“They always say focus on your top 10 percent. But I think you have to be cognizant of why are we in an industry shortage— It’s not the income. It’s not the workload; demand is there. Something else is going on. … There’s no easy solution to it because there’s pros and cons with every aspect of pay that we look at. But there’s a lot of respected people that I’ve seen step out of the industry and in listening to them and really trying to understand what it was … what led up to it, I think pay and pay structure — [is] definitely hurting our industry in some respects. If a flat rate tech gets it, they can produce phenomenal income — but that’s not everybody. That’s not the majority; that’s that top 10 percent. What happens to the bottom 10? You hear about it. And then that 80 percent in the middle — some of them grit it, get through, but I think a lot of them silently exit, and that’s what we’ve experienced now. How do we adapt and change and provide opportunities and grow as a business, grow as an industry so that it’s, I don’t want to say prestigious, but the work we put in and the training that technicians spend is commensurate with what they take home and put in their pocket and how we treat them?” — David Mortlock, service director at Sheppard Motors in Eugene, Ore., on the technician shortage on the “Beyond the Wrench with Jay Goninen” podcast.
