Well guess who is back. I have been conducting classes for the past four days and travelling for two of them so I have, unfortunately, neglected you. One of the sessions was on Customer Service and the other was on Parts Management. We start into a two day session tomorrow on Service Management.
It appears that the interest in employee development is beginning to pick up from the desperate savings that distributors were driving attempting ever since 2008 and Lehman. The bad news of these savings as noted in a previous blog is that employees see that and make note of it and when business picks up many of them will determine that the grass is greener on the other side of the hill and leave you.
The largest challenge over the foreseeable future is going to be to attract, hire and retain the talent required for the job functions in your business. And this is a very serious problem.
Automation will absorb some of the shortages but not all. Management, or better said leadership, is required to set the tone and the direction for employee development. The time is now.
Words of Wisdom #6
Sleeism #6
What would you do when no one is looking? That is morals and that is character.
All of us have a darker side. Variable shades of grey perhaps. The true test of character is what you do when no one is looking. How do you stack up? The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #5
A fall into a ditch makes you wise.
Chinese Proverb
Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning to dance in the rain
I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.
Michael Jordan
The 1st weekend in April.
April fool’s day has long been a fun day for me. I suppose that shows – what kind of fool I am (sic).
Over the years I have had several penguins in the backyard when we lived in Montreal. Flamingo’s in the front yard in Edmonton. You get the drift. I am not at home this year and I have asked my daughter to continue the shenanigans without me. She got my grandson with the Flamingo rerun and he tried to get his sister with the same and was met with a yawn. Oh well.
The time is now.
Words of Wisdom #5
Sleeism # 5
Man is like the turtle…. You have to stick your neck out in order to get ahead
This is similar to some of the quotes in our Friday Filosophy today. No guts no glory. If you don’t try who can you blame but yourself. The course starts with the first step. There are many other pithy sayings that mean the same thing. The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #4
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody – it saves so much trouble.
Rudyard Kipling
All glory comes from daring to begin.
Alexander Graham Bell
When the world around you is changing at a rate faster than you the end is near.
Jack Welsh
Market Capture Rates
Some of you have equated the labor efficiency blog with the actual market capture rate of labor. They are two very different elements in the business. One measures the performance of the supervision of the labor pool and the efficiency of a particular technician on a specific job or group of work orders. The other measures how much of the available market the dealer in question has actually obtained and maintained.
The market capture rate is dependent on maintaining an accurate and up to date machine population and the hours of work for each of the machines in the dealer territory. With the arrival of GPS on most current production machines this is becoming easier to maintain and to track. Older machines, however, still outnumber new machines in most geographical jurisdictions and as such this remains an elusive goal.
If we have an accurate machine population as well as the hours of work for each machine then we can calculate the market potential for both parts and service. This is an important step in the maturation of the parts and service management as we will be able to determine the successes of each of the store locations in a territory. We will then need to become much more professional and effective in our processes, systems and skills when we deliver customer service. The Manufacturers and your bosses will be able to measure objectively how well we do our jobs. I think that will bring a lot more attention to the skills and execution of the management and supervision in parts and service. The time is now.
Labor Efficiency
Service Departments the world over are concerned about efficiency and effectiveness. There is a very easy method in which we can measure and manage the labor we offer to the marketplace. There are two critical pieces of information from which we must start. The first is called Gross Profit Potential and the second is the actual gross profit.
Gross Profit Potential is the number that you would obtain if you took all of the labor in your department at the published labor rates and the average wages of the technicians employed. From these two numbers you would get the potential gross profit. Take that number and divide it be the published labor rate and you will get the gross profit potential. That is very straight forward and very easy.
The actual gross profit you can get from your financial statements. Just be sure that it is only labor.
Then a simple division will lead you to labor efficiency. Divide the actual gross profit by the gross profit potential and there you are – labor efficiency. How do you stand up in this measure? You must be over 90%. The time is now.
I’m Back
Well guess who is back. I have been conducting classes for the past four days and travelling for two of them so I have, unfortunately, neglected you. One of the sessions was on Customer Service and the other was on Parts Management. We start into a two day session tomorrow on Service Management.
It appears that the interest in employee development is beginning to pick up from the desperate savings that distributors were driving attempting ever since 2008 and Lehman. The bad news of these savings as noted in a previous blog is that employees see that and make note of it and when business picks up many of them will determine that the grass is greener on the other side of the hill and leave you.
The largest challenge over the foreseeable future is going to be to attract, hire and retain the talent required for the job functions in your business. And this is a very serious problem.
Automation will absorb some of the shortages but not all. Management, or better said leadership, is required to set the tone and the direction for employee development. The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #3
Whether or not you think you can or you can’t. Either way you are right. Henry Ford
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. James D Miles
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.
Words of Wisdom #4
Sleeism # 4
It is hard to soar with the Eagles
If you are up all night with the Turkeys
Sometimes it is hard to remember that the morning comes awfully early. When you are having fun in the evening and into the early morning it is wise to remember that the sun comes up every day (so far) and that you have to be race ready when you get up. It is not a sign of weakness to get to bed in the middle of a party. It is purely an understanding of the responsibilities we have the next day. The time is now.