Ask any car dealer about recruitment and they will almost always say the key is to hire the right person and incentivise them to stay. But how do you do that in an ongoing and cost-effective way?

Sue Robinson, director of the National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA), said dealers should take their time when recruiting: “A dealership’s staff are one of its most important assets, and this should be reflected in both the recruitment process and how employees are treated and nurtured throughout their careers.

“When recruiting, it is important to look for staff as widely as possible and not rely too heavily on industry-specific recruitment channels. There are plenty of industries outside of motoring that offer excellent customer service, and employees working in these sectors would often be perfect additions to dealer staff.

“Once a candidate has been selected for an interview, the interview process must be thorough and dealers must follow up the references provided by applicants.

“It sounds obvious, but traditionally dealers are very poor at checking references, which can cost them in the long run.

However, she said the most important thing was to make sure the process continues once the right candidate has been found.

“Time and effort should be spent on the employee after they have been hired. It is about retaining employees as much as gaining new ones. It is essential that appropriate training is provided, and to make them feel valued and supported as they progress in their career and ‘climb the ladder’.”

As with all businesses, dealers are looking to keep a tight leash on costs, but limiting spending too much when it comes to staff could damage a business.

Dealers need to employ people with the drive and motivation to make the business succeed. A staff reward scheme can boost that motivation, but is often considered a ‘cost’ by dealers.

Swansway director Peter Smyth told the AM & IMI People Conference that his company once spent £30,000 celebrating 140 staff working for the company for 10 years. However, he was quick to point out that motivating your staff can be free.

“Say thank you and say it a lot. Don’t just send an email, pick up the phone. We really do appreciate it as a family, and it costs nothing.”

Blackshaws, a family-owned company  running Suzuki and Nissan franchises in the Alnwick, Northumberland area that employs 41 people, has a similarly frugal approach to recruitment budgets – it doesn’t have one.

Managing director Will Blackshaw said: “All interviewing is done in-house with myself and our HR manager. We do a first interview, then we get them back in for a second.

“This involves the person spending a day on site to make sure they’re right for us as much we are for them. It should always be a two-way thing.

“When interviewing, experience is good but attitude and their preparation are important to me. Have they visited our company website? Do they know what we are about? If you get the values and environment right, people shouldn’t leave often.”

Blackshaw said he thought the future of recruitment In dealerships would heavily involve apprentices, with the Government constantly putting focus on businesses employing more young talent and announcing a levy on large businesses to fund more.

“Our current balance of staff is 60/40, with 40% of current staff coming in as an apprentices. We hope this figure will grow over time,” he added.

“Utilising recruitment agencies incurs costly fees and we usually find that employees placed via an agency have a shorter length of service”

Elle Gates, Spire Automotive

In contrast to Blackshaws’ low-cost, in-house solution, Elle Gates, group human resources manager at Spire Automotive, has a different approach, with a strong emphasis on cost. Spire explores as many channels as possible, she said, not just to get the right cost, but also to get the right people.

“We look at many cost-effective tools. For example, a package with CV Library is £12,000 per annum, with the opportunity to post over 180 jobs per year (which automatically post to LinkedIn) and unlimited candidate search facilities. Basically, it’s a tool agencies use and by managing it ourselves, it takes out the middleman. Like a lot of companies we have utilised social media, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and have a lot of success in this area.

“The use of social media also gives our department managers an element of autonomy, they can simply post a link on their social media pages (reaching an even  wider audience) which drives back traffic  to our website careers page.

“The challenge is while you get quantity of responses, the quality is harder to source.”

The cost is not the only issue with using agencies, she said.

“Utilising recruitment agencies incurs costly fees, no matter how tough your negotiating skills are, and we usually find that employees placed via an agency have a shorter length of service than those who join us through other mediums. However, on occasion, it is a necessary evil.”

When it comes to technicians, however, Spire too adopts an in-house solution.

“Technical roles have always been a challenge to recruit for, and increasingly we are finding it more difficult to find manufacturer-trained technicians, especially within the prestige sector,” said Gates.

“As a result, a few years ago we decided on the ‘grow your own’ philosophy and have increased the volume of apprentice technicians we have coming into the group year-on-year.”

Spire also has an ethos of promoting and developing from within.

“We recognise talent from the beginning, especially in entry roles to the business such as receptionists, drivers, site co-ordinators etc and progress those individuals very quickly into key roles. As a result, we find that we are recruiting, more often than not, to backfill the entry roles mostly.”

While a ‘promote from within’ strategy should mean most vacancies are at entry-level, it is difficult to plan for the unexpected, so what do you do when someone unexpectedly leaves?

Gates said Spire finds it fairly straightforward to get temporary cover with existing staff for roles such as service advisers or sales executives, but more difficult for more specialised staff, and again will consult agencies if people are spread too thin.

Blackshaw said: “We don’t really have a back-up plan for someone leaving. We just continue to bring in apprentices so that if we lose someone we hopefully have someone in the wings.

“For someone who has been recruiting in the industry for many years, on reflection there was always a culture that you only employed someone who had motor industry experience,” Gates said.

“When employing for a sales role, the mindset would be that you’d only entertain CVs from an established industry professional. Historically, there would have been an excess of these CVs and the role of sales executive itself was always considered transient, with individuals jumping to the next most successful and popular brand, but that experience appears to be drying up, which is why we’ve been changing tack.”

Ken Cumming, a profit optimiser at ASE, warned: “Fishing in the potential employee pond where everyone else fishes means you catch what others have thrown back. What we should be doing is to hire the people with the right personality traits, not with years of experience. It may not be good experience.”

Spire believes it can train its new employees in the required sales and service processes, saying the desire to provide memorable customer experiences is the essential characteristic when recruiting.