Postseason Guide to Evaluating Your People
How did I do?
Your employees are the highest cost you have in your business so once your busy season starts to slow down, you’re going to want to take a look at your entire staff and evaluate each individual performance.
Whether it’s a service, parts, or sales manager, evaluate how they did and if they are the right person to take you into next year.
With the help of Dealership Expert Bob Clements, we’ve put together a plan that will help you evaluate your staff so you can move forward with the right team.
TIP: Ask yourself -“Are these the people that are going to help make me successful as I head into next year?”
Questions for each department
Is your service manager making sure your department meets an 85% recovery rate? If not, is it training or an attitude issue that can be fixed for next year?
How good is your parts manager at growing the parts business? Are you growing organically by at least 10% each year? Are they maintaining margins and keeping on top of inventory? Do you have confidence in knowing that if someone calls, your staff will know if the part is available?
Is your sales manager meeting your closing ratio goals? Is your sales team closing at least 45% of the people who walk through your door? Are they upselling?
The rest of your team
Once you’ve evaluated the performance of your managers, it’s time to look at the rest of your employees and determine their overall effectiveness.
Bob and his team at Bob Clements International (BCI) have put together an Organizational Effectiveness Rating Chart that breaks down different types of employees and will help you evaluate your team.
Download BCI’s Organizational Effectiveness Rating Chart
Breaking down the chart
According to Bob, there are 6 types of employees and each has a different level of effectiveness.
Employee #1 is Motivated but Incompetent:
These people are an expensive drain on your management team. They are the people who will come in early and stay late when asked, but they’re also the people you need to explain things to over and over again. Their overall effectiveness rating is 50%.
Employee #2 is Motivated and Competent:
These people tend to be your B-level techs. They can easily look up parts and call people. If are in sales, they close 35% of their prospects, come early and stay late. Their overall effectiveness rating is 75%.
Employee #3 is Highly Motivated and Competent:
These people are a joy to have in your dealership. They probably have a key to your store and don’t require any management supervision from you.
Employee #4 is Unmotivated but Highly Competent:
These people are effective 80% of the time and the ones you need to focus your time and energy on. They are highly skilled but have lost their passion. They used to come in early and stay late, but now you have to squeeze extra favors out of them. These are the people that either feel they are being under-compensated, or you aren’t engaging them as you should. They are starting to disengage from the dealership and your goal needs to be to get them passionate again.
Employee #5 is Unmotivated and Competent:
These people are concerned with how many sick days they have and how much time they can take off. They mess around on the computer instead of staying on task. These people require 50% of your time and are the ones that you need to put on a 30-day corrective path to see if they are worth keeping next season.
Employee #6 is Unmotivated in Incompetent:
These are the worst types of employees to have in your dealership. They require 80% of your time because they aren’t doing what you tell them to do. They have low productivity and give you the sense that they just don’t care anymore. There is nothing you can do to change them because they simply don’t want to be there anymore. These are the people that you need to terminate before your next busy season. When you finally get rid of them, the whole organization will breathe a sigh of relief.
Doing the math
1. Place each employee into a category and mark it in the #of people field.
2. Multiply # of people by O.E.R. in that category. In the example above (category #2): 75 points x 2 employees = 150 points
3. Determine the total points assigned in each category.
4. Add together the total points assigned across all categories and divide them by the total number of employees.
5. Now you’ve got your organization’s overall effectiveness rating!
What’s next?
Once you’ve evaluated each individual, it should give you a solid plan on who to keep, who to reward, who to train, and who to get rid of.
TIP: Remember your goal is not to add more people or be understaffed, but treat your good employees well and pay them well for what they do.
If someone is not working out in your dealership, work out an exit strategy now so you don’t have them eating up your payroll during the slow season, or even worse, have them end up quitting on you when you’re not prepared.
You’ll find that right after the peak season is the best time to start finding new talent because it’s the time when many dealerships start cutting back and reducing staff.
