Employee Turnover and Low Morale in Auto Dealerships: How Can We Improve?

I am working in a reputed automobile dealership, and we are offering a comparatively good salary package and other benefits to our employees. The major problem that we are facing is employee turnover and a group of depressed employees. I need your valuable advice to overcome these problems and improve employee morale in our organization.

Regards

Let me suggest the following measures:

1. Recruiting the right person is a prerequisite. Don't merely fill the post; look for candidates who have a gleam in their eyes. They are the right ones provided they fit the other requisites. Recruitment is not an easy job. Just because someone is academically qualified may not mean they fit best. You need to search them out.

2. Employee engagement is most urgent. Keep them engaged in the affairs of the company at their levels, provide them hope for the future, and assure them of fair judgment through policy implementation.

3. Periodic training needs to be designed for your organization. Training is mostly considered a waste of time and money. When the shoulders sag, only a sense of purpose through training can lift them up.

Lastly, you need someone who can implement this in the right earnest and has a knack, bearing on intuition, knowledge, and experience.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Robin Varghese

Email: [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons]

Blog: http://www.delhiyounglad.blogspot.com

Employee turnover may occur due to the following reasons. Please check within your company:

1. Treatment of new employees, regardless of salary - human relations are poor, superiors don't treat their subordinates well, etc.
2. If your company is in a remote location from the city and you don't provide any transport or canteen facilities.
3. If employees are required to work beyond normal working hours (eight hours) and during the weekly holiday.
4. Unsafe working conditions leading to too many accidents at work.

If any of the above conditions exist, please take corrective actions.

Suggestions for Improvement

Additionally, I suggest the following:

1. Welcome new employees when they report for duty. Conduct an introductory training session covering the company profile, products, customers, future business projections, collaborations, recognitions, awards received by the company, etc.
2. Explain the company's organizational chart, the new employee's position and reporting relationships, the function of their department in the organization, and how their role is vital. This should be explained by the department head they will be working with.
3. Outline the company's promotion policy, annual appraisal system, and future prospects based on meeting management expectations. This should be explained by the department head.
4. Educate employees on the company's rules, regulations, and workplace safety discipline.

Fostering Employee Participation

The next step is to foster an atmosphere of employee participation in the company's growth. Here are some suggestions:

1. Hold a meeting with all employees to discuss the company's business plan for the next year.
2. Define the company's goals based on the above.
3. Task individual departments with identifying objectives aligned with the company's goals.
4. Define the objectives of individual employees in each department.
5. Notify all employees that performance assessment criteria will be based on meeting their "defined objectives."
6. Recognize and reward good performance publicly.
7. Organize training sessions on motivation, positive thinking, leadership, time management, team building, conflict resolution, etc.
8. Ensure that each department head has informal discussions with their subordinates to understand their issues, aspirations, and take necessary actions to maintain their satisfaction.
9. Arrange an annual get-together for all employees outside the company premises, including entertainment programs and dinner.

By implementing these steps, you can enhance employee involvement and empowerment.

Regards,
Satish Akut

Some more suggestions which can be easily/quickly implemented:

1) Conduct an Exit Interview
Try speaking to people who have already left a while ago to understand why they left, what they are currently doing, how much they are earning, etc. This may provide you with further feedback. You may also find some of them willing to come back.

2) Conduct a Confidential Employee Survey
This can be as simple as putting workers in a room with a paper questionnaire which they answer without revealing their names at any place, and then drop the same in a box.

3) Implement a Suggestion/Grievance Box
This allows people to express what is bothering them without revealing their identities. By identifying any emerging patterns, you can address these pain points accordingly.

All of the above suggestions will provide you with leads towards necessary interventions, trainings, etc. as required.

Have you tried giving them a car each?  That might boost their morale into 'overdrive'  [On a serious note, read about the diamond merchant that provided cars to his employees, Infosys CEO providing iPhone 6s to their top performers, and multiple such instances].

On a Serious Note

This topic is commonplace, and I'll monitor this thread on a daily basis to see if there are any unusual answers here. I think the issue afflicting all of us in the HR environment is that we tend to keep spewing the same ideas over and over, and we now need to ideate our own ways to address such issues. Clearly, the global MNC culture of employee engagement isn't going to work in the Indian context simply because we blindly emulated the Western model, and it's time to change.