There's a moment every repair shop owner hits. You're working 60-hour weeks, the backlog is growing, customers are waiting longer than they should, and you realize: you can't do this alone anymore.

So you hire someone. And that's where a whole new set of problems begins.

Managing employees at a repair shop is different from managing a retail team or an office staff. Your techs handle expensive customer property. They need real technical skills. And the labor pool for people who can diagnose a dead motherboard and talk to a frustrated customer without making things worse? It's small.

This guide covers the full lifecycle — hiring, onboarding, training, day-to-day management, and retention. No theory. Just what actually works when you're running a repair shop and trying to build a team.

When to Hire Your First Employee

The right time to hire isn't when you're drowning. It's slightly before that. Here are the signals:

Turnaround times are slipping. If jobs that used to take 24 hours are now sitting for 3-4 days, you're over capacity.
You're turning away work. If you're telling walk-ins "I can't get to it this week," that's revenue walking out the door.
You can't take a day off. If the shop can't function without you physically present, you don't have a business — you have a job that owns you.
You're doing work below your pay grade. If you're spending hours on data entry, intake paperwork, and phone calls instead of repairs, those tasks should be someone else's job first.

A good rule of thumb: if you've been consistently busy for 3+ months (not just a seasonal spike), it's time.

Hiring: Where to Find Repair Techs

This is the hardest part. Good repair techs aren't sitting on Indeed refreshing their inbox. Here's where to actually find them:

Local Trade Schools and Community Colleges

Many community colleges have electronics repair, IT, or computer science programs. Contact the department heads directly. Offer internships or part-time positions. Students are eager, trainable, and cheap — and the good ones turn into full-time hires.

Other Repair Shops

Not poaching — networking. Techs move between shops. Be the shop that people want to work at, and word spreads. Go to local business meetups, join repair industry Facebook groups, and be visible.

Online Communities

Reddit's r/msp, r/computertechs, and r/repair_tutorials have active communities. Local Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace job listings still work for blue-collar technical roles. Don't overlook them.

Your Own Customer Base

Some of your best hires are customers who are already tinkering with electronics. That regular who always asks smart questions about their repair? They might be looking for a career change.

What to Look For (And What to Avoid)

Hire For

Problem-solving ability. Give candidates a broken device during the interview. Not to fix it — to watch how they think through the problem. Do they ask questions? Do they have a logical approach? That matters more than whether they know the specific repair.
Communication skills. Your tech will talk to customers. Can they explain a repair in plain English without being condescending? This is non-negotiable.
Reliability. Shows up on time. Follows through. Doesn't disappear for three days without a text. You'd be amazed how rare this is.
Ownership mentality. When something goes wrong, do they flag it immediately or hide it and hope nobody notices?

Avoid

The lone wolf. A tech who's brilliant but can't work alongside anyone else will poison your shop culture fast.
The corner-cutter. If they're skipping steps during a trial repair, they'll skip steps when you're not watching.
Overqualified and bored. Someone with 15 years of enterprise IT experience might take your bench tech role out of desperation, but they'll leave the moment something better shows up.

Onboarding: The First Two Weeks Matter Most

Most repair shops "onboard" new hires by pointing at a bench and saying "here you go." That's how you end up with inconsistent work, confused employees, and damaged customer devices.

Build an Onboarding Checklist

Even if it's just a one-page document, write down everything a new hire needs to know:

Shop policies. Hours, dress code, break schedule, phone use policy.
Software training. How to create tickets, update job status, generate invoices, and check inventory in your shop management system.
Intake process. Exactly how to check in a device — what to document, what to photograph, what to ask the customer.
Common repairs. Walk them through your top 10 most frequent jobs step by step.
Parts and inventory. Where parts are stored, how to request new parts, which suppliers you use.
Warranty policy. What's covered, how to handle a warranty claim, and what they should never promise a customer.
Escalation path. When should they stop and ask for help instead of guessing?

Shadow Before Solo

New hires should shadow you (or your lead tech) for at least 3-5 days before working independently. Let them watch, then let them do it while you watch, then let them fly solo. Rushing this costs more time in the long run when you're fixing their mistakes.

Start Them on Lower-Risk Work

Don't hand your new hire a water-damaged MacBook Pro on day one. Start with screen replacements, battery swaps, and software troubleshooting. Build their confidence and your trust at the same time.

Day-to-Day Management

Use Your Software to Track Performance

If your shop management system tracks who's assigned to each ticket, you already have performance data. Look at:

Jobs completed per day/week. Not to micromanage — to spot trends. If output drops suddenly, something's wrong.
Average repair time. Are they getting faster as they gain experience? They should be.
Redo rate. How often does a device come back after their repair? This is your quality metric.
Customer feedback. If you collect reviews or survey responses, track them per tech.

You're not building a surveillance system. You're building a feedback loop so you can coach effectively.

Hold Brief Daily Check-Ins

Five minutes at the start of the day. What's on the bench? Any parts we're waiting on? Any jobs that are stuck? This prevents surprises and keeps everyone aligned.

You don't need a formal meeting room. Standing at the front counter with coffee works fine.

Set Clear Expectations, Then Get Out of the Way

Techs — especially good ones — hate being micromanaged. Tell them what needs to get done, what the quality standard is, and what the deadline is. Then let them work.

Intervene when results slip, not when methods differ. If your tech assembles a phone in a different order than you do but the result is perfect, that's fine. Don't create your own frustration.

Handle Problems Immediately

If a tech is consistently late, doing sloppy work, or being rude to customers, address it the same day. Not next week. Not during a quarterly review you'll never actually schedule.

A quick, private conversation: "Hey, I noticed X. Here's what I need instead. Can we get on the same page?" That's it. Most problems are solved with one direct conversation. The ones that aren't solved after two or three conversations are telling you something about fit.

Pay and Compensation

What Repair Techs Actually Earn

Ranges vary by region and specialization, but here are rough benchmarks for the U.S. in 2026:

Entry-level bench tech: $15-20/hr ($31K-42K/year)
Experienced tech: $20-28/hr ($42K-58K/year)
Lead tech / shop manager: $25-35/hr ($52K-73K/year)

Mobile repair techs and those with micro-soldering or board-level repair skills command premiums at the higher end.

Beyond Hourly Pay

Small shops can't always compete on salary alone. But you can offer things that corporate repair chains can't:

Flexible scheduling. Let your tech shift their hours for a doctor's appointment without making them burn PTO.
Skill development. Pay for certifications (Apple, Samsung, CompTIA). It makes them more valuable to you and shows you're investing in them.
Commission or bonuses. A small bonus for hitting weekly job targets or maintaining a low redo rate gives techs skin in the game.
Autonomy. Many techs left corporate environments because they hated the bureaucracy. Don't recreate it.

Retention: Why Good Techs Leave (And How to Keep Them)

Turnover in repair shops is brutal. Training a new tech takes months. Every time someone leaves, your productivity craters and your remaining team picks up the slack (and resents it). Here's why techs quit:

1. They Feel Stuck

If there's no path forward — no raise schedule, no new skills to learn, no title progression — ambitious techs will find somewhere that offers growth. Even in a small shop, you can create levels: Junior Tech → Tech → Senior Tech → Lead Tech. Attach pay bumps to each.

2. The Environment Is Toxic

Shops with yelling, blame-shifting, and unreasonable pressure lose people fast. You set the tone. If you handle stress calmly and treat mistakes as learning opportunities, your team will mirror that.

3. They're Burned Out

If your best tech is handling 80% of the complex jobs because "they're the only one who can," you're burning them out. Cross-train your team so the workload distributes evenly. Yes, quality might dip slightly while others learn — that's the investment.

4. They Don't Feel Valued

A genuine "nice work on that board-level repair" costs you nothing and goes a long way. People don't just work for money. They work for recognition, belonging, and the feeling that their effort matters.

Scaling: From One Employee to a Real Team

Once you have 3+ employees, the dynamics change. You need:

A lead tech who can answer questions so they're not all coming to you.
Written SOPs for every recurring process (yes, actually written down — not just tribal knowledge).
Scheduled roles. Who's on intake? Who's on the bench? Who handles phone calls today? Rotating responsibilities prevents burnout and cross-trains naturally.
Regular one-on-ones. Fifteen minutes per person, every two weeks. Ask: what's going well? What's frustrating? What do you need from me? You'll catch problems before they become resignations.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Hiring too fast out of desperation. A bad hire is worse than no hire. Being short-staffed for another month is better than spending three months managing someone out.
Not firing soon enough. If someone's not working out after honest coaching and a reasonable timeframe, let them go. Keeping a bad employee demoralizes your good ones.
Treating everyone the same. Your rock star tech and your struggling new hire have different needs. One needs autonomy and challenges; the other needs guidance and patience. Manage accordingly.
Ignoring labor laws. Overtime rules, break requirements, classification (W-2 vs 1099) — get this right. One misclassification complaint can cost you more than a year's worth of that employee's wages. Talk to an accountant or employment lawyer before your first hire.

The Bottom Line

Employee management isn't a side task — it's the thing that determines whether your shop stays a one-person operation forever or becomes a real business. Get hiring right, invest in training, set clear expectations, pay fairly, and treat people like adults. It's not complicated, but it requires consistent effort.

The shops that figure this out are the ones that grow. The ones that don't stay stuck on the bench doing everything themselves until they burn out.

Need a system that keeps your whole team on the same page? TechsBox lets you assign tickets, track each tech's workload, and see performance data across your shop — so managing employees gets a lot easier. Try it free.

Repair Shop Employee Management: How to Hire, Train, and Keep Good Techs