Here is my (worthless) opinion based on running electrical work in the construction industry for 35 years:
First of all, 95% if not more will work their hearts out for you given adequate leadership, a decent supply of material along with enough tools and information to do the job.
After that, it is a management issue. When you look at a job that lost money, the first thing everyone looks at is the labor cost. The labor cost will always be over budget on a looser. As management come down to slap people around, I like to point out the “little things;” the bid had 4,000 feet of 3” pipe, we actually installed 40,000 feet. Estimator could not multiply. You can only do what you can do. I worked with people who kept minute diaries of what they did over the years. And what people did working for them. One person when sent to a job, with the budget for the job called back within 12 hours and told the boss the job was in the hole 1.26 million. The boss called him every flavor of liar, he quit right then and when the job was done, they were in the hole almost 2 million. He knew his true labor rates.
In mechanic work, I can only guess that the book rate is wildly uneven compared to actual rates. If management is honest, they will listen, if they are not, nothing you say will convince them that people are not goofing off on the job. The nice thing about being an electrician, when I quit, all I need is my overalls, my lunch bucket and my bag of hand tools. As a mechanic, you have a lot more tools to load out. I went to work one morning thinking I was going to quit at the end of the month about two weeks away and give them the notice. By starting time (7 AM) I had shortened it up to the end of the day by 7:10 AM, I was headed down the road to a new job. Most are not as fortunate as I was to have that ability.
As I retired, what I observed and part of the cause of my retirement was the unreasonable expectations by management of it’s workforce. That becomes a recipe for disaster and the closure of the company. Moral of the story; keep you lunch close and your tools packed up tight.
