The Long Term Solution to the Tech Shortage
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- When you work in the automotive industry, chances are that you've felt the effects of this technician shortage. Many managers believe there's a solution: offer up an enormous sign-on bonus to attract qualified technicians for your team... but even this has only proved to be short term fix.
Join in as Chris Collins and Coach Christian talk with Steve Hamre, the National Automotive Technician Recruiting Manager for Lithia Motors, Inc. about the long term solutions to growing and retaining technicians.
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Almost no one is talking about the root cause of the tech shortage. Top level guys have the cognitive ability to make significantly more money in other fields and they wont have to work as hard while doing so. Also, the flat rate system is broken. Labor times either need to be a true reflection of the amount of time a job takes, or we should stop using it. If a top level guy cant do something within the time allotted, then who can ? A lower level guy ? Its nonsense. It means the time is wrong. So the tech ends up subsidizing the repair on a car owed by someone they don't even know, while simultaneously being insulted by a system designed to allow an employer to avoid minimum wage and overtime laws. No one should be surprised its hard to find talented guys, and no one should be surprised that fewer and fewer people seem to be entering the field. The "tech shortage" idea is fiction. We have a shortage of people willing to work for less than their true economic value. There is one obvious way to fix it and we all know what it is.
Some states they have to pay you overtime
That's the problem, Employers Don't want to pay plain & simple. At least at my dealership they just hired 9 Lube techs the most we ever had is 5, its the older guys that can FIX cars they don't want to pay or at least give us an extra dollar or 2 for busting our ass, Na we can get more work lol. Guess they want us to stay there for long hours, & what about our kids,Family personal time ?? This 20 20 meetings that the owners have to control labor rates & flag time is just ridiculous like a Mafia on top of that for the past 3 years nothing but new employees including parts dpt wrong parts almost every single RO so stressful
Wow, Alan said it all perfectly. It's not worth it period!!!
So true, that is the ACTUAL cause of the problem. Owners have been sowing the seeds of this shortage for a very long time.
The reason is simple, Broken Flat Rate system.
I worked as a dealer mechanic for 10 years, 4 ASEs. Some independent shops. I went to the local university and obtained a BS (and later MS) degree during my last few years at the dealership. I now make quadruple what I made as a mechanic, and sit behind my desk all day at home.
I enjoyed working on cars, but the industry is terrible. Flat rate is a rip off. Benefits are a joke. It takes an engineer-level knowledge to be a good mechanic. Until the compensation is greatly increased, there will continue to be a mechanic shortage. The dealerships are now reaping what they have sown over the last 20 years. Dealerships should be paying mechanics at least 50% of every labor hour billed, because they are the ones bringing in the money.
There really isn’t anything about the business that’s worth doing it. You can go anywhere and make the same money with way less hassle
That will have to change in order to get good techs. They drive everything.
Ford pays tech 18min of pay to Figure out the problem that might take you 2hours or 30 mins
As a lead tech specializing in Volvo cars, I see a ton of module/electrical problems to a point where I am now diagnosing and repairing circuit boards on the module myself. With the current auto tech wages and a broken flat rate system, no one in their right minds with the skillsets require to repair cars of today and in the future will come into this industry. Sorry to say, it's easy to teach turning a wrench, it' takes entierly different mindset to learn electrical and computers..
Took me 5 years of training, studying and huge up front investment to make the same amount of money I made my first month as a service advisor. Simply looking at ROI the job isn't worth it unless you want to go the team leader route and even then the investment is your body after 30 years and there's no return on that.
100%
It's pay; all other trades have been paid more than us for decades, with nothing in tools/equipment/knowledge compared to us. Even today, a plumber charges more to come to your house than most shops! Are you seeing the problem here?
So are we gonna ignore the flat rate nonsense? What about the fact that you can go into other trades and make significantly more.
Pay pay pay , when you have service advisors that make more then techs game over
If shops and dealerships paid mechanics for their time, they would charge customers more.
If customers had to pay more due to complicated car design, they would purchase cars easier to maintain and fix to cut down on repair costs.
If car companies saw they were losing market share due to their overly complex cars, they would redesign their cars and advertise this as a feature
Short term pain for long term benefit
I see more and more techs leaving the shops and working from home . Guess what they do ok . These guys are not shade tree either . They own all these own equipment so I don’t blame them . Until shop owners correct the management issues things will never change.
I agree David ...
What I’ve done
Once I become a fully certified mechanic I'm opening my own business flipping cars and repair work. The money is being a business owner and since I sold cars for three years I have the selling skills down and know how to run a business.
Love it!
GUYS the problem is the sustem is fucked up and employers/car companys dont wantto fix the times or always goodwill and warranty stuff
Lithia does NOT believe in this in Oregon! I was a shop foreman and I dispatched and trained the techs, With the Lithia gets paid first modow the budget did not allow my wage to be equal to the techs in the shop. Prior to Lithia coming on board I recruited 4 techs from the lube bay and they were moving along very well, But with all the manager changes it just became too much squeeze on my paycheck so I left Lithia for another Ford dealer to go back to working on Diesels (38 years with Ford) Since Lithia has came on board at this dealership there are only 3 employees that remain! What does that tell you?
We have to many mangers that don't know the product that come from imports and other manufacturers that are chase the $$$ can't fix and sandwich for there owe wife and tell a skilled master tech about there productivity when there feed the techs who are level up and give them gravy and then except the vet to teach the other techs who doesn't even take the time to level up or look up service info
My bodies destroyed from wrenching. It’s my fault, I chased that flat rate $$ and gobbled up that heavy duty $$
FYI I’m soooo glad LITHIA wasn’t able to buy the Mercedes Dealer I worked at in 2006, Claridges Mercedes of Fremont!!!
Lithia has a reputation as a bad place for a technician. They are all about cutting the costs and tend to run off
a lot of good people. They bought all the Keyes Dealerships in So Cal and a lot of techs left to other dealerships.
They like to grow their own because the kids today live at home till they are like 30 and don't need to make much money. I never met a Lithia tech that was happy.
@chris Collins WTH. This John Brennan guy has nothing to do but blow up every video with a ton of Negative comments. He already knows everything so why does he watch these videos. 😂
Hey Steve. Thank you for bringing this up! We noticed and went through the process of blocking his account from viewing / commenting on our channel. Hopefully, it won't be an issue anymore...
Thanks Chris !
I run my shops in a NO NEGATIVITY atmosphere. 😁
You guys are definitely providing a great value and it’s much appreciated.
I dont even have to watch the video and i know the answer.. You need to pay your techs better, alot better... once stress and frustration with money problems sets in techs start to hate cars, when they probably came into the industry loving cars. Such a shame.
Agreed... techs need to be compensated better since the shop can't run without them... a big part of that too is fully growing the techs and making the path of advancement clear and obtainable.
@John Brennan the writer used to tell me they changed my times to alldata times, ussually because it made it a cheaper sell, too bad i dont work for alldata. Discounts are always taken out of the technicians share.
You are correct! These guys are so full of it. Money is fourth on the list??? I was a Honda dealer flat rate tech for 30 years. Was good up to about 15 years ago. All you do now is oil changes and warranty garbage, and get pressured to up sell everything! Now working as a tech for one of the nations largest used car sales company making an hourly pay of 45$ an hour. I encourage anyone thinking about being an auto tech to strongly consider something else. But if that is what you want to do, stay away from dealerships!!!
I’m in California the average house home income to survive in the Central Valley is about 62k. Last dealership I worked at for Kia. Was flate rate hourly. I made 28 an hour. I have 26 years experience. If you add up I would on average take home about 54k. I also have to pay for my tools. It’s not worth it. Labor rates go up tech pay stays flat. Mercedes interviewed me and wanted me to start pay at 26 an hour. They said I would need to be able to do heavy duty engine repair. For 26? No way. You can talk about respect or a pat on the back. But when your not making enough money to survive your not going to be happy and stay. I am about to start an air conditioning and heating repair apprenticeship for homes and commercial and my starting pay is 23 an hour. Less body wear. Less and I mean less tools. Better healthcare pension. Better vacation and for the most part weekends off. These things need to happen for techs.
@@caseyb2410 you must work at carmax. I worked at one. I enjoyed it there but left because of the shady repairs we were told to do. If it carmax you work at they do now pay good hourly wage. But the constant micro managing and very very shady work we are told to do and unsafe repairs was just ridiculous. At least the one I worked for.
The solution:
1) cut out toxic management
2) actually pay or provide tools 15-30$ an hour does not warrant having to buy 30k in tools and diagnostic equipment.u want techs to finance the 5k$ scanners? great then pay 50-100$/hour. don't want to pay that cause it docent make any sense then provide the f*cking tools!
3)actually give in shop training and pay ur lead techs to train ur new techs. a new tech should not be working on a 40k+ car without proper training such as how to disconnect a car battery or perform a proper inspection. a lead tech should not have to starv himself to baby sit. last time I checked, baby sitters get paid. it costs less money in the long run. a tech has more incentive to train, a trained tech has less come backs and makes less errors which allows the shop to keep more money. u Pay for it either ways.
4) job distribution needs to be addressed. it is understandable that a new tech would not be allowed to do jobs such as head gaskets or cam shaft replacements. but there's no reason why a tech should be doing oil changes and fluid flushes for 2 years straight while one or 2 guys in the shop get all the brakes, PDIs and valvcover gaskets. jobs should be distributed based on which tech produces more and a line drawn in the sand between line techs and lube techs.
so for example if a lube tech turns more hours based on recommendations he puts out each month the automated system will return the favor by providing more gravy work.
same thing with a line tech, if the line tech turns good hours he will get more gravy work like AC recharge ect
5) clear cut plan for promotion/leveling up. nothing more frustrating than feeling like ur on a tread mill not getting anywhere. u got the skills and have mastered ur current jobs but ur always in the grey when it comes to when ur service manager or foreman will let u level up. once a tech sees no more room for advancement, its way too tempting to grease the wheels on the tool box and leave.
I mean we can do this^ or we can just let everything crumble.
Too much investment needed for so little return. Too many days far too pay. That's it in a nutshell
lol money is either 1st or 2nd on the list...not 5th sorry but owners want good techs and want them to train the new guys but DONT want to pay them proper wages. when you ask people why they left its going to be "i switched careers and now make double what i did , all while im at home in the AC"
try paying them more money and giving them a defined pension plan with better health benefits , yeah right they might do that , glad i just retired after 41 years in the business , don't wish that career on anyone
I know a lot of guys that left the auto industry in the past 5-10 years most of them were in the business for 10-20 years, they started in the business right out of high school. At the end of the day it’s about money it really is if you offer someone enough money they are going to work for you. A lot of the guys took jobs in a different field that paid the same or a little less money but the got a pension plan, every holiday off, no weekends, good health insurance and they say things like I’m getting paid about the same, have way better benifits and work half as hard and don’t have to buy tools. One guy I know was making 70k as a tech and he found a job working for an auction all he does is drive to dealerships, takes pictures, drive the cars, write up a description he works about 6-8hrs a day makes his own schedule, doesn’t get dirty, great benifits and literally no physical labor and he make 60k starting. There are too many jobs out there too many easy brainless jobs that pay 20 bucks an hour to start so it’s pretty hard to keep an 18 year old guy interested when you offer them 15hr to start with no experience and they are required to buy tools. The auto industry was under paying people for many years lots of good guys left. Before I opened my shop the only thing I really cared about was how much I was making If the boss is an Asshole it wouldn’t matter to me as long as I was making good money that’s all that mattered to a point. Now that all this covid shit happened and there has been a real shortage of techs if you are a real A-level tech you can actually make some real money now. The dealers in my area are offering big sign on bonuses and minimum 30hr to start.
Well said Peanut. It's getting to the point that good techs are starting to get paid what they deserve. If you are really good you can almost name your price.
Most dealership tech positions should be temporary jobs where the tech is applying to Fleet , City, or Federal for a real job. My advice is to get the CDL, your diesel Cert, and keep applying for diesel positions. Consumer automotive should be a temporary pit stop.
Short term fix for long term gains