Teams Within the Shop

[andre remillard]

On paper, teams make a lot of sense but in practice they are difficult to maintain. When I was working at a dealership we had teams. I ran a team of 7 techs plus myself. 1 diag tech , 3 gs or b techs a heavy line tech and 2 lube or c techs. Everyone was flat rate, all hours were combined and divided evenly at the end of the week. The problem would come in when the B techs flagged a lot of hours but only got payed a lesser amount. Trying to explain that they were only able to flag those hours was because they didn’t have to diag a vehicle that only paid an hour but it took them 4 fell on deaf ears.

The pluses are that you have techs doing what they are good at and are very efficient doing and in doing so make a lot of money for the shop and the customers are taken care of in a more efficient manner. It comes down to the personalities and mind set of your techs.

[Frank]

I think a bonus for the entire team based on total hours produced vs sharing hours would be more effective. I have seen high producers slow down because they fell like the effort they put in rewards others

[Rob]

We currently have teams and we have run them for about two years. I set teams up originally because we struggled with appointment taking and overlapping appointments with the same tech. I was able to assign both service advisors an “A” Tech & a General Tech. This allows both advisors to take appointments in which diagnosis is necessary as well as handle lofs, brakes, susp/steer. When a technician is assigned to a team with one advisor the organization of that tech’s schedule is much easier to manage. Overall communication is improved when there are fewer people involved. Management of tech productivity is also much easier especially when the service advisor is incentivized on hours billed per team per week. Both of my service advisors have a worksheet they keep and can forecast how the week will end as far as hours billed goes for their individual team. As a manager, I found it much easier to manage production and efficiency in the shop when I have teams reporting to me.

The negative would be an advisor putting their team and their individual goals above what’s best for the company. There is also a little bit of a rivalry that is created especially when one advisor struggles to keep up with another advisor who is really making their team produce. Both of these are rare here because it is managed correctly and as a group, we all care for one another which is key. I will say that both advisors need to have a good working relationship to pull it off.

I can go deeper into Teams and management of teams with anyone who has questions. Email me at robs@grmotorcar.com and I will be happy to help you.