Page 21 - On The Move - Volume 16, Issue 3

Ultimately it always seems to come down to a couple reasons. Either the dealer’s current plans
don’t seem to be motivating their advisors to perform at a desired level, or the dealer has difficulty
getting the pay plans to pay what they want them to pay.

Before I get into what makes a good pay plan, I believe it to know what is expected of them--not only the service advisors
is important to address the idea that a pay plan can motivate and technicians, but everyone. There is a story of a restaurant
our people. In our business, commissions and incentives are owner who wanted everyone to “hustle” while they were working.
everywhere. It seems like any time we want something to His challenge was, how does he define what hustle means? So,
happen, we put a “spiff” out there. I believe we have proven over to demonstrate his point, he gathered everyone together and
and over again that a pay plan does not take the place of good explained to them that hustle, according to his expectation, means
management. If it did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, they should be walking briskly enough to rustle a paper napkin
would we? We put some money out there figuring our people will sitting on a table that they walked past. He set up an exercise
stretch themselves to “go for it”. But instead, we are disappointed where he placed a napkin on a table, then walked past it multiple
to find out that the results just do not come. Rather than inspire times until the paper napkin rustled when he walked past. At
our people to reach for that carrot and get that extra money that point, he stopped and explained that to him, that is what
(which we are apparently happy to pay them), our people seem hustle looks like. One by one he had each employee walk past the
to merely adjust their pay expectations to not include that extra napkin until they got it to rustle. At the end of the exercise, he
money and go about their business. One of the best examples explained to everyone that he expected to see everyone hustle
of this type of failure are CSI incentives. We put a large incentive while working. Imagine if, instead of setting up that exercise, he
out there for “Top Tier” CSI performance, but our CSI doesn’t had simply implemented a daily bonus (incentive) to be given to
improve. those employees that hustled? I suggest that the bonus would
not have been more effective than taking the time to actually
So, what do we do? First of all, I believe we need to establish manage his employees and his expectations for them.
clear, achievable objectives for all of our people. Everyone needs

Now, to answer the question about pay plans for service advisors. Yes, I believe I
can help create some really good pay plans for service advisors.

To begin with, we need to define what makes a pay plan “good”. I believe a pay
plan should include the following:

• The pay plan should support what the • Make the components of the pay
manager is trying to achieve plan something the advisor can “see”

o If the manager wants to see more o They don’t need to ask for the
labor hours produced, then labor information in order to see it
hours should be a component of the o They can track it by themselves
pay plan • The pay plan should not be something
o Tie it directly to the advisor’s daily/ that tracks directly with sales
weekly/monthly objectives o Whenever possible, we want to
• The pay plan should be something create a gap between the increase
the advisor can directly control in departmental sales and advisor
o Make the pay plan something the compensation increases
advisor can have an effect on o If sales and expenses increase at
o For example, labor hours produced the same level, everyone will end
by the advisor and/or the technicians up making more ... except the
working for the advisor dealer (not a win/win scenario)

Providing a good pay plan for our service advisors is important. It can be a large part of getting the performance we want out of that
position. However, a pay plan by itself will never be as effective as a pay plan accompanied by a management plan.

On The Move 2019 19