By Alysha Webb, Editor and Publisher
I visited the Dealer.com headquarters in Burlington, Vermont last week. I and several other journalists were settled in a fourth-floor room with a wall consisting of glass windows looking out on grassy lawn. I noticed a group of five or six people gathered at one end of the balcony holding golf putters. I realized they were playing a round on the mini-golf course along the outer edge of the balcony, in the middle of the work day.
That kind of balanced workplace experience is “the most important factor in keeping people engaged and excited’ about working at Dealer.com, Denise Leopoldino, the company’s director of workforce vitality, tells Automotive Buy Sell Report.
From mid-day putt-putt rounds and yoga classes to flexible work hours and community projects, Dealer.com makes a huge effort to create a very specific kind of corporate culture – one that appeals to Millennials.
For Dealer.com, whose workforce is 73 percent Millennials, that is crucial. But it is fast becoming crucial for other businesses as well, including dealerships.
According to consultancy DHG, within the next ten years, three-quarters of the work force will be composed of Millennials, a term referring to those born from the early 1980’s to the mid- to late-1990’s.
“Accommodating the wants and needs of this up-and-coming population of spry employees will be critical in keeping your dealership running smoothly,” Suzanne Malo, senior manager at DHG Search writes in “Embracing the Dealership Millennial Psyche,” a DHG publication.
“It is no secret that having the right people in place directly impacts a dealership’s bottom line success,” she says.
Currently, dealerships are hiring many Millennials, but those hires aren’t sticking around.
According to the 2018 NADA Dealership Workforce Study, Millennials comprised 58 percent of all new hires in 2017, says Fleming Ford, vice president of people strategy at ESi Trends, the firm that put together the study.
The study found that turnover among Millennials rose from 57 percent in 2016 to 60 percent in 2017.
Total dealership employee turnover in 2017 was 46 percent, up from 42 percent in 2016.
Connecting to something more than work
Dealer.com also has a basketball court, on-site Cross Fit training, and a cafeteria serving food using locally-sourced ingredients, among other amenities. It offers myriad opportunities for employees to engage with the local community through volunteer programs.
Dealer.com gives grants to local programs supporting sustainable agriculture; early childhood and youth healthy living; and science, technology, engineering, art and math programs, among other causes.
“People want to feel connected to something more than work,” says Leopoldino.
Its managers walk the walk – they, too, volunteer and take time out of their work day for non-work activities, to show they support the culture.
“There is a tremendous amount of flexibility,” says Leopoldino. “People don’t need to work around the clock. That is not our attitude.”
Flexibility and work-life balance are “pivotal” to retaining Millennials, whose “intolerance for these rigid schedules is a leading source of turnover,” says DHG Search’s Malo.
Try to grasp what motivates Millennials, she suggests.
“Dealers must first understand what matters to them, as their values are quite distinct from the Generation X and baby boomer workforce that once occupied the industry,” says Malo
Dealer.com, part of the Cox Automotive empire, provides digital marketing and retailing support and training to dealerships. It also builds dealership websites and helps dealerships optimize their digital advertising, among other services.
It sees a new opportunity in spreading its Millennial-friendly culture, which aims to have a positive impact on the local environment and community.
“We would like to branch out to helping dealerships do that in their community,” says Leopoldino.
One Comment
Carl Nyman
Great article highlighting the use of readily available data indicating several common issues with many dealership organizations. The question is; Who is looking at the data and realizing what this failure to adapt to a different type of worker is actually costing in terms of customer opportunities, satisfaction , and ultimately net profit?