How To Roll Out a Performance Pay Plan

Now that your performance pay system is built, it’s time to implement it. Change is never easy, and the idea of introducing something new to your technicians can be intimidating. How can you make the process smooth and ensure your team buys into the concept of performance pay? There’s one very simple method of rolling out performance pay that will protect the system, prevent chaos, and build buy-in from the start. You’ve got to start with your top technician.

Why You Start With Your Top Tech

There are three main reasons you never pilot performance pay with an average or low performer.

1. Top Performer = Top Mindset

An average performer will naturally get defensive over a system that ties their income to their output (especially if they’ve been coasting). They may give you pushback on the concept as a whole, or spread unwelcome negativity about the change. On the other hand, if you introduce performance pay to your top performer, their numbers will improve, and they’ll quickly become your biggest advocate when they see their paycheck balloon.

From there, your techs will be personally motivated by the opportunity to earn more money, and the ones who have been performing at only an average level will be incentivized to improve.

2. A Stress Test

There are bound to be loopholes that need fixing before rolling out your performance pay system to the entire team. Although it may seem counterintuitive, you want to encourage your top performer to try to game the system and maximize profits, allowing you to identify and close these loopholes before widespread launch.

They may make a ton of money in the short term, but you’ll be saving yourself a lot more money in the long run. Consider it the cost of a stress test.

A true top performer will recognize the opportunity you are giving them and go out of their way to stress test the system. When performance pay increases their own take-home pay, they buy-in and actively support the system. That’s the power of aligning incentives.

3. A Champion

As we’ve said, if your top tech can’t succeed under the system, nobody can. If a low performer can’t succeed under the system, they’ll blame the system.

But here’s the thing, WHEN your top performer does end up making more money, they’ll instantly become your champion. They will validate and defend your plan.

Management can talk about why performance pay is a good thing all day, but your team won’t actually care unless they hear it directly from a coworker.

It’s social proof, and it’s powerful.

How the Pilot Works

You bring your top producer into a one-on-one experimental phase. You emphasize that you are rolling it out to them because they are your best technician. Explain to them why you want to roll it out to them and what your specific expectations are.

Meet every two weeks and assess what is working and what’s not. Measure KPIs from the past three months to the forward three months. Support the hell out of them. Ask for feedback and be open to implementing it.

If the pilot is successful, you’ll see three things immediately:

They make more money
They adjust their behavior to hit KPIs
They’re fired up about the structure

Once you see that pattern, you’re ready to roll it out to the rest of the team.

Your Secret Weapon: Their Testimonial

The biggest thing is that when you roll out performance pay, you don’t want management explaining why it works. You want to have a big meeting where the top tech explains:

How much more money did they make
What behaviors did they change
What surprised them
What they loved about it

That will do so much more than you ever could. Techs trust techs more than they trust you. That’s just the nature of an employee – employer relationship.

What Tommy Mello did, and only do this if you want to go big, is give the top tech a giant check at the next meeting following the initial one about Performance Pay. It’ll be hilarious and get your guys excited.

You get everyone hungry and excited to make their giant check, and the dividends will be massive.

The Rollout Meeting

When you roll out the plan to the team, the meeting must hit four points:

Overview of the system:
Keep it simple, visual, and digestible.
Explain the process:
How levels work, how KPIs are tracked, how scorecards are run.
Address hesitations:
Let them ask anything. Honesty and transparency are important for buy-in.
Get buy-in:
Buy-in is momentum. Without it, nothing in performance pay sticks. The guys doing the work need to believe in the rewards.

This meeting will set the tone for your entire culture moving forward. Don’t bull through any questions. Take everything head-on and own the system you’re rolling out. You’re not doing it haphazardly, and they need to know that.

Monthly Accountability Meetings

After launch, you hold a monthly performance pay meeting.

Each meeting hits the same topics:

1. Accountability

Who hit KPIs? Who didn’t? Why?

Have the leaderboard pulled up for the team to see. Touch on key points.

2. Celebrating top performers

Recognition fuels retention. Be loud with your praise. Let everyone know who the king of the castle is. You need your best to feel like heroes.

3. One-on-ones

Set a consistent coaching schedule. Some will need more coaching than others.

Water the best performing technicians. Try to raise the level of everyone else.

Give 80% of your time to top performers and 20% to bottom performers. If it’s not working out, that is okay UNLESS they start actively seeking additional support. The system is designed to work for those who work for it.

Make sure you understand the goals of your employees. You need to identify what they are striving for and then show them how performance pay can help them achieve those goals.

Everyone has dreams. It can be as simple as paying off a car. Don’t limit them. Everything can be tied back to numbers. Basically, reverse engineer those dreams into obtainable KPIs. Show them the math: To hit X income, you need Y performance. Give them a clear path to making it happen. Show them you care and want to help them achieve their dreams, and your company will undergo a major perspective shift.

Build a Club for Your Top Producers

Once the system matures and your business is humming along, you’ll want an elite tier for your highest-performing technicians. Take them on a retreat or do something special for them. You shouldn’t roll this out until you have at least 15 technicians. This is for the top ⅓ of your company. Having an elite tier improves culture, rewards excellence, and attracts other high performers who want to compete.

Give it a name, lean into it.

Tommy Mello calls his the ‘Pinnacle Club.’

Ideally, let your team pick out the name. That way, they have yet another stake in the success of the business.

Is it cheesy? Yes. Will it work? Yes.

Some guys will push harder knowing they get a big trip at the end of the year.

You’re building a tribe of winners who pull the entire shop upward.

Performance Pay Changes Everything

When you build performance pay correctly, the entire company shifts:

Techs understand the rules
Culture strengthens
Margins stay safe
Motivation becomes self-generated
Goals become clear
Performance becomes measurable

And the company grows faster than it ever did under an hourly pay model.

Performance pay isn’t magic. It’s a system built around math. When you apply the math to a structure with trust and have a clear rollout, it becomes the most powerful force multiplier in your business.

It doesn’t just change paychecks. It changes behavior. It changes expectations. It changes the company’s trajectory forever.