The answer is not so simple. They may want to change, however, they may not know another way. In some cases, they know what they need to do, however, it's not a priority for them. Or, they don't want to change because they don't see a need. After all, it's worked for them in the past. For years, manager's perception has been that not everyone is born to sell cars. "There is no need to invest in them because chances are they'll wash out within six months." I've heard many of them say, "we hire in masses and then fire their a**es," "that's just the way the car business is," or "I'm not here to coddle them."

So why should the managers reconsider their approach? The answer to this question is simple: culture, performance, employee engagement, and turnover. According to James K. Harter, Ph.d., Gallup's scientist for workplace management, at least 75 percent of the reasons for costly voluntary turnover came down to things that managers can influence. When managers choose to use their authoritarian power to yell or belittle their employees, they are communicating to their people they are not important and they are expandable. Over time, this chips away at our employees' basic human needs: feeling of belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. It drives disengagement and over time causes people to underperform and then leave.

When leading a team, managers must understand that leading with fear will only get them short-term desired outcomes. Focusing on the needs of the employees and properly communicating your vision for them will drive engagement, create long-lasting loyalty, and positively impact your culture.

As a manager, you must put your ego aside. Understand that your role as a manager is not to just sell cars or write service. Your role is to help others accomplish their personal and professional goals by being a leader, a teacher, and a coach.

It's not a secret, untrained and disengaged employees cause the majority of customer experience issues. They hurt your store's brand and take up too many resources when you try to fix it: your time, money, inventory, etc. We call it putting out the fires. But if you don't have processes in place to train, develop, and engage your employees, you are adding to the fires you're constantly trying to put out.  

It's easy to blame our people, however, if you learned anything from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, from their book Extreme Ownership, "Good leaders don't make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done."

The best news, you don't have to start from scratch. Corporate America has already figured out how to train and engage the modern workforce. It's a process and in dealerships, we are great at executing processes. Don't just toss it into the fire, make it a priority and watch your organization and your people soar.

Now go LEAD!

We have a serious problem at our dealerships. Our employees don't see their future, they just exist. You know, "until they find a real job." I call it a Career Nap. Sure, we take care of their basic needs like income, benefits, sometimes even a feeling of belonging. But that's not enough to truly engage someone, create loyalty, and get them to perform. In order for us to win, we must show them their future and a path to get there.

In America, we are sold on the idea that everyone can succeed. We all know it as the American Dream and it's a great vision. But the majority are not given instructions on how to succeed. It's up to us to figure it out. So most people just have hope. They hope the right opportunity shows up and they hope they can benefit from it.

When new employees start in our dealerships, they have lots of hope, however, doubt begins to creep in on day one. Immediately they get confronted with the harsh reality of a "low probability of their success." At least that's what the sales managers and top performers have told them. The vision of their future begins to deteriorate and they start to disengage emotionally. Over the next few months, these feelings are amplified by high expectations set by the managers and their underperformance. It's during this time, the employees are more susceptible to the idea of trying something else in another organization or another industry altogether. Even if they do stay, most will be on a permanent career nap full of underperformance and unhappiness.

To help your employees succeed, you must give them hope and a multi-level career map to help them see their future clearly and achieve their dreams.

"I know I need to do this, however, I don't have the time right now. I'm implementing a new CRM." I hear this a lot from dealers when I ask them to invest in their people.

As dealers, we are always looking to improve our business. We look at all of the assets we manage: inventory, vendors, processes, facility, brand, marketing, people, etc. We assign a cost to any changes that need to be made. We consider making new investments and calculate the ROI. Our training in business has us focus on the lowest hanging fruit and strategies that require minimal cost and effort. Many managers believe investing in people is a major undertaking. But if that logic is correct, and investing in our people is such a big investment, when do we actually invest in our people?

The answer is simple, you must always choose to invest in your people. It must be as part of your culture as much as your sales process. People are the lifeblood of your organization and investing in your people will always give you the maximum ROI.

You must fight the temptation to spend your time and resources on constantly revisiting the low-hanging fruit like implementing a new CRM or a DMS tool. They will not help you improve the lives of your employees or engage them to perform better. They will not help you with employee retention or make a meaningful impact on customer satisfaction. They will not speed up employee growth and development.

I am not against CRMs, DMSs, or any other technologies in your store. I'm simply asking you to stop focusing on doing what's easy and start focusing on the most important, most expensive, and most needed asset in your dealership, your people!

To dealership managers,

People are too important to your success to not have a people strategy. All too often, we hope the right person applies. We hope they decide to work for us and we hope they have the right drive and mindset to succeed. We hope they learn quickly and hope they stay engaged long enough to start making money and see automotive as a great career. If they do decide to stay in automotive, we hope someone else doesn't offer them more and poach them.

We don't run any other asset in our dealership on a hope plan. We have a strategy, a plan, a process for everything else we do. We have meetings for marketing, inventory, forecasting, etc. If there is an issue, we address it. We don't leave it to chance. Why not have a strategy for the success of our people? Why not have a multi-level career path to engage your employees? Why not have a monthly scorecard review to hold them accountable? Why not have an on-demand new-hire orientation to speed up their development?

All these are strategies to help you manage, grow, and retain the most important asset in your dealership, your people. Stop hoping and start strategizing.

To dealership managers,

For many years, the three-ring binder has done a good job of keeping our employees on the same page when it comes to our training needs, processes, and policies. However, this only works if the employees actually look at it. There are other challenges as well. If you have a change, you must print out new versions of it and make sure everyone's folder is up to date. If not, you don't really know what version of the process everyone is training on. This makes it difficult to pivot, make changes, and execute new plans. By now, we are too far into the "internet of things" to keep using these archaic measures to keep our people and organizations aligned.

A good employee management system should allow you:

- Build a digital library of your organization's training, processes, and policies.

- Make changes as needed and update every user automatically.

- Every user should have access to the content and should not have to search for it on someone else's computer or binder.

- Assign your curriculum to Career Pathing, Scorecards, and New Hire orientation, thus improving utilization.

- House 3rd party training curriculum, including vendors.

- Have a search function with filters to help you choose the right training for the right moment.

- Provide reporting on utilization.

- Be interactive with the user and provide a feedback loop with the manager.

- and more.

The purpose of a manager is not to just manage sales, service, or parts processes. It's to help their people develop and grow. The three-ring binder has served its purpose. It's time you take it to the next level.

Best,

To dealership managers,

If you're using Excel to manage your employee development process, you are still better than 80% of managers that don't have a process at all. They still believe that successful employees are born successful and will only invest time and other resources in them if they prove they have what it takes.

With that said, using Excel to grow your top performers is like using your old card file system to do your follow-up. Or using the yellow NADA value guide book for your appraisals. Not only is it archaic, but it's also very time-consuming for the managers. Does the old system work? Sure, however, that's why you got a CRM and an inventory management tool. To be more effective.

A true employee-development process is employee-driven. It helps navigate the employee on their multi-level career path. It delivers the right training at the right time when they are ready for it. It automates the feedback loop between the manager and the employee. It sets the expectation and provides clear accountability metrics for your employees to focus on. More importantly, it motivates them to engage because they want to, not because you told them to.

Stop pulling your hair out trying to engage the modern workforce. Put them in the driver's seat of their own success, properly motivate them, and watch them win.

Thanks,