Performance Evals: A lifeline to lost employees

This is Part One of a three-part story. Click here to see Part Two and Part Three when they become available.

What you'll learn:

• How performance evaluations can improve manager-employee relations
• The importance of feedback for the next generation of technicians
• How career planning impacts both veteran and new workers

For young technicians entering their first full-time shop position, adjusting to shop life isn’t easy. Perhaps they’re fresh out of high school or an apprenticeship program. For the most part, they’re still unsure of themselves or the career they’ve gotten themselves into: working on commercial vehicles.

In their social group, these techs likely knew the most about engines of all sorts, from little 2-cylinder deals on lawnmowers to great big Cat diesels found on hulking construction equipment. They were the best at working with their hands and figuring things out. In the shop, they probably know the least. They will make mistakes. And even when they learn a new skill, there’s always something more challenging tomorrow. If they don’t pick it up quickly, the older techs may wonder what’s wrong with them.

It’s a lonely feeling.

Now take those superstar master techs. They know the most about troubleshooting and have a slew of inventive shortcuts to (safely) slash standard repair times. But when they get promoted to supervisor or manager and mess up, they hear it from their direct reports and bosses. In this case, they learn the office can be just as isolating as being the newbie.

In both instances, their position could feel like being marooned on an island, a mass of responsibilities jutting out from a sea of expectations. And it’s up to their manager to throw a lifeline every once in a while via performance evaluations, which range from casual weekly check-ins to more thought-out quarterly and annual reviews.

“It doesn’t matter what position or what job you’ve got, in general, if you’re just sitting out there on an island, not getting any feedback as to if you’re doing good or if you’re doing bad, you could start to think, ‘Oh, no, I’m gonna get fired,’” commented Jay Goninen, co-founder and president of WrenchWay, an organization bent on advocating for vehicle repair techs via helping them find decent jobs and ensure they’re treated fairly.

If a manager leaves a tech stranded without consistent career feedback, Goninen noted employees can fall into a negative loop of assuming the worst, with these invasive thoughts serving as the proverbial sharks circling about.

Evals can also ensure employees feel they are plotting the right career course—that they’re going somewhere, and not just aimlessly adrift.

Think of it this way: Techs’ days are filled with troubleshooting and fixing things, using technical procedures and data. If managers aren’t providing similar data on their performance, they don’t know what to fix. And what employee wants to stay at a company where they think they’re failing? Performance evals are the tool to solve this.

Goninen talks to enough shops and techs across the country to feel confident this is what’s happening, but WrenchWay also conducts an annual Voice of the Technician survey to back this up. According to the 2025 Voice of the Technician (VOT) Report, 86% of techs and 93% of students surveyed indicated ‘thorough and consistent’ performance reviews as important resources an employer can offer, with about one-third labeling them a “must-have.”

The report also said 94% of diesel technicians felt an employer should offer a well-documented career path, with 35% saying it was a “must-have.” In other words, if your shop doesn’t take their career progression seriously, they will find one that does (if pay and benefits are similar, of course).

And while these reviews take time and don’t directly improve uptime or generate revenue, managers should also consider them must-haves if they want to keep the shop staffed in the future. Managers’ bonuses may even be tied to retention, as another great reason to take them seriously.

But how do you even go about conducting a performance review? For some managers, you might think you’re throwing out some constructive criticism as a life preserver, but the criticism part is too heavy and acts like an anchor. And how often do you even need to do these? After all, the shop’s main job is to ensure the fleet’s uptime is high, not employees’ self-worth. Luckily, the eval process isn’t all that complicated, and we’ve come up with some ways to instantly improve your processes.