HRM textbook

APPENDIX B 649
Auto service is a tough business. The shop owner is basically dependent upon the
quality of the service people he or she hires and retains, and the most qualified mechanics
find it easy to pick up and leave for a job paying a bit more at a competitor down the
road. It s also a business in which productivity is very important. The single largest
expense is usually the cost of labor. Auto service dealers generally don t just make up the
prices that they charge customers for various repairs; instead, they charge based on
standardized industry rates for jobs like changing spark plugs or repairing a leaky
radiator. Therefore, if someone brings a car in for a new alternator and the standard
number of hours for changing the alternator is an hour, but it takes the mechanic
2 hours, the service center s owner may end up making less profit on the transaction.
Quality is a persistent problem as well. For example, rework has recently been
a problem at Muffler Magic. A customer recently brought her car to a Muffler Magic
to have the car s brake pads replaced, which the service center did for her.
Unfortunately, when she left she drove only about two blocks before she discovered
that she had no brake power at all. It was simply fortuitous that she was going so
slowly she was able to stop her car by slowly rolling up against a parking bumper.
It subsequently turned out that the mechanic who replaced the brake pads had failed
to properly tighten a fitting on the hydraulic brake tubes and the brake fluid had run
out, leaving the car with no braking power. In a similar problem the month before
that, a (different) mechanic replaced a fan belt, but forgot to refill the radiator with
fluid; that customer s car overheated before he got four blocks away, and Muffler
Magic had to replace the whole engine. Of course problems like these not only
diminish the profitability of the company s profits, but, repeated many times over,
have the potential for ruining Muffler Magic s word-of-mouth reputation.
Organizationally, Muffler Magic employs about 300 people, and Ron runs his
company with eight managers, including himself as president, a controller, a purchasing
director, a marketing director, and the human resource manager. He also has three regional
managers to whom the eight or nine service center managers in each area of Nevada
report. Over the past 2 years, as the company has opened new service centers, companywide
profits have diminished rather than increased. In part, these diminishing profits
probably reflect the fact that Ron Brown has found it increasingly difficult to manage his
growing operation ( Your reach is exceeding your grasp is how Rons wife puts it).
The company has only the most basic HR systems in place. It uses an application
form that the human resource manager modified from one that he downloaded from the
Web, and the standard employee status change request forms, sign-on forms, I-9 forms,
and so on that it purchased from a human resource management supply house. Training
is entirely on-the-job. Muffler Magic expects the experienced technicians that it hires to
come to the job fully trained; to that end, the service center managers generally ask
candidates for these jobs basic behavioral questions that hopefully provide a window
into these applicants skills. However, most of the other technicians hired to do jobs like
rotating tires, fixing brake pads, and replacing mufflers are untrained and inexperienced.
They are to be trained by either the service center manager or by more experienced
technicians, on-the-job.
Ron Brown faces several HR-type problems. One, as he says, is that he faces the
tyranny of the immediate when it comes to hiring employees. Although it s fine to
say that he should be carefully screening each employee and checking their references
and work ethic, from a practical point of view, with 25 centers to run, the centers
managers usually just hire anyone who seems to be breathing, as long as they can
answer some basic interview questions about auto repair, such as, What do you think
the problem is if a 2001 Camry is overheating, and what would you do about it?
Employee safety is also a problem. An automobile service center may not be the
most dangerous type of workplace, but it is potentially dangerous. Employees are
dealing with sharp tools, greasy floors, greasy tools, extremely hot temperatures (for
instance, on mufflers and engines), and fast-moving engine parts including fan
blades. There are some basic things that a service manager can do to ensure more
safety, such as insisting that all oil spills be cleaned up immediately. However, from a
practical point of view, there are a few ways to get around many of the problems
such as when the technician must check out an engine while it is running.