Culture Is What Keeps Them

I recently attended a conference with several training tracks for our industry. I decided to sit in on some of the training sessions. One thing I noticed as I listened to dealers ask questions: some of the questions being asked by dealers weren’t inventory, financing, compliance, or advertising. They're what to do about employee attitudes today.

I was surprised that many of the answers never really satisfied the ones asking or got to the root of the problem. They weren't looking for another HR policy or another management buzzword. They were looking for a way to build a dealership where people actually want to come to work and do a good job.

Culture has become one of those overused business words. Everyone says they want a "great culture," but very few define what that actually means. I was surprised that creating a good culture came up and then was defined, IMHO, incorrectly.

Culture is not your pay plan. Culture is not your employee handbook. Culture is not your disciplinary policy. Culture is not free coffee in the break room or putting your mission statement on the wall. Culture is what it feels like to work in your dealership (or any business) every single day.

For most employees, they spend more waking hours with their coworkers than they do with their own families. Whether that's a reflection of home life or work life doesn't really matter. What does matter is that those hours cannot be miserable if you expect people to perform at a high level. People don't generally quit because they had one bad day. They quit because every day they see or experience another reason to leave.

One of the biggest killers of attitudes is allowing the wrong people to stay. Every employee in your dealership knows who isn't pulling their weight. They know who shows up late, who cuts corners, who creates drama, who treats customers poorly, who ignores procedures, and who gets away with behavior everyone else would be disciplined for. Often, when the bad apple is a producer, management ignores those problems, it sends a powerful message to every good employee: The boss isn’t going to do anything about the jerk. Nothing destroys morale faster than special treatment for the wrong person.

I have been asked to help some owners to figure out what is keeping the business from improving. I have gone in and told owners to terminate General Managers because of how bad they were at dealing with the team. I have walked into dealerships and immediately felt tension. I will interview a few of the employees privately and it doesn’t take long to get the story on why all the tension. Most times there is no tenure, everyone is basically new. I have also told more than one owner they needed to stop dealing with the employees, let the GM of Office Manager handle everything and you try to stay out of the building.

Many managers/owners assume employees know what "doing a good job" means. They don't.Your expectations have to be clearly communicated. Not just the end result— but the process. Too often, new employees are simply told to "shadow Joe for a couple of weeks." Often Joe is not actually doing everything correctly, he has learned what he can and cannot get away with. He probably has the “ask for forgiveness” attitude and blows off most actual process when he has a deal working. Many managers allow bad habits because they are too busy, don’t like training or discipline and instead want new hires to suddenly be producing in a few days. Hire fast, fire faster. If new hires are thrown to the wolves and are constantly being berated for doing wrong or hate that jackhole boss, they leave at lunch and don’t come back.

Training isn't something you finish during the first week. Training is observation and coaching. Coaching is correction by positive reinforcement. The best managers understand the details of the game and coach constantly. What kind of manager are you? Impatient or always angry? Do you avoid the newby because you are too busy or don’t really like them? Do you only speak to employees when something goes wrong or do you intentionally connect with every person on your team often?

Great leaders notice things and create a culture. They notice when someone's attitude changes. Like they notice when someone who is normally energetic becomes quiet or frustrated. Sometimes all it takes is asking, "You seem off today. Everything okay? Is there anything I can do to help?" That conversation doesn't always solve the problem and it has to be sincere but I have asked plenty of employees that were out of sorts “who do I need to beat up for you”? Tell me and I’ll go straighten them out! Let your people know they matter to you.

Now let's talk about fun. Some managers believe having fun at work somehow lowers productivity. That has never been the case for me. When I’m in charge we are going to have fun. I always give the “no eggshells speech”. When I hire some one new I explain our culture which is understanding the hours and frustration but we also pull the rope together and in one direction. You might hear us poke fun at a customer or each other. You may even hear an off color joke but we have to enjoy being at work. If you are easily offended, you probably won’t make it in this atmosphere. We aren’t going to be walking on eggshells for you.

We celebrate wins together and we got jokes. We understand the dependency and team effort it takes to be the best and get everything done. You absolutely can have a fun workplace while maintaining high expectations.

We are going to celebrate birthdays and buy a cake that looks like road kill or someone’s foot! Gag gifts are OK. I’m going to make my briskets and potato salad for Thanksgiving or Christmas and hand write cards for everyone (not always flattering). Everyone has a nickname (they usually earned) and we all helped each other instead of undermining or causing someone else to have to do extra work. Send someone for donuts or chicken biscuits some days as a surprise. Reward someone who did something extra without it being planned, let everyone know.

It is not great pay that keeps people it’s having a good workplace and everyone feeling part of it. That's culture and culture isn't built during any meeting. It is the example set everyday and everyone from the top down working together. My dealerships were not all about me, they were the people behind me doing the hard work, telling me stupid jokes and having a good time doing it!