Remarketing
felt that they couldn’t leave, and now this is all coming to the fore.
“Every single day, the phone calls I get are unbelievable. They’re about problems that started in 2019 and 2020. They’ve all been put on hold… those problems that were there but had been put away, are now coming out.”
Crooks adds that the widespread home/ hybrid working dynamic, induced by the pandemic, often crops up. Some staff are dead keen on it, others want to be back at work, and those who cannot or are not permitted to work remotely sometimes want to.
She advises offering flexible working where possible as a retention technique, but concedes that it is not appropriate in all cases, especially those that involve moving vehicles around.
Pay is a big one, especially when rival employers are offering more (see our aforementioned technician example for details) and Crooks claims that 25% of job-leavers are motivated by it. However, that means “75% leave for other reasons”, culture, engagement and staff wellbeing among them.
“89% of workers at companies that support wellbeing initiatives are more likely to recommend their company to be a good place to work,” explains Crooks,
“it’s about finding out what is going to help employees and make them feel valued, [because] 73% of leavers have low trust in their company’s leadership.” Training, and in-person appraisals (or at least individual ones conducted over Teams or Zoom), are equally important for retention: “The last six exit interviews I’ve done have been around professional development opportunities,” she adds, “94% of employees would stay at a company longer if they knew the company was going to invest in helping them learn. “Keeping up to date with reviews and one-to-ones is really important. People say ‘with Covid, we haven’t been able to do that…’ it’s even more important that you get back on track with giving that feedback.”
Hanging onto employees is one thing; finding new ones to fill the gap is quite another. It is not a new idea, but recruiting outside of the sector is a good start, and it is something that has long been trumpeted by the IMI’s Nash, who told Business Car in 2021 that, “people only think about it when somebody leaves. They phone up the recruiters and say ‘I want a clone of that person tomorrow morning’, and that just doesn’t happen.”
BCA has been shopping for staff from elsewhere for some time, as COO, Stuart
Pearson, explains: “Attracting people from outside the automotive sector is important, not only because it makes sense to widen the pool of talent generally, but also because it brings fresh ideas into our business and the sector as a whole. “Earlier this year, we staged a special careers event at the BCA Rockingham centre in Corby, with the aim of appealing to anyone interested in working in the automotive sector – regardless of whether they had existing experience. The one-day event attracted a wide range of people,
the one big thing employers across all industries miss – be it in the scramble to fill vacant posts or because it plays second fiddle to more tangible factors, such as experience – is behaviour.
“Only one in four people would be hired again if managers had a second chance,” she explains, “it’s very, very difficult, when you’re really up against it, to get the right people in.
“It’s very easy to miss something you’re not looking for… and it’s all about the behaviours, so when we’re recruiting
“Attracting people from outside the automotive sector is important.”
with a number of individuals currently being recruited into roles across the business as a result.” The auction giant told Business Car it plans to hold a series of other recruitment events during the year, including a pitch at the British Motor Show’s Career expo in August. It also runs graduate and apprentice training programmes, including specialist schemes for transporter drivers, mechanics and vehicle inspectors. As a final thought, Crooks believes that
people, it’s trying to get under the skin of their behaviours – and this is certainly how I recruit.
“I use psychometric testing [and] various [other] tests and assessments to try and figure out what they’re like. Are they the right fit for this business? Have they got the right behaviours? If they have, we can probably teach them the knowledge, we can give them the skills and the experience, but that behaviour is something that a lot of people really miss out on.”
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