Episode 040: Technician Tool & Equipment Policies

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All right. Welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley, joined today by the lovely Steve Saltzgiver.

I'm here, thank you. Good to be back.

Uh, Jeff's out this week doing a trade show, so wish him well, wish him luck. But, uh, just gonna be the two of us today. So, and we've got a fun little topic that, uh, you know, we were reading up on the NAFA boards and saw somebody had a question about a tool and equipment policy. And Steve and I have both been, uh, looking at some of these, and obviously Steve's done quite a bit with tool policies in the past, so we wanted to give you some good tips and things to consider, why you'd even have a tool policy and what are, what are some good ways that you can use this to your advantage and kind of set your company apart. So, Steve, you know, for people who are new to Fleet, because this was new to me when I first heard about it, you know, coming from a tech company and business background, it's not something we do in that industry at all. Tool policy. Why would somebody need a tool policy when it comes to technicians?

Well, a couple reasons. I remember early on in my career working in transit where before you could even start working, they actually had a list of tools you had to have, like a requisite list of tools to even perform your job. And so what would end up happening is the, the company would have a start— they would require to have a starter set, and then they would supplement that set as it went on. So the purpose of that obviously is to make sure your mechanics are have the tools that are capable for them to perform whatever service that you have. It's also a good incentive. I mean, tools for a mechanic are no different from like developers and stuff that have certain tools, you know. I know that now that I'm in product management, I've bought an iPad and I, you know, and things like that that kind of go along with me performing the adequate job I need to do. So it's kind of like that. It's also a great incentive. You know, especially now when you're having all these recruitment issues that we're talking about.

Yeah, I think that's the thing that it just was different for me is that, you know, instead of a company just providing tools for their technicians to use, they actually have the technicians buy their own tools. And then, you know, it's when they pack up, if they leave to go to another company, they're coming in and packing up their toolboxes and taking their whole toolboxes with them, which is just— it was very foreign to me. Yeah, but it's something that as I've thought about it more often, I'm like, man, maybe we should be doing that more often. Maybe there's something, you know, and this is the whole point of Fleet Success, is taking lessons that we've learned and applying them to fleet. But it's also the opposite where there's lessons that we learn in fleet that could apply to business and technology. And I wonder if, you know, if tech companies are missing out here, is, you know, providing an allowance, but then having there be like a sense of ownership of those tools. Because I feel like as a technician, I would take better care of my tools if I owned them, if they were my tools.

I, and I, and I, I'm an advocate of that. I know a lot of, uh, shops furnish tools for the mechanics, um, but that comes with a whole other set of issues, you know, where then you have to periodically audit the tools. You got to make sure they don't walk off, you know. And so I've always been more of an advocate of empowering the mechanic, and then we give him an allowance to buy the tools that are necessary.

Well, and it makes sense too, you know, if, if a technician really likes this certain brand of tools or is familiar with this set of tools versus a different set, and every time they switch jobs, they've got to get more familiar with, oh yeah, this one's got a little bit different feel, a little bit different snap. You know, I just, I think about like with, uh, you know, wrenches and ratchets, you know, just even just switching, like when I have two different ones, like let's say I've got a Crescent and a Craftsman, just switching out sockets is a different, like it's the same exact process, it's a button, but the engineering behind them is a little bit different. And you know, it's just a little bit different getting used to it.

Well, you know, the little things like that add to productivity if you think about it. They do. You know, I was a Snap-on guy when I was a mechanic turning wrenches. I remember when we lost our Snap-on wrench or truck, had to go to Matco. Yep. You know, and it was a little different. I had to find another way to get the tools I wanted.

Yeah.

You know, some people are Craftsman, some people are Kobalt now, some people go to Harbor Freight. You know, so, you know, wherever you get your tools, you know, it's something you become familiar with. You know, it's like your little kids, I guess.

Yeah.

You know, so there is a bit of ownership there.

So one of the things that we look at, you know, if they're gonna have their own tools and they're gonna be on your property, right? I mean, the thing that comes about is you probably have to have a tool policy in place. You know, do you allow, do you do an allowance? Do you do a stipend? Is it reimbursement? You know, how long, if you are paying for tools, how long do they need to work for you before you, they're there free and clear before they vest. It's probably how I would equate that in the business world is a vesting schedule for like a 401(k). There's a vesting schedule for your tools.

I think it's actually all of the above. I mean, everybody has a little bit different. You know, some people put in, like I mentioned earlier in our conversation, where someone might go out to a vocational school and do some pre-recruiting of mechanics, you know, and they might have a condition of employment. We'll buy your tools, we'll sponsor you here in this class, "but you have to come work for us for X amount of years," which is usually, you know, they calculate a payback period and stuff like that. And if you do that, then the tools are yours, you know? And I mean, you think about these tools, you and I have been in some of these shops, you know, here locally we visit some of our customers. Some of these toolboxes are the size of this wall next to us. And I mean, they go from $10,000 to $30,000 for a toolbox, you know? And so that's what you're gonna get into if you're a company.

And if you're one of those companies and trying to figure out, well, how do we, you know, go out and attract talent? How do we retain that type of talent? You know, tools is a great way to do that. That gives them something that's actually going to help them be more productive without just throwing more money at the problem. You know, hey, we could increase the salary or we could increase something they could take with them and invest in themselves for the future. Yes. You know, and we kind of look at that that same way here. A little bit different because we're thinking like tools in regards to education, certification, things like that, things that they can invest in themselves in to grow. But tools are no different for a technician.

No, it's no less significant than us having that culture of leaders are readers, right? We buy books for people. That's a tool.

Yeah, it's just a different form.

Yeah, so it's just a different form. When you invest in your employees, of course, that's good for morale. It's good for productivity. So, you know, I'm all for it. I mean, sometimes there's people that have tool policies negotiated in union contracts.

Yeah. If you have a collective bargaining agreement.

If you have a collective bargaining agreement, it could be all over. It's one of those things nowadays, though, that's becoming the difference of a person coming to work for you and somebody else. So you need to be mindful of it.

And you have to be careful that it doesn't become like a permission to play. Like you have to almost do this just to stay in the game. Yeah, you have to be thinking about what are things I could do to set myself apart and differentiate us from the next shop down the road. And some of those things, it could be around your tool package, you know, and how you compensate, how you offer those. Uh, do you do things— do you insure the toolboxes while they're on your property? Um, how do you help them take better care of their tools and make sure that they're safe?

Yep, that's, that's a good point, especially now that they're getting so big. I mean It'd just take one weekend where somebody come in and take all those tools, right?

And so for shops that are kind of doing a mixed bag where, you know, maybe they've got some specialized equipment, would you anticipate that a shop— you know, this is one of the things I love about this role that I get to play in this is I get to be the idiot sometimes and I get to ask the question that nobody's comfortable asking. But would you expect that the shop would contribute and provide some of the tooling and then give the technician the ability to choose kind of like a mixed bag where there's some shop-provided and some technician-provided tools and they're all kind of commingled? What are some policies you've seen work or not work?

Typically what ends up happening is things that are very proprietary in nature, like diagnostic computers, AC equipment, emissions equipment, things like that, the shop buys.

Stuff that's probably also a lot more expensive.

Yeah, it's usually a little bit more static, a little bit more expensive. Tools that are not used all the time in your everyday use, which I'd mentioned earlier, 3/4 and 1-inch drive sets, things like that, large impact wrenches, jacks, lifts, things that really become part of the shop operation per se, something that they can all share.

Yeah.

And a lot of people will put together almost near the parts room or something like a tool crib where you actually go in and you check those out, you know, for whatever job you're working on.

Yeah.

So they have some accountability that goes with them.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I've seen it where they've had policies where technicians have their own tool allowance, but then if they wanted to, they could pull it together if they wanted and get nicer tools, nicer shop tools, if that would help them, if they felt that would help them do their job better too.

I actually think that's a good idea too, especially if the team works together on it.

Yeah.

Because I think that puts a little bit of harmony and unity into that culture.

The only downside would obviously be is that you don't get to keep the tool. You're basically forgoing that part of your tool allowance, but if it's something that you really hate doing that job without that tool, then it might be worth giving up a little bit extra tool allowance in order to get this really cool, uh, you know, sometimes you just need the right tool for the right job, you know. It's, it's amazing how sometimes you can have a tool that does the job sort of, versus a tool that was designed just for this job, how much faster things can go when you have that.

Well, you know, when I early on in my career, I mean, we used to get, you know, torches and we'd bend wrenches and we'd do things, we'd put extensions on and weld our tools. And so we could get to certain parts of the engine that you couldn't quite get to because nobody had built a tool for that yet. Yep. You know, so now they're pretty, you know, well-versed manufacturing those with all the CAD design and everything going on. But in the early days, I mean, you had to be pretty creative to be productive. Yeah, you know, so it's a good time to talk about tool allowances just in general because, you know, with the inflation hitting us now—

oh yep, got to be careful about—

this is one of these issues with, uh, you know, have you looked at your tool policy for a while? Because you got to make sure it's, uh, it's adequate. Yeah, to get your mechanics what they need.

Well, not only inflation, but you remember pre-COVID, you had the steel shortage that we were dealing with.

Yep.

And, you know, the price of steel tools and iron going into those, that impacted that. And just constantly keeping your eye on the market of what it costs to own those tools and making sure that your tool allowance is reflecting changes in the marketplace because you may have thought, well, yeah, 15 years ago, $1,000, $2,000 might have been a lot of money, but nowadays it might not be enough. And so constantly looking at what those rates are. Are they competitive? What are your competitors doing? What are— and not just your competitors, you know, because if you're a city shop, you don't have a competitor, but you do have a competitor for talent.

Yeah.

And usually it's going to be some form of the dealership or private enterprise. What are they doing? What are they offering for these technicians? You know, when you're in the talent war, who are you competing against for the talent that you need to bring in to do the job?

Yeah.

All right. Well, as always, if you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear any topics, feedback. You can email us at podcast@rtafleet.com. We have our Fleet Success Summit coming up in April. April 20th and 21st, right out here in Mesa, Arizona. There is one week left in the early bird pricing. Goes away on the 31st and prices go up by $100, I believe. Uh, we've got some awesome speakers lined up for this. You really don't want to miss it. Mark Rogers, uh, we got Mike Brabant coming in, our good friend and listener and podcast guest, has been on before. We have Mike Pitcher, a leadership author and expert. Kristen Hadeed, another author, just a fantastic author of the book Permission to Screw Up, which is just a great book for young leaders. Paul Lauria, whose name is well known in the fleet circles, as well as Patty Early. What is she, the current past president? Is that the name of the title?

She's past president of AFMA. She also runs a utility fleet in Florida, power and light.

So some super heavy hitters coming in for the Fleet Success Summit. I would love to see you there. Several others coming in, but I wanted to call out those ones specifically. Again, go register before the pricing goes up on the 31st. FleetSuccessSummit.com. And we will see you guys all there.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of these speakers, I mean, go out and Google them, go out and look. I mean, these are some thought leaders in our industry. There's an awesome array of speakers we've we've got so far.

Yep, fantastic. Again, those dates are April 20th, 21st out here in Mesa, literally just a mile away from the airport. Maybe a little more than that, 5. We'll give you 5 miles from the airport, but right down the road, super convenient. Come out and join us. And as always, tell your friends and coworkers about the Fleet Success Show. Tag us on social media @fleetsuccess and subscribe to the Fleet Success Show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Until next time, we'll see you later.

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