If your organization is losing talented employees to greener pastures, it’s probably not for the reasons they gave upon leaving.  Everyday we hear from dealership management that high turnover is just an accepted in the industry.  Our reply, do you know the cost of that turnover to your organization’s bottom line?

Talent Needs Great Managers

"Talented employees need great managers," Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman conclude in a study published in a recent article that analyzed 25 years of Gallup interviews with more than a million employees in a broad range of companies and countries.  Clearly, organizations including automotive dealerships need to do a better job of training their supervisors in the arts of retaining employees for whom the bottom line may not be "the bottom line."

Employees stay with organizations when they feel valued and are recognized for their contributions and have an opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills.  Consider the hospitality industry for a minute.  Similar to automotive retail, they are a people intensive industry.  “Employee retention is a key strategic objective in every managers overall department objectives and a considerable part of their bonus pool” states Sean Loeffel, general manager of four Five Star Four Season’s Hotels and currently consulting for a national spa chain.

An average Four Season’s hotel has 350/500 employees and has an average of four human resource staff members including a training manager.  "Educating managers in key HR Business Strategies including Recruitment and Retention is a high priority within Four Season’s" states Ellie Dahl, Human Resources Manager for Four Season’s newest and largest resort located in Carlsbad, California.

A Quality Reporting Relationship

Our experience working with employees in companies including the automotive retail industry supports findings from interviews collected from 500 managers by Buckingham and Coffman.  These supervisors were found to engage in similar practices.  Those top practices were:

- Set mutual expectations  --  Communicate
- Provide frequent feedback  --  Communicate
- Acted as an advocate and provided visability and exposure for employees  --  Communicate
- Know and appreciated the employees work  --  Communicate

Communications is a key to Quality Customer Service both inside and outside the dealership.  We will spend more time on Communication in our article next week.  Be sure to look for us.

Human Capital Management, a human resources provider of on-line management resources provides training in the area of Human Resources Business Strategies required of all managers who wish to be successful.  Contact us today to learn more about our in-house training and how we help dealerships create operating efficiencies, reduce growing administrative overhead, and increase morale.