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Tech Turnover Cost Calculator

When a technician quits, the visible costs are the job ad and the interviews. The real bill is the truck that runs empty for weeks and the ramp before the new hire bills at full rate. Price one departure with your numbers, then see what a year of them drains at your own counts.

Before you start

Plan on about three minutes and bring your own figures. Nothing is stored and no sign up is needed.

What you will need. Billed rate per hour, Technician base wage per hour, Weekly billed hours per technician, Weeks from last day to full productivity

Your rates

$
Typical residential service billed rates run $75 to $200 per hour (Housecall Pro field service pricing data). Replace it with your own blended rate.
$
The BLS median for HVAC mechanics and installers works out to about $28.75 per hour, $59,810 a year. Replace it with your own average.

The empty truck

Billed hours, not paid hours. Drive time, quotes, and callbacks do not bill. 25 is a starter figure.
Published estimates run 6 to 10 weeks just to hire, then 4 to 8 more before the new hire runs at rate. The starter figure of 8 is deliberately low.
%
Other trucks absorb some calls, at the cost of backlog and longer days. Half is a starter figure. The in-depth workbook separates absorbed from lost.

Hiring the replacement

Advanced options
$
$
Background and driving record checks, drug screen, uniforms, the onboarding kit.
Phone screens, interviews, the working interview. Priced at the office rate below.
Ride-alongs, shop orientation, the first supervised calls. Paid at the technician wage before they bill at rate.
The exit itself, the reschedules, payroll and records, the new-hire setup.
$
What an hour of the owner or office manager is worth. Ramp hours are paid at the technician wage. Office hours at this rate.
%
The trades publish no clean turnover rate, so compete with your own last year. Enter your counts, then a rate you believe you could reach. The result card prices the gap.

Ramp and office time

A year of it

Cost of one departure

$0
0% modeled turnover
A year at your counts
$0
Reaching your target saves
$0
One departure costs about $0, and a year at your counts drains $0.

Where the cost comes from

Email yourself this breakdown We send the figures you just produced, with your inputs beside them.

The method

What goes into technician turnover cost

Replacing a service technician is not one bill. It is four running at once. This calculator prices each with your numbers and shows where the money concentrates, which is almost never where owners expect.

How this is calculated

Recruiting and hiring

The ads, the screening and interview hours, and the hard costs of putting a new technician on the road. Background and driving checks, the drug screen, uniforms. Visible, budgeted, and usually the smallest slice.

Paid ramp before the first billed call at rate

Ride-alongs, orientation, and supervised calls are paid at the technician wage while billing little or nothing. Published estimates put full productivity 4 to 8 weeks out even after the hire is made.

Office time on the exit and the refill

The exit conversation, the reschedule calls, payroll and records, the new-hire setup. Small per departure, and it repeats with every one.

The schedule you cannot bill

Weeks empty, times weekly billed hours, times the share you lose outright, times the margin between the billed rate and the wage. Usually the biggest line, and the one that never appears in the hiring budget.

Carry this into the decision

Most departures are decided in the first year

The Tech First-Year Retention System adds the cohort tracker, the seven scheduled check-ins with the words for each one, and the survival math by hiring source that shrinks next year's departure count, in one license.

See the Tech First-Year Retention System

$49. 30 days. Reply to your receipt or email support@truestephr.com for a full refund. No form or explanation is required, and you keep the files.

Related

More free tools and the notes behind them

This tool estimates from the figures you enter. It is general information rather than legal, tax, or accounting advice, so check the result against your own records before you rely on it.

Use the number

The calculation is the start of the decision.

Keep the result, move the live assumptions into an editable workbook, and put the number to work inside the matched kit.

01 · Calculate

Run the free analysis

Change the inputs until the result reflects the business you actually operate.

02 · Keep and model

Email the breakdown

Use the result form on this page, then carry the assumptions into the editable version.

See the Tech First-Year Retention System →
03 · Decide

Apply it to the live issue

Apply the number inside the matched kit, and add a Setup Session if you want it running on your numbers.

Add a $149 Setup Session →