At least in the operation, not at the holding itself…

Consistently hiring new employees, even when you don’t immediately need them, is necessary for many dealership companies. And yet, in practice, this rarely happens. This week, I recorded a video for a friend who owns a dealership to help him recruit two sales managers. It’s not really my job, but with my network, I might be able to help three people: two to get a new job and my friend with a solution to an urgent problem. The question is: why do we create such a problem?

What do we do ourselves?

At our own company, CARMEN Automotive BDC Jeffrey Silva, we are constantly hiring staff, regardless of whether we immediately need them. We are always looking for new employees that we can hire, train, and prepare for the future. If they are good, and there isn’t extra work at the time, I can either filter further or introduce more flexibility with more part-timers. This makes it easier to distribute my hours.

Of course, there are exceptions

However, large dealer holdings, with some exceptions, do not hire people in advance. They usually wait until a problem arises before taking action. Imagine your sales manager decides to pursue something else, and in the same month, a senior salesperson also resigns. Suddenly, you need two new people. In my opinion, in a large dealer holding, you should be able to call the HR department, explain the problem, and then have them help you fill the gap immediately. For example, by deploying a senior salesperson from location A, who is interested in a new challenge and has been trained by their current branch manager.

The same logic applies to the senior salesperson: they are succeeded by an internally trained, ambitious, and capable junior salesperson who is ready for the next step. Suddenly, people leaving becomes an advantage, not a problem.

In my view, in a large dealer holding, you should be able to call the HR department, explain the problem, and then have them help you immediately fill the gap.

Reality

In practice, the branch manager must solve the problem on their own, while HR is only there for contracts, issues, and administration. They don’t provide solutions in a tight labor market, while a proactive HR policy would be in place to keep operations from being jeopardized. It costs so much more to go a month without a salesperson than to have someone ready to go. Dare to look through the numbers. Now, to hire someone, anyone who vaguely fits the bill gets hired because something is better than nothing…

It can’t be that in some dealerships, the branch manager is making invoices at the service desk… because there’s no one else, and yes, it really happens.

The in-house academy

Many holdings don’t follow this approach. One exception is Zeeuw en Zeeuw, who train their future managers and salespeople through their own academy. Indeed, this is the entrepreneur’s responsibility. In your own academy, you can do more than just learn, but I’ll get to that later.

If I had 40 stores, I would have the HR department hire at least five people every month, ranging from salespeople to prospective receptionists, to train them through a management traineeship over a year and prepare them for Position A at Location Y within the same holding. During that year, they could rotate through every department, learn, but perhaps also find their true passion and place.

Knowing that 60 won’t remain after a year, I can consistently fill positions I lose for any reason. Sure, I can try to make sure no one ever wants to leave, but in today’s labor market, that’s an illusion. What I can do is improve my long-term personnel policy.

Hertz US example

At Hertz, they have a big problem hiring the right people for airport desks. The HR department has used the same procedure for years, where the vacancy isn’t specific to that position but for a traineeship that can grow into a vice president role for a region, with a salary of €250,000.

The traineeship starts with a normal salary, lasts a minimum of ten years, and offers candidates the opportunity to grow into that position, provided they receive good evaluations and complete all the steps.

The first step is the role of a desk clerk, which lasts at least a year. There, you really get to know the company. Of the 100 people they hire, one becomes a vice president. Some make good progress and stay at Hertz, some leave, and some just stay working at the airport desk, because life doesn’t always go as you think or hope.

The HR department

We are always looking for people because we have an urgent problem, and that problem is ultimately only felt in the store and not at the headquarters!

In my opinion, the HR department is responsible for the hit-and-run phenomenon that characterizes our industry. Just look on LinkedIn… We are always looking for people because we have an urgent problem, and that problem is ultimately only felt in the operation. The HR department should be facilitating; things like contracts are just hygiene factors. We could sell a lot more new and used cars, parts, and hours if we created the staffing we can facilitate. And that is amazingly more than now. With 18 million Dutch people, the people are definitely there, but without a plan, no one will come to work for us…