In the past 12 months we have gone from 7 techs to 2. The techs have quit and gone to work at local dealerships. Of course our store can no longer produce the same numbers that were possible with a full staff. The district manager has repeatedly refused to approve hiring anyone to replace the people we have lost. But he makes a point of having conference calls once a week to beat down the store managers that can no longer exceed last year's numbers. His favorite thing to do is call out each manager by name and say "You S---". After months of this, my manager has finally gone off the deep end. Before both feet are in the door he is barking about making the numbers. Yesterday he told me and the other CSA that if the numbers can't be made he is going to fire us. He constantly tells us that we have to get the car count up. I have tried to reason with him of different occasions by simply taking last years numbers and dividing it by the number of techs we had back then. That tells the average a tech can produce on any given day. Take that number and somehow magically make the tech do the work of two people and it's easy to see the numbers still can't be duplicated. We can no longer take walk in customers and have to carefully schedule (in many cases, 3 days out) each vehicle that comes in. There is no worse feeling than turning away work because you simply have no one available to do the job. I have tried to explain to him that I work on commission. I want to sell more. I don't want to turn away anyone. But as I have said the store has become crazy town and no one wants to be confused with facts.
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Your store has turned into cray town? This entire company has been crazy town for years.
Clearly the Not so "Smart Clan" continues to believe in a Failed and flawed Plan. 40 years of operational expertise tells me that the reduction of staff, over burdening of remaining associates will accelerate the turn over ratio of those that remain. Consumers, particularly in the automotive service environment rely upon trust, and seeing that person they trust during each visit. Seeing a New face every visit, erodes that trust, and leads to diminishing loyalty, and thus collapsing car counts.
Don't sweat it, they're not going to fire anyone. Costs way more to hire a new employee and onboard. You're not going to get promoted or a raise so just do the motions and enjoy what you can.
"told me and the other CSA that if the numbers can't be made he is going to fire us."
Then you just politely inform him that if you and others are fired the numbers will NEVER go up and then HIS azz is on the firing line
Welcome to the alternative reality of SHC. It is happening on the retail side also. Get numbers up, but people don't shop here anymore. Get more work done, but you won't hire anyone or give anyone more hours. Sell more PA's and get credit card sign-ups, but no one wants those from a company that could be gone within a year. It's like bazzaro world.