Last week my team was on a call with the owner of a good-sized HVAC business. His techs are on hourly plus performance pay. But over and over again, techs walk into his office and ask for $2 more an hour.
These aren't his bad techs. It's often his better ones. The latest was a guy who earns over $20 an hour on top of his base in a good week through performance pay. The owner's response: "You make $20 more an hour some weeks. Why are you asking for two more dollars?"
The tech had no answer. He never looks at his check. None of them do. And that's a problem.
The Only Number They Know
Base rate is the number on the offer letter. It's the number a recruiter quotes when he calls your best tech on a Tuesday trying to pull him over to your competitor. It's the number techs compare at the supply house counter or happy hour bar. So it becomes the only number that feels real.
One owner put it to us like this: "If they just look at their hourly, like $18, somebody comes in and says, hey, I'll pay you $20. They think about bouncing for $2 more per hour."
That's the trap. You can run a generous performance pay program and still lose techs over base rate, because the bonus shows up as a mystery lump they can't explain. One tech told us: "I might get $200. I don't know what I did for that, but I'm not gonna ask any questions."
If your techs don't know what actions impact their pay, they aren't motivated and could be tempted by a higher hourly offer.
Show the Workings
The fix isn't paying more. It's itemizing what you already pay.
The HVAC owner described what he wished his techs could see every week: You sold memberships, here's the line for that. You got 5-star reviews, that's $500 on this check. You hit $12,000 in revenue, and that puts you at $50 an hour.
Line by line, cause and effect. Do X, make Y.
When the check reads like a scoreboard instead of a lump sum, two things change. The tech stops feeling underpaid, and he starts asking a better question: what do I do to make that number bigger?
Put the Effective Hourly Front and Center
Effective hourly rate (base plus incentives, divided by hours worked) is the one number that ends the raise conversation. A tech who thinks of himself as a $28-an-hour guy is one call away from leaving for a $30/hour job. A tech who watches himself run at $41 effective isn't going anywhere for $30.
Another owner I spoke to had a similar experience. A tech complained that his base rate hadn't moved in over a year. But with performance pay, he was taking home more than he was 12 months ago. The money was there. The visibility wasn't.
Compare that to how Jared, the owner at Clogbusters in Des Moines, handles raise requests: "Awesome! I would love for you to get a raise,” he replies. Then he follows with a challenge: “What are we gonna do? We're gonna do more jobs, sell more memberships, and have fewer callbacks."
At Clogbusters, the raise conversation is a performance conversation, because every tech can see the score. One of his top techs, Max, is 19 years old and annualized over $180K last year on pure performance pay. Nobody at Clogbusters is negotiating over $2.
This is why we rebuilt the ShareWillow mobile app to give your techs real-time transparency into their performance and earnings. A tech can tap any number and see the jobs, reviews, and spiffs behind it.
The updated ShareWillow app.
Here is what your techs get in our mobile app:
Earnings by Pay Period: We’ve shifted the primary focus away from high-level plan summaries. Now, techs see exactly what they are taking home this specific pay period.
At-a-Glance Earnings: The moment the app opens, techs get a clear view of their period-to-date money earned and their projected earnings.
Top Metrics Front and Center: The KPIs and metrics driving their pay are now pinned directly to the homepage. No clicking around required.
Deep Job Drill-Downs: Techs can now click directly into their metrics to see the exact, specific jobs that contributed to their payout.
Historical Access: Your team has full, transparent access to historical payouts and past plan summaries whenever they need them.
Spanish Language Support: The app is now fully supported in Spanish.
When your team knows exactly what they're earning, and exactly which jobs got them there, they start acting like owners.
Want to see how the app works? Book a call here.
Change the Conversation
Your techs aren't asking for $2 because they're greedy. They're asking because base rate is the only lever they can see. Show them all the levers, and they stop negotiating with you and start competing with themselves.
Stop defending the base rate and show them the score.
Best,
Ryan
P.S. If your techs are always asking for raises, let’s chat. I’d love to show you how performance pay can boost your bottom line and your tech’s take home pay simultaneously.