Happy employees equal happy customers. And happy customers buy cars at your automotive dealership (and then tell all their friends about it). That’s the theory. Obviously it’s a bit more complicated than that, but at the core, there are some simple steps your leadership can take to reduce turnover at your dealership. According to the Cox Automotive 2019 Dealership Staffing Study, around 20% of your staff will look for a new job within the first six months on the job. That may discourage some General Managers and Dealer Principal Owners from investing in long term training, career development, and even basic technology training—but that’s the crux! Starting sooner, investing in your team’s development, and offering better tools might just be the key to success! Learn more from the following experts:
1 – Your Organization Needs a Learning Ecosystem
Harvard Business Review: High growth individuals are often eager to learn and can bring a new-learning mindset that impacts your entire organization. However, they simply can’t do it alone. If you’re lucky enough to have driven team members on your staff, it’s up to management and leadership to offer tools, incentives, and time to develop their skills and grow their careers.
2 – What’s Better Than Employee Benefits? Employee Career Development
HR Technologist: According to Gartner Research, 40% of employees who voluntarily leave their roles list a lack of career development as the cause. Auto dealers facing high turnover would benefit from investing in long-term career development in order to overcome the high cost of employee turnover.
3 – Younger Generations Could Provide Answer to Dealership Turnover Issue
Cox Automotive: According to the Cox Automotive 2019 Dealership Staffing Study, a younger generation of employees is filling the gap left by high turnover in the automotive industry. However, dealers who invest in better technology, and a stronger focus on technology training for their teams, will see the biggest boost in retention and hiring from this new talent pool. Considering a mere 39% of dealerships believe they’re using the latest technology, there is a lot of catching up to do!
4 – The True Cost of Not Providing Employee Training
Shift eLearning: Dealerships that fail to invest in employee training often make the mistake of seeing training as a burden or an extra expense. The true cost of training is realized in the long run as more than half of employees surveyed view training as a key factor in their work/life balance. Another study found employees who did not have the opportunity to develop were 12 times more likely to jump ship.
5 – How to Inspire and Motivate Your Team for Better Customer Service
Acquire: If you embrace the concept of having a happy workforce, the magic will happen. Sounds simple. To break it down, check out this list of ways your dealership can inspire the team from managing the workload, to providing better tools and technology that is easy-to-learn, to (you guessed it) giving the team a chance to expand and develop their skills.
