Dealers continue to have a hard time recruiting people to the industry. It’s an issue that’s on the minds of many dealers as they walk the show floor at the National Automobile Dealers Association’s biggest dealer event of the year.
During the final day of the NADA Show 2018 at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, Canadian auto dealer caught up with attendees and suppliers to further understand the issue the auto retail industry is struggling with, and to explore their thoughts about employee recruitment and retention.
“That is probably one of our biggest challenges we face in the auto industry,” says Mike Simpson, General Manager of Bob Mayberry Hyundai, which is situated outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. “Your employees are what make things go, so if you don’t have employees sticking around, if you don’t have that consistency, the customer service aspect of the business — brand loyalty, customer loyalty” can be affected.
Simpson says it all starts with hiring the right people, compensating them correctly, and then taking care of them in other areas, whether it means allowing them to spend time with their kids at a soccer game on a Saturday morning or making sure that they feel and know they are “the number one thing” to the dealership.
For Samuel O. Gaston, Regional Product Manager of Courtesy Garage Ltd., a Nissan dealership in St. Michael, Barbados, it’s about going above and beyond what is normally expected by offering employees better packages than other dealerships in the area. This can include things like incentives, such as allowing them to earn one per cent of the price of each vehicle sold, for example.
However, he also adds that providing them with the right tools is also very important. “Employee retention is something that is very serious for the operation, because it concentrates on the people. And we try our best to offer the best training, etc. to retain the best people that we can get in market,” said Gaston.Everyone has their method, and yet many dealers still struggle with attracting and retaining people. It is the very reason that companies like Hireology, an “all-in-one” hiring and talent management platform, exists.
When asked about their thoughts on the subject of recruitment, Adam Robinson, Co-founder and CEO of Hireology, said “I think it’s top of mind for good reason.”
“A hundred per cent of the customer experience is driven by the quality of the individual in the store with that customer. I think the industry is understanding now that, putting some intention behind the human capital side of your operation leads to higher CSI scores, it leads to more profitability, it leads to higher retention, for your customers and your repeat customers, and all of these things are related to the quality of the individual driving that transaction,” said Robinson.
Hireology also partnered with Cox Automotive to do a study on workforce attitude towards automotive retail. The report revealed that only one per cent of the people surveyed would consider a career in the industry, but 35 per cent would consider retail, finance or hospitality opportunities. According to Robinson, that information tells us that the problem itself is not about recruitment — it’s a marketing, communication and education issue. After all, auto retail is “a people-based hospitality business with the finance function right in the store.”
“There are things that people can get out of this career that I don’t think they realize, and so the more education about what it means to be in this business — the amazing career opportunities, the fact that there are great paying jobs, working on the forefront of the hottest technology, the edge of the transformation of mobility as a service, and all kinds of great stuff going on, these careers are there,” said Robinson.
Like the U.S., Barbados and many other countries, Canada faces the same challenges. In fact, it is something the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) is trying to combat with its Auto Career Start initiative: a national campaign working with the provincial dealer associations across the country that is meant to attract more people (and specifically younger and more diverse people) to the automotive industry.
