I posted about a tech that had a sudden drop in performance and received some great feedback. Figured I would try to push a little more and see if anyone else here is interested in sharing how they do things so we can all get better at doing what we do.
Who here tracks technician efficiency? How do you track it? Whats your average performance? Whats your target? What do you do to increase efficiency? Do you bonus techs for hitting efficiency benchmarks? Do you take it a step further and track effective labor rate?
In my opinion, tech efficiency is the main driver of profitability. Estimate a project at 100 hours, get it done in 90 and you have a more profitable business. Get it done in 110 and you just gave away 10% of your inventory.
To do this, we try to measure all hours. System build time, programming time, install time, dispatch time, QC time, training for the customer, etc. I say try because I haven't figured out yet how to account for some of these hours. When a project is sold at 100 hours, should a helper tech count for 50 of them if he is on the job? I don't know, my gut says yes, but you really cant charge a helper out at $120/hr.
I'll be honest, our efficiency varies wildly. Some months we are killing it and seeing 120+%. Others, we are lucky to hit 60%.
Don't forget to touch on the sales side of things, its not always a slower tech causing poor efficiency, many times not enough hours were sold to begin with.