Making the most of scarce service workers

SAN FRANCISCO — While the National Automobile Dealers Association Foundation works to fill the training pipeline with new service technicians (see story, at left), NADA trainers are helping dealerships retain experienced techs and employ them more efficiently.

It's possible to do both — keep technicians happy to retain them, and get them to spend more hours per day working on vehicles — said Georgia Munson, an NADA Academy instructor.

"After all, they'll make more money" if they turn in more hours at the dealership's flat labor rate per hour, she said, referring to the common practice of paying technicians a set amount for a specific job rather than an hourly wage. Munson taught a workshop at the NADA Show called "Maximizing Your Daily Disappearing Inventory."

By "inventory," Munson means those flat-rate hours. Hypothetically in an eight-hour day, every service technician should record at least eight hours of productive time, she said. Less than eight hours means some "inventory" has disappeared, Munson said.

"Service and parts, at the end of the day, is what supports the whole dealership. And what we sell are hours in service. You've got eight hours to sell," she said. When they put a sharp pencil to it, many dealerships find they average a lot fewer flat-rate hours per technician than they realized, Munson said.

Food truck visits and long smoke breaks could account for some of that, but it could also be management's fault, she said. For instance, dealerships may fail to plan each day's service work in advance, considering service appointments made online. Bottlenecks at the parts counter can also cause techs to wait for parts.

Technicians generate so much revenue that measures like buying them tools or offering four 10-hour days per week could be well worth it, said Timothy Fortune, an NADA 20 Group consultant and moderator.

"Time off is one of the great motivators — especially for the millennial generation," he said in an interview after his workshop, titled "Attract, Develop and Retain Service Technicians." "The No. 1 question I get, meeting after meeting, is, 'Where can I find techs?' But you've got to understand, you've also got to retain the ones you've got."