For his first month at Abernethy’s Auto Body, John Hayduk described the environment as tense, foreboding, uneasy—essentially, everyone was “walking on eggshells.”
“The manager would just lose it,” Hayduk says. “He would just start screaming and throwing papers and files around, having a meltdown. It was like that every week.”
As the manager-in-training at the time, Hayduk observed everything that was holding back the Avondale, Pa., shop: a disorganized repair process; self-entitled employees; an unwillingness to negotiate with insurance companies; outrageous paint and materials spending; low efficiency and productivity.
And, of course, the elephant in the room: the shop’s inability to evolve.
“The manager had been here since 1969 and was still doing things the way he did them back then,” Hayduk says.
So when Hayduk stepped in, the 53-year-old’s daily schedule and management style brought Abernethy’s into the 21st century: complete disassemblies up front; a quick lane for small repairs; eliminating employees unwilling to adapt; getting paid for all work; getting employees invested in shop-wide success.
While he says the shop staff experienced “culture shock”—which resulted in staff being slashed from 19 to 11 people—employees are now making more money and have invested in the company’s continued growth. Cycle times were cut by one day, productivity doubled (from 2.8 to 5.5 booth cycles per day), efficiency rose by 40 percent, paint and materials gross profits rose by 70 percent, on-time completion rates for jobs over $1,500 rose from 35 to 100 percent, and Abernethy’s had its best sales month of all time in June.
Oh, and one extra detail: Hayduk has accomplished all this in one year.
My management style is that I don’t micromanage. It’s the complete opposite of what everyone was used to. I give people a task, and I expect them to take ownership if something is not completed on time. If there’s a problem with the paint color, just fix it. You don’t need me to see it. If you’re not happy with something, you’re empowered to make a decision. I just need to know if there’s a problem that affects delivery so I can update the customer. It only becomes a problem if you’re consistently missing deadlines, which is when I’ll pull you aside and address it.
Now I have a great team here that doesn’t need much hand holding, which is really nice.
The first thing I do each day is say “Good morning” to everybody. You have to maintain that communication with everyone. You have to be upbeat. I don’t walk in acting like a grump.
Then I’ll print out a sheet from our management system, which tracks what process the cars are in. I’ll walk out in the body shop and make sure all the cars being worked on in the shop are where they’re supposed to be at.
Then I walk over to paint and check on what their plans are for the day. I spent a lot of time in the beginning—and still do—policing the paint department. We needed to cut down on our inventory. It was hellacious when I got here. They were ordering $25,000 in paint supplies every month, and now we’re down to $11,000.
The other issue we had was our paint shop at the time would only do 2.8 cycles a day. And some painters wouldn’t budge on changing. Eventually it came to the point to where we had to part ways with long-time employees.
Our management system also gives us a projected paint date, so our painters know when they’re supposed to paint each car. Our whole thing is to paint the car that is next to be painted. If you’re ahead of the game, then you’re fine; you can paint them in any order. But if I get a car to you that says it needs to be painted by noon today, don’t skip that car to paint another—that car goes through the booth.
