September 2019

quarterly at least. What would a bonus system add? We do meet and talk, but not about productivity as it is not my focus. Quality is more crucial to me than productivity. Every man and is dog is going on about productivity, efficiency and all that. At Top Garage I said these were the buzzwords for 2019. I asked, if you are happy with the way things are, why would you want to work your staff to the bone? I am quite happy where my productivity sits and the profit I get from it." Andrew added: "If you are happy with the profit and there is enough to reinvest, I think you should be focusing on quality, and quality of life for the staff as well." Before you get to a full-on bonus system, there are different ways to pay staff that provide incentives. 2010 Top Technician winner Stuart White is the co-owner of CCM, which is a group of three garages across Surrey and West Sussex. He said: "We don't have our staff on a bonus scheme as such. We have a scheme where they get paid for every hour they are here, and the same again for every hour they sell. If they are here, clocked in for eight hours and they well four, they get eight hours at the basic rate, and four hours at the second rate. If they are here for eight hours, and they sell eight hours, they get eight plus eight. If they are here for eight hours and they sell 10 hours, they get eight plus 10. If they are doing an MOT and a service, they are doing half an hour of the service at the same time. They instantly earn half an hour on that job without even trying." We asked if that was complicated to run. "It's not complicated if you've got the right management system," replied Stuart. "We just started using TechMan." However fair and rewarding a scheme might be, you need to get the staff to buy into it. "We've run that scheme for five years," continued Stuart, “and now I think we only have one tech on it. We had three on it until two of them were promoted to management roles, where you end up in our profit share scheme. We gave techs the choice, and they would have earned more over the year but they did not like the fluctuations you get. Some months they would find they earn less. We tried to encourage them to go on it, as overall everyone would have earned more money. Not everyone wanted to take it. We are taking on some staff at the moment and we are having this very conversation. There are pluses and minuses, and it depends on the person." Attractive packages According to Stuart, in the current market for staff, businesses need to offer attractive packages that really work: "It is a very competitive market for technicians. Wages are going up, without a doubt, quite sharply. Good people can demand good money. You make good offers for more money and less hours, but the garage someone is at will better it and they will stay. I am hearing this more and more, and it is not always about the money. Garages can't do without them." Summing up his view on bonuses, Stuart said: "You have got to manage it very well. I would like them to get some type of reward for what they get. A bonus scheme has to pay out. There is no point having one if it is unachievable. Equally there is no point having one if they can get it without trying." He added: "It is not going to fix all your problems, and it is not necessarily going to make your people more productive. Also, it can't stand alone, it has to be part of a whole package. That is something we are trying to do. For us, going forward we might look at a profit share rather than a bonus, but that is even more complicated to establish from an accounting point of view. If you are going to do it, you need all-staff buy in and get their ideas and options. you would also need to make sure you can measure and watch it." Next we heard from a business that is making bonuses work for them, finally. Mark Kettle owns Shropshire-based garage EAC Telford. His business is now running a bonus system, after years of false starts. He said: "We tried a number of times to get a bonus system running over the last 20 years, but we couldn't get it to a point where it was fairly structured for everyone. In November we went over to Garage Hive as our management system. Within that is a system called Power BI and we run our staff on that. "Hypothetically, they have to be 85% efficient throughout the day. They have to earn over a certain amount – £5,000 – in labour sales 10 AFTERMARKET SEPTEMBER 2019 BIG ISSUE www.aftermarketonline.net