Every shop owner I talk to wrestles with the same question: Do we need to hire another tech, or can we stretch the team a little longer?
I’ve been working on a simple framework that uses actual shop data instead of gut feel. It boils down to tracking a few numbers for each tech every month:
- – Paid Hours (from payroll)
- – Billed Hours (from POS/DMS)
- – Efficiency = Billed ÷ Paid
- – Hours per RO (HPRO) = Billed ÷ RO Count
- – ARPO = Parts ÷ ROs
- – Labor Revenue = Billed × ELR
Industry averages (2025):
Advertiser / Sponsor
- A Tech: 2.2–2.5 hrs/RO, 70–100% efficiency
- B Tech: 1.6–2.0 hrs/RO, 50–70% efficiency
- C Tech: 0.7–1.0 hrs/RO, 40–50% efficiency
Example scenario (C → B hire):
- Old C Tech → 139 jobs, 118 billed hrs, ARPO $95 = ~$13.2K parts
- New B Tech → ~75 jobs, 132 billed hrs, ARPO $240 = ~$18K parts
- Net impact: +$536 labor GP, +$4,795 parts = +$5,331/month
My question for the group:
- What HPRO and efficiency ranges are you seeing for your B and C techs?
- Have you run into the same situation where your Bs are maxed and you’re forced to decide between hiring another B vs. pushing work back onto As or Cs?
? I wrote a longer article breaking this down with tables https://insidetherepairshop.substack.com/p/get-the-tech-mix-right?sort=top
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