Pub. 3 Issue 1

29 SPRING 2015 JUST PUT IT ON THE COMPANY CARD… NOBODY WILL NOTICE. YOU’RE REALLY SHOWING OFF YOUR BEST ASSETS TODAY. I NEVER WEAR THE SAFETY GOGGLES. THEY LEAVE A MARK. THEY’RE WORRIED ABOUT OVERTIME. I’M JUST WORKING OFF THE CLOCK. 444 South Flower Street • Suite 1590 • Los Angeles, CA 90071 • 213.330.4500 • www.laborlawyers.com ATLANTA BALTIMORE BOSTON CHARLOTTE CHICAGO CLEVELAND NEW ORLEANS ORLANDO PHILADELPHIA PHOENIX PORTLAND LOS ANGELES LOUISVILLE MEMPHIS NEW ENGLAND NEW JERSEY GULFPORT HOUSTON IRVINE KANSAS CITY LAS VEGAS COLUMBIA COLUMBUS DALLAS DENVER FORT LAUDERDALE SAN ANTONIO SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO TAMPA WASHINGTON, D.C. The things employees say when you’re not around can cause legal troubles for you. Fisher & Phillips provides practical solutions to workplace legal problems. This includes helping you find and fix these kinds of employee issues before theymake theirway fromthewater cooler to the courthouse. What you don’t hear can still hurt you. 342-FISH Los Angeles Dealer 7.5x4.625.indd 1 4/10/14 3:56 PM programs is good. What you especially want to encourage is the development of crucial troubleshooting skills. Creating Relationships with Mentors Repair shops can be competitive places. After all, each repair shop a limited number of cars to fix, and a lot of people who want to bring home a good paycheck. You want to make sure that a young technician is treated well. One way to do that is by giving the young technician a mentor. If you have one or more seasoned senior technicians who are beginning to think about retirement, they might be the right people to choose. Done right, the older technicians will pass along hard-earned wisdom to the younger technicians. Done wrong, you will have a disaster. What’s the right way to set up a mentoring relationship? • Talk to the senior technician early in the process. If the senior technician does not intend to retire yet, for exam- ple, you have a problem. Training a replacement is only a happy occasion when someone plans to leave anyway. If that isn’t the plan, no benefit is going to compensate for being asked to train a subordinate rival. The repair shop could end up being turned into a war zone. • Set up a short-term arrangement that is a win for ev- erybody involved. It probably shouldn’t last less than a year or more than two years; 18 months might be a good intermediate choice. Use generated sales to pay for the rewards. You could give part of the young technician’s billed hours to the senior technician. In addition, you could give bonuses if the young technician exceeds pro- duction goals and gains ASE certifications. • Make sure the senior technician does not turn the young technician into a glorified errand boy. The senior techni- cian has to actually follow through and pass on all those lessons acquired through years of work. Make sure that is what happens. By the end of the mentoring relationship, you should have an- other senior technician. Better yet, that new senior technician will be young. Then do your best to convince the new senior technician that your dealership can keep life interesting, high-tech, and well-paid. That, combined with your efforts to strengthen technical training in the school system, may be enough to keep your dealership repair shop going for a long time to come. 