More Wrenching, More Money? How Shops Bonus Their Techs

How do you incentivize techs with a bonus structure?

That’s the question Becky W. brought to the Diesel Community. 

There’s been a lot of discussion over the years about how to incentivize techs (we’ve participated in it ourselves). There’s no one way to do it, and shop owners and managers have to figure out a bonus structure that a) actually motivates their techs and b) doesn’t bankrupt the shop. 

“I feel like if they aren’t getting a piece of the pie, why would they bother to go above and beyond?” Becky W. asked. “We have left this project on the back burner for way too long and need to get something in order.”

She asked if other shop owners had incentivization structures they could share. Her only condition was that the structure didn’t pit her employees against each other — she wanted them to work together. 

As expected, the folks on the Diesel Community showed up with plenty of good ideas. You should read them over yourself (and maybe participate, if you’ve got some ideas!), but we gathered a few of their suggestions to share here.

How Repair Shops Incentivize Their Techs

The following is something of a grab bag of responses. Every shop has its own way of incentivizing (or bonusing!) and these suggestions come from shops large and small. 

Stephanie W.’s shop has a sliding scale. “If a tech bills over 40 hours,” she said, “pay goes up by $2.” Then at 45 hours, the pay goes up by an additional $1. The additional money is then added to their total hours for the week. So if a tech makes $30 an hour and bills 43 hours, their rate becomes $32 an hour for the entire workweek.

Melvin G. offers “a sliding scale bonus and SA bonus based off shop-wide numbers.” 

And here’s part of the magic of the Community: Melvin followed his own comment with a question, wondering how he could bonus his parts staff. Peter C. answered him, kicking off an entirely different conversation-within-a-conversation (gasp! DieselCommunityception!). Oh, and if you’re wondering, Peter suggests offering 2% of gross profit in parts. 

Bryan P. bases bonuses on tech efficiency; at 82% efficiency, techs get $1 for every hour worked in a quarter. At 85% efficiency, they get $2; at 90% they get $3; at 95% they get $5. 

Yes, that’s a lot of numbers to absorb in just two sentences. But Bryan said the structure made a noticeable difference — his techs became much more engaged. And get this, the bonus had a little extra bonus: Bryan noticed the shop got way cleaner! The techs quickly realized that if they cleaned up after every job, they didn’t have to clock out for an hour to do a shop-wide cleanup. 

The last suggestion we’ll feature came from Ryan S. “We pay technicians 30% of the billable labor,” he said. He remarked that going that route came with its own problems — sorry folks, he didn’t elaborate further — and the shop worked its way through them. 

Dylan P. referred to this method, by the way, as “eat what they kill and drag back to the cave.” 

Oooh, just like the Necromongers from The Chronicles of Riddick!

(Editor’s Note: The actual line from the Riddick movie was “keep what you kill.” I don’t think they eat it. But maybe they do? I don’t remember, actually; I haven’t seen that movie in years.) 

More Bonus Ideas Await

The suggestions above are only a few of the responses Becky got. Other shop owners jumped in with their own structures and questions, including more discussion around bonuses for non-technicians. So if you’ve got a great bonus system or just want to hear more about Peter’s plan for parts folks, head on over to the thread. 

And hey, there’s lots of other conversations happening on the Diesel Community right now. It’s pretty much the place for shop owners to kick back and chat with fellow owners about the diesel life — or it will be, once you join it!