How to find what motivates your people to produce

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What you'll learn:

• The four things that typically motivate people
• How to find out what motivates your employees
• Ideas of incentives to offer them

In today's world, finding good people is getting harder and harder. So, if you have employees that are not producing the way you want, you need to determine why. Typically, there are three causes: lack of ability, lack of training, or lack of motivation. The third cause, "lack of motivation," is a big problem.

When we do find good people, some lack motivation and drive. Yes, they may be nice, punctual, and even caring. That service writer may have great customer service skills, nice phone skills, and good administration skills. That tech may fix it right the first time, be willing to help other techs, and have a good attitude.

Many times, however, these good people are primarily punching the clock, doing their job, surviving the day, and going home with no real motivation or drive to improve their quality of life. They are living day-to-day and appear comfortable doing enough to just get by. You are likely visualizing one or more of your employees right now who fit this description, aren't you?

I can't count how many times shop owners have expressed their frustration with having an employee they want to keep, but they just wish they were more driven. That's where you come in! As an owner, you need to find your employee's motivation and utilize that knowledge to get them to produce more for both you and them.

What Motivates People?

First, what can you do to help find what motivates them? If you have not already had each of your employees create their own goal sheet, you need to require them to do just that. These goal sheets will help to give you the ammunition you need to find their motivations. Also, have one-on-ones with them and get to know their personal situation (home, spouse, kids, interests).

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People are motivated by many different things, but in most cases, they fall into one of these four categories: 

1.      Money

2.      Time

3.      Material Items

4.      Family

Now you must determine which category (or categories) each of your employees falls under. An employee may be motivated or driven by more than one or all four categories. You need one-on-ones with them to find out what's important to them and what makes them tick.

Here are successful examples from each category that helped me and a few of my shop owners find and use an employee's motivation to get them to produce more. 

1. Money

Money is the easy motivator, and we have made countless motivational pay plans for clients. Many employees are motivated by money, which is great, because we want them to be. However, we need to make sure their payment plan allows them to have control over their income by production. Every employee you expect to produce should be paid for producing in one form or another. I know this is more difficult in some states than others, but there are ways we can scratch that money-motivated itch they have.

How many of you have employees being paid hourly or salary only? Many of you are already aware of and using the flat-rate system for techs and the salary/commission system for writers and managers. In addition, there are weekly or monthly bonuses you can create to motivate.

If you believe your employee is motivated or driven by money and they are on a similar plan as above yet still not producing, then they are either too comfortable financially or are not motivated by money but something else.

2. Time

Not everyone is money-motivated. For many, time is more valuable than money, which is fine. We just need to tap into that time motivation to get an employee to produce more for us.

The last shop I ran before coming to ATI was a Monday-Friday dealership. I had a tech there who was solid all around: he fixed it right the first time, could beat flat rate (which, by the way, was how he was paid) on most jobs, had a good attitude, and was always on time. Here's the problem: he worked 40 hours per week but rarely produced even 30 billable hours. He worked at a relatively slow pace. I sat him down one day and told him, "I need you to produce more hours. Plus, you will make more money!" He replied that he did not care about making more money and preferred to work at a stress-free pace. His wife was the breadwinner in his household, so he was not motivated by money.

So, what did I do? Get rid of him and just pluck another great tech from the great tech tree? Since we all know that tree is pretty bare, I needed to find a way to keep him and get him to produce more for me. I asked him, "What is important to you?" He answered, "My free time!"

I found his motivation. So, keeping in mind this was a Monday-Friday shop, I said, "I'll tell you what, give me 40 billable hours by end-of-day Thursday, and you can have Friday off for a three-day weekend."

He did just that and rarely ever worked another Friday again!

I was fine with that because I was getting 40 billable hours a week from him in four days, instead of maybe 30 billable hours a week in five days. Sure, I had to move the schedule around a bit and schedule more appointments Monday through Thursday, but I got what I needed from him by finding his motivation.

3. Material items

I have a current client with a tech who wasn't motivated by money or time. He was a good employee, just like the time-motivated tech above. However, he wasn't money-motivated, because no matter how much he made each week, the money went to his ex-wife and his kids. As I recall, he had a wage garnishment, so he would never reap the benefits of it much personally. How many of us have one of these techs?

So, I told the owner to sit him down and find his motivation. This is often where a goal poster comes in handy. Well, it turns out this tech was NASCAR-crazy! He loved everything about NASCAR.

The owner and I discussed monthly billable hours-produced goals for him. Then, we calculated how much more money reaching those goals would put in the owner's pocket to make sure we could afford to give the tech the appropriate incentive and create a win-win for the owner and the tech. Finally, we determined two monthly levels of billable hours reached for the tech to hit.

If the tech hit the lower level, the owner would buy him a NASCAR diecast scale car of the tech’s choice. If he hit the higher level, the owner would buy him NASCAR tickets for the next race. (The tech would have to pay to get there himself but could afford to do that by billing those extra flat-rate hours.)

This plan worked well, and the tech reached one of those levels many times — not always, but often. Use this format for employees motivated by material items. The bottom line is we found his motivation and used it to benefit both the owner and the tech.

4. Family

Another shop owner of mine had a service writer who he really liked but wasn't hungry. Customers loved him, he had excellent phone skills, was good with the techs, was dependable, and had good organizational skills dotting all his i's and crossing all his t's. We even paid him on salary plus commission based on weekly GP$. But it seemed that money wasn't motivating him to produce more and grow. So, you can probably guess what I told the owner to do. "You need to sit down with him and find his motivation. You need to ask him what's important to him."

The owner did so and determined that the most important thing in the world to this service writer was his nine-year-old daughter. He was a single dad, and his world revolved around her, understandably so. He knew earning more money would allow him to provide more for her, but he wasn't a saver and wasn't good with his money like many. How many of you have employees who get paid on Friday and are broke by Monday?

The owner and I decided to open up a savings account in his daughter's name. Each month the service writer hit a monthly GP$ goal we set, the owner would deposit money into her account. It turned out to be incredible as this service writer just took off producing month in and month out because we found his motivation!

In conclusion, find your team's motivation, and you will find high production within your shop!