To fire or not

[spencersauto]

I have a tech whose been with me a year. He's been written up twice in the last 90 days. He is currently on a 90 day probation For not following shop policies and procedures such as cell phone use and not performing his duties as assigned in the employee handbook. He had eight years experience with Mazda and I was aware when I hired him there would be a slight were learning curve coming from the dealership to independent. Well were year into it and we seem to still be at point a. He has only run 40 hours one week of the 52 weeks he's been with us. He lacks at diagnosing even the simplest things such as a noise or coolant leak are difficult for him to diagnose. Last week he wrote a vehicle up to replace the transmission. He replaced the transmission and the vehicle is still doing the same thing. My lead technician had to step in and show him the proper steps to diagnosing the vehicle . It very well could have needed the transmission but it needs a pcm as well. Now I'm stuck holding the bill. My dilemma is my lead tech will be leaving in April I'm very concerned that this technician will not be able to handle diagnosing without direction from my lead tech. Question to all of you is do I cut my losses now or continue on with trying to lead the tech in the right direction?

Edited October 3, 2016 by spencersauto

[xrac]

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[ncautoshop]

Agreed. It's time to move on. I've gotten myself into tight spots in the past by not addressing issues like this in a prompt manner. He's not the employee you want, send him packing.

 

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[lmcca]

Pros and Cons.

 

get a piece of paper and draw a line down the center.

 

on the left write the pros

 

on the right the cons.

 

whichever adds up more then that is your answer. Seems simple but it is a good way to judge what you should do. This, from what you have said, seems he needs to go. Make the decision to keep him or replace him first, if to replace, then do like Xrac suggested, find the replacement before you let him go.

 

Why is your lead tech leaving?

Edited October 3, 2016 by lmcca

[spencersauto]

Thank you all for your replies. To top it off this morning his inspector license was revoked for not handling a ticket he was issued earlier this year. The scales are about even when I weigh risk vs reward. It's very hard to find good techs in the town were in. My lead tech is leaving in April due to his wife's job relocating.

[SprinklerMagician]

Just my .02. It seems like every time I am on the fence about letting someone go it eventually happens. It is down the road that I can see more clearly that they were terrible and that they screwed everything up. Things work better and you end up being happy they are gone. It is a hard decision to make because what you are really worried about is your workload and trying to figure out how you are going to do it without them. The truth is things end up working out in ways you can't see. Every time I have fired someone I have wished later on that I had done it sooner. However I haven't painted myself into a corner with large overhead.

 

I have been fired before and it was hard on my ego. I have decided that it is irresponsible for me to hire someone who I will need to fire. If I can foresee problems then I don't hire. This keeps you out of the place of keeping someone because you feel bad for them. I also try to decide if they need to be kept or fired, then decide how to do it; those are two decisions. How I am going to fire them or what I am going to say or how they are going to react cannot play a role in the decision to keep them or not.

[GeeZ]

Let him go and start looking again. Enough. Don't agonize over it.