A few weeks back I spent a Wednesday on site with a customer. These visits are the best part of my job. I love spending time with our partners, and an hour in the room talking with owners and techs teaches me so much.
We’ve been working with this partner for about a year. The first group they rolled out their performance pay plan to were the installers.
Their internal expectation on an install was eight hours, and before we rolled out performance pay the installers were taking every one of them. On the new plan, an eight-hour install closed out in five or six means more money per hour for the techs. The lead installer started knocking out installs in four or five, which is the equivalent of eighty or ninety dollars an hour. Some days now he’ll do two installs instead of one.
Here's what I noticed. Every time that installer came up, the money and the time arrived in the same sentence. He was making more than before, and, maybe even more importantly, some days he’d be home in time to get the kids off the bus.
On hourly, those two pull against each other. A tech who could finish in five has every reason to take eight, because the hours are the paycheck. Pay for the work instead of the clock and they stop pulling apart. More money in their pocket, fewer hours to earn it, and room in the day for another install.
When it comes to selling their teams on performance pay, owners often pitch the first half (the money) and leave out the second (the time). On hourly, getting home early costs a tech money, and every hour they save hands the upside to you. Flip it and the same afternoon is worth something to both of you.
If you want to talk through what performance pay would look like for your team, just hit reply. It comes straight to me.
Best,
Ryan
P.S. Want to get on a call instead? We'll pull your numbers and show you what a plan would look like for your business. Grab a time here.