I walk into a brand new store with an already established team in a week. I’ve been a tech, advisor and service manager before but it was always a team where I came up through the ranks. This time I’m new to them and they’re new to me.
If you had a new service manager coming in, on day 1, what would you want them to do? Open to whatever. I can feed them, gift them all a 10mm (ha!) Or something else useful. Or?
This is a team that didn’t like the previous guy. He didn’t trust his techs, didn’t quite understand the shop. Genuinely, I want their lives to be easier but for day 1, I just want an icebreaker. .
I think having a meeting with all the techs present could be a good start.
“Guys, I want you to enjoy your job here. What are some things that you feel we’re doing right? What are some things you think we could do better? What are some things that have you considering different employment?”
Don’t make promises to any answers you get. Log them all. Sleep on them. Implement what you can. And be open about what you can’t do.
This is a very good answer. Another thing you might do is ask the same questions to each tech individually. Maybe both approaches.
Totally agree. With this, you can also get a feel of whether or not beefs exist between techs. Not that I’d recommend intervening. But it’s good to know about.