Motivation is sometimes a constant challenge. Organizations create elaborate programs, pay plans, and incentives in order to motivate employees. I believe that there are far simpler ways to motivate a person. Granted, it depends on how much motivation you need to generate, and you still need to avoid building complacency over the long term, however just some gentle nudging can often pay you big dividends.

The easiest, most subtle way, of motivating employees is to give them a scorecard. The scorecard I suggest is nothing more than a whiteboard with their daily and weekly numbers posted. For technicians their daily productivity should be posted. For service advisors is should be their weekly Customer Labor Sales.

As a friend of mine likes to say “nobody likes to be last”. When everyone can see their “scores”, every day, as a human being they begin to “keep score”. If I see myself in last place, I’m not happy! I might work just a little harder to get out of last place and ahead of the name above me. That little bit more work might mean I produce 2 more hours this week if I’m a technician, or I work harder to sell a job that pays a few hours if I’m a service advisor. At the end of the week the shop has benefited because we’ve sold 4 more hours than we would have. Those four hours add up to $20,000 by the end of the year. Include parts margin and suddenly you’ve got $35,000 to $40,000 more in the revenue.

All this just from using human competitive spirit and writing some numbers on a white board daily.