesn't pull his weight and the guy that busts ass feels slighted.

And then there's the one that you get a percentage of the parts that you sell. That is a real incentive to put on a few extra parts that aren't needed on every job. This one really sucks from the customer point of view.

The bottom line is that I don't like bonus programs. Pay a fair flat rate wage and go from there. Keep an eye on each techs productivity. Anything over 125% needs to have some spot checks done and keep an eye on it.

Factory training is a must. Don't know what you're getting into but automotive is changing so fast that constant training is a neccasitiy. (sp)

That is on par with what I've got. My company has a profit sharing system where the owner throws some bucks every year into the 401k plan. Some years are better than others but overall it works.

If you want I can get you my email so we can get to specifics.

Denny

Thanks for the info Denny. I'll get your email if I have more questions after we get into the discussions on how to set this up. The one thing running against the techs at this point is at least one of the manufacturers doesn't have an accurate flat rate book. Fortunately, the management is aware of this, so we're in the process of doing time studies on everything that comes through.

I start on the 10th, so it should be interesting. Apparently the owner of the company was the shop foreman, service writer and lead tech. Then he had to run the company, and that lead to problems for the shop making money. They have a guy to do the service writing and supervise getting work done. Thats where I come in, I take the tech side and lead the shop force in solving the tough stuff. If all goes well, I'm gonna have to find a few good technicians.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of dealer is this??? Automotive?? I've never run into a manufacturer that didn't have a warrenty time guide. It doesn't really matter if it's accurate or not, it's the time they go by. Sometimes you can get a little extra on certain lops if you have really good cause and accurate time stamps

Denny

Its an odd mix of equipment, all geared towards farm, outdoor, and the small excavator. They deal in Kubota (who doesn't have an accurate time guide) Mahindra, Deere Lawn products, Dixie Choppers, and Suzuki Motorcycles and four wheelers.

Deere has a pretty decent time guide, but they've been in the business a bit longer than Kubota. I'm not sure where Mahindra stands on it.

Currently, they have one tech who is leaving for a job with the local government, one tech who "has a clock over his head, see it?" and the shop owner, who is moving up to the jobs he should be attending as shop owner.

Sooooo, yer getting into the repair biz, huh? Welcome to the "dark side" ;^).

Mike

Back to the dark side. I started out repairning locomotives, went to bicycles, back to locomotives, played with hot rods, did repos, moved on to forklifts and such, then took a relatively flexible job because of circumstances. Now, I'm moving back to a challenge and a better pay package.

25 years to retirement, no time like now to get started on making retirement easy.