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I work at a Chrysler Dealership as an hourly lube tech, but every other guy in the shop is flat rate and I refuse to work flat rate because I’ve been there almost 3 years and I’ve seen what the flat rate system does to both the techs and the work they put out.
Here are some reasons I’ve found that flat rate is bad:
1. Enables favoritism and feeding techs
2. Enables service writers and managers to starve out techs they either don’t like or who don’t go along with the politics of the shop
3.Creates the concept of gravy jobs that pay great and are easy (brakes, fluid flushes, etc) and ** jobs that pay next to nothing but take half the day (pretty much anything warranty, water and air leaks, etc.).
4. Encourages techs to rush through jobs and cut corners to get things done faster, which normally results in butchered car (i.e. cutting or bending a bracket out of the way instead of unbolting it)
5. Selling work vehicles don’t need (calling brake pads at 5mm because “the shop is slow”. I remember one of the techs telling me a story about a former service manager telling him “when the shop is really dead in the winter, just call the rear main seal on a car under warranty and just spray it off with brake clean and don’t do anything else”)
6. Discourages techs from helping each other (I don’t get paid to help you)
7. Lets dealerships unload their losses and slow times on the tech (Oh business is slow, well you’re just not upselling enough on the cars that do come in, or Oh you didn’t diag. that car right the first time, well now you get to fix it for free)
8. Creates a cutthroat work environment (i.e. the shop favorite is getting all the gravy work and the rest of the guys get stuck with warranty jobs)
9. Undermines the value of the work techs do and makes customers think everything can be done fast and done correctly (which it can’t in most cases, you can be efficient at what you do, but if your just slamming through jobs you’re obviously cutting corners somewhere or not actually doing the work.)
10. If you lose your ass on a job or have a pay with low hours you are simply told you need to hustle more.
11. If you ask for a raise you are told ” you want a raise, turn more hours” and it becomes about quantity over quality.
Most arguments I’ve heard against flat rate are “Well if you pay a guy by the hour he’ll just goof around and play on his phone all day and not do anything” My answer to that is talk to the employee and if things don’t change, fire them. But the current solution to getting rid of a bad tech (which could just mean a tech who’s just not fast enough) is to”starve them out” and make them quit, which employers like because then they don’t have to pay unemployment.
I think flat rate was just a way for companies to not pay techs the actual time it takes to do something and just slap a number on every job to where “this can be done in this amount of time, every time, no exceptions” and that just doesn’t work in the real world. Plus when they calculate the labor times they use brand new vehicles that haven’t had a change to rust and experience the abuse people put their cars through.
In order for this industry to improve flat rate need to die and either hourly pay or salary plus commission need to take its place. I think that the only way you can make a good living off of flat rate is if you are feed gravy work, are not honest, or are in a shop that is literally always busy (which doesn’t exist, there are always slow days and weeks. Winter anyone?) I have seen though in shops with both flat rate and hourly guys that when it’s slow they’ll have the hourly guy running around and doing whatever (LOFs, state inspections, install mudflaps, etc.) while there’s two flat rate guys that have been standing around half the afternoon with no work.
So honestly I think if they went to straight hourly they would probably expect even more work from you than if you’re flat rate, because if they see you standing around and your being paid by the hour, you’ll probably either get sent home or be given some shit job to do (take out trash, clean, etc.) Just another thought that crossed my mind But the whole point of this long rant is that for the industry to improve the flat rate system needs to go. It’s pushing people away from becoming techs, it’s driving current techs out of the field, and it’s really doing a disservice to the automotive business as a whole. This whole idea of “everything needs to be done fast” needs to die along with the flat rate system. A tech’s main focus going into a repair should be “How can I fix this car to the best of my ability” not “How can I rush through this job and beat the labor time”
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A lot of horror stories being told here. During the recession some shops got used to treating their techs like dirt, and well, many of them haven’t gotten the update that the economy is rolling again. While the economy is strong, it doesn’t mean every shop is booming. New competition and new ideas often kill off the one’s that can’t adapt. So, if you are at a shop not taking care of you right now, you might want to start looking. Check out Indeed and other sites, there is a technician shortage.
Toolboxes have wheels for a reason, so keep the greased. I think one way to keep yourself from a bad position and a way to handle them if you do get in them is to be ready and able to roll out. Get all the certs and titles you can, have a resume professionally made, get a Linkedin account, make some connections, and keep your eyes open to see who’s looking and where the best companies are located. When you’re not happy, roll out!!! Be sure to do so in a professional polite way because you don’t want to burn bridges (we know about that in Atlanta). Also, search wide, you might have to move, but if the job is worth it, it might be the best decision you have ever made. I think if everyone did this, shops/dealers would know they had options and wouldn’t pull some of the crap they do.
[quote=”Jasonw1178″ post=186824]A lot of horror stories being told here. During the recession some shops got used to treating their techs like dirt, and well, many of them haven’t gotten the update that the economy is rolling again. While the economy is strong, it doesn’t mean every shop is booming. New competition and new ideas often kill off the one’s that can’t adapt. So, if you are at a shop not taking care of you right now, you might want to start looking. Check out Indeed and other sites, there is a technician shortage.
Toolboxes have wheels for a reason, so keep the greased. I think one way to keep yourself from a bad position and a way to handle them if you do get in them is to be ready and able to roll out. Get all the certs and titles you can, have a resume professionally made, get a Linkedin account, make some connections, and keep your eyes open to see who’s looking and where the best companies are located. When you’re not happy, roll out!!! Be sure to do so in a professional polite way because you don’t want to burn bridges (we know about that in Atlanta). Also, search wide, you might have to move, but if the job is worth it, it might be the best decision you have ever made. I think if everyone did this, shops/dealers would know they had options and wouldn’t pull some of the crap they do.[/quote]So true Jason. The wheels on my toolbox rolled a lot between 2012-2015. My attitude was if a workplace atmosphere and/or employees were toxic to me mentally and emotionally, I always had the choice to look elsewhere and often did.
I think Bluesnut has it right. Opening your own gig is the way to go and most of the good honest techs out there eventually get tired of the money hungry dealer rat race and leave it to either find a good independent (like I did) or branch out on their own (like I hope to one day).
I’ve got an amazing boss and he’s training me on the shop system so I can go back to working the 9:30-6 shift and close the shop in the evening, so I’m definitely comfy staying put. It’s like owning the shop but not having to deal with the admin and overhead headaches :).
If you’re producing 125% and not flat rate you’re being taken advantage of. Let me be blunt, if I can make an honest living and someone else cant, it aint the system
[quote=”Yak” post=188417]If you’re producing 125% and not flat rate you’re being taken advantage of. Let me be blunt, if I can make an honest living and someone else cant, it aint the system[/quote]
Actually quite the contrary. I only ever worked at one shop that was flat rate (it was for 6 months at a Kia dealership that also offered service to all makes and models because it used to be the GM dealership) and I can tell you it was the one that gave me the least amount of fringe benefits and other perks not to mention it was mediocre at best to work at.
The Honda dealership was where I got my start in the trade, worked my way up from the lube rack to a licensed Platinum technician and enjoyed working at probably one of the very last ones in Canada to pay their techs hourly. We had the highest customer retention, CSI ratings and overall customer satisfaction of all the dealers in our region, and we were consistently one of the top performers nationally for all of Canada. Every technician had keys to the shop and as long as you were respectful and weren’t moonlighting or poaching customers, you were allowed to go in after hours and work on or clean your vehicle or vehicles of immediate family members. We had a bonus structure that would pay us in certain increments for efficiency over 100% and while it wasn’t a lot compared to flat rate, it was nice because you could easily achieve 100%-110% without having to struggle, and you would still get a full 40 hour paycheck on top of that.
The dealership is honestly run like a small city family show up, and the owner started listening to consultants and representatives and a few years ago a new business manager was brought on board and started to make what I referred to as “big city” changes at the dealership. It’s literally become all about money now and as I’m sure you can guess at this point in my comment, they went flat rate as of April of this year. I’ve been gone from the dealership for a total of three years now and stories have already been making their way to me from the pipeline about customers not being happy with the changes
You can make whatever justification you like, and while I do agree with you that if you are able to find a way to do a 3.0 hour job in 1.5 hours because you’ve come up with your own little trick or shortcut that doesn’t compromise on quality nor does it affect the end result of the job itself, then I do agree that you probably should make more than your hourly rate. However, what you are referring to is the 5 percentile of guys who do a good job quickly, don’t leave their ethics and morals on the nightstand at home when they come into work in the morning and work on every vehicle as if it belong to a close friend or family member that they cared about. Statistics and talking to any one of my instructors from the Honda technical school will tell you that the vast majority of guys working in flat rate, it turns butchers into monsters and otherwise good technicians into butchers. It also creates for more stress because that job that just went south on you or that tower operator that doesn’t like you or the service writer who is going through a divorce with their spouse and really doesn’t feel like pushing anything at all that day or just a few of the many variables standing between you and a full 40-hour paycheck
At the end of the day there’s a lot of technicians out there who would much rather have a comfortable working atmosphere with a lot more perks and , a lot less stress and would gladly give up the very real uncertainty of flat rate to have a guaranteed weekly paycheck and the knowledge that they can take their time and do the job right with quality and integrity and not have a book time or the prospect of a big bottom line that week driving do the agenda.
Just my $0.02 and then some.
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