Productivity

Maybe he needs more rest working 6 days a week takes it out of you, especially as you get older or our you not happy with the quality of his work ? if their is an issue with him you need to talk with him as to what you see as a problem,letting it fester in your mind and not talking to him just annoys yourself,

Do you shake his hand , say thanks for all the effort and time he has put in when he has worked 80 hours to do the 31 hours of chargeable hours on the weeks you didn't do your time and motion study ? Maybe even give him a bit of beer money as a bonus ? Are you treating him to a standard he merits for his efforts ? When was the last time ..if ever .. you gave him some of your time and told him you appreciate what he does for you ? Or are you one of those bosses that only calls employees into the office when things go wrong ?

Or is it him just swinging it and stringing jobs out because he is a shirker ?

We all know this ain't an easy job . Maybe due to his age and him being stuck in the testing lane for years means he struggles with modern motors when it comes down to diagnostics .

Walk a mile in his boots before you judge him .

Talk to him . It will do both of you the world of good .

How do the fast fit places measure productivity ? Every one I ever drive past has two or three men sat at the door drinking tea and smoking and all the ramps are empty .

By the way .. I am 52 and ain't sat down for lunch in well over a year . I struggle with modern motors . I was brought up mending Cortinas and Vivas etc . One thing I ain't afraid of though is putting in some hours and effort . And I don't spend most of mt working week tweeting to my friends about how i just got my fingernails dirty .

It's also worth bearing in mind that retests take time, unchargeable time in most cases. Last month I failed 65 - that's 65 retests at say 8 minutes each on average (measured items etc). Admittedly some will have been (PRS's bulbs and wiper blades). However just to illustration purposes 65 x 8 = 520 minutes, or the best part of a working day lost to retests in the month...

We book an hour out for each MOT - in that hour we carry out prechecks including levels and tyre pressures, even on petrol vehicles. It's a good way of reading a vehicle before a test is started... The company has built it's reputation on this freebie (seasonal check) - we don't discount. In the last year we have doubled in size, taking on new younger (much younger) main dealer trained staff.

I've just come back from a spell of illness, to find an unsustainable number of tests carried out in my absence - guess what no prechecks were done on 40 or so vehicles... Bearing in mind that I recently seized a Range Rover on the smoke test, merely pushing throughput just to generate the numbers can be downright counter productive. Electric Vehicles have their own hazards, so I encourage my staff to think about the quality of their work over quantity... and love the job, because it is about to become the bedrock of the motor trade. Not that MOT's never have been...

It's a question of perspective...

In this trade you need a young man's body with an old and wiser experienced brain, guys around 35 should roughly start to live upto this ideal. Good luck finding a team of 35 year olds.

Yes all his colleagues are complaining. This was what brought it to the forefront as i havent previously monitored hours sold.
All my guys apart from 2, one being a young apprentice (16) and the other in his 60's are all the same age late 30's early 40's.
One guy has actually complained because he has calculated that he sells twice as much and he isnt that far wrong. This is probably why its never been noticed as i look at the team rather than the individual.

Ive always treated how i wanted to be treated. I take them out for dinner, ive offered day trips but no one wanted to go, Formula 1 days, race days, Go Ape etc plus i do give them summer and christmas bonus. When its a birthday i order in pizza.
I work here more hours than anyone else so i like a nice environment, but maybe im too nice?

This particular guy has only been a tester for a few years, i put him through his course. He has spent his working life as a mechanic. The garage he apparently came from only had 1 ramp so he done most of his work on the floor. We have 5, they do nothing on the floor.

Is he the main tester, or does everyone do 15 - 20 tests a week as well? I am the main tester here - when I started 10 years ago I was doing 4 tests a day, now I am doing 9 or 10 - If there are any more we piggy back, especially in the mornings. The layout here facilitates that.

I mentioned that we "sell" the pre-checks as freebie seasonal check - it's something I brought to the table all those years ago, as the job can be soul destroying, simply by it's repetitive nature. These checks bring another dimension to job, I'm doing my bit for the environment and societal good and well-being - it has generated so much good will with the customers, they even wave at me in the street - at least I think that's what they're doing.

What I am trying to say is - is there something else that he can bring to the table, something that will spark his interest and add another dimension to your business... does he like Motorsport, Classic cars? Does he have magic hands - is he a fixer and a mender, a true mechanic in the traditional sense? If so you can easily justify his time, it's a question of how you sell his time...

Big assumptions, I know, but the world is changing fast, to a place where old and new will have to co-exist, but people will need to learn to they will have to pay for someone's skill and time... The MOT will be right at the heart of this new reality...