Team structure and measurement are fundamentals for car retail success, opinion

As economic tensions prompt many car retailers to ramp-up efficiencies once again, the effectiveness of the sector's workforce has never been more important.

Here, former Cambria Automobiles operations and business development director and former Drive Motor Retail managing director Chris Roberts advises on how to structure a workforce for success.

What do you expect from your team? Performance, commitment, loyalty, integrity, customer service excellence and common sense? Probably all these and more.

However, do they clearly know and understand your expectations and that of the business? Probably questions on which everyone in senior management roles should reflect.

To get the best out of your people, you need a clear understanding of all roles and responsibilities, plus a timely framework of objective setting and performance measurement for everyone.

So, what are the basic building blocks for success?

Firstly, within your business, do you clearly understand what an effective team structure looks like?

It should have a construct that contains the right roles, occupied by rightly skilled and capable people.

Sounds simple, but by doing some detailed analysis of the effectiveness of your current team and structure you may find that you have gaps in people, skill levels, management expertise and technical knowledge.

This can be measured in its most basic form through sales volumes, margins, and efficiencies, but also, importantly, in staff retention.

Poorly managed, unfocused, de-motivated or unhappy employees tend not to stay. Do you know why people leave your business?

Exit interviews are a great tool and can help you identify fundamental problems with process and management capability.

With the right skillsets and measurement tools the management team should be able to identify areas of opportunity in their departments and subsequently drill down to the individual performances of their team members.

If not, then that in itself shows a training need, or indeed, maybe just having the wrong managers in place.

Making the right manager appointments

Management skillsets are often lacking due to the promotion of the ‘best’ salesperson or advisor to the role of manager.

In businesses with issues, this is often a clear and transparent issue.

Sometimes, people who are excellent at driving volumes and their own performance simply don’t have the ability to manage others effectively.

Management roles require a clear level of skills often disconnected from operational ability.

As with football, the best players are often not the best managers.

Of course, skills can be trained, but the innate ability to manage effectively should be a primary requirement in recruitment to these key roles.

Additionally, a lack of management training can be a real issue as sometimes it is seen as expensive and worthless.

Believe me when I say the ROI of effective training is tangible and will pay back if invested in the right people.

In scoping out productive roles in the business, some science can be applied around the budgeted and forecast volumes of vehicle sales, service hours and parts to determine how much headcount should be in each area of the business.

However, always take account of shift systems and absences through training and holidays, not to mention any potential leavers.

Should a business consider the possibility of implementing flexible working patterns? Having these attracts a wider breadth of applications and opens up the talent pool to bring in skilled people who are sometimes put off by prescriptive hours and working patterns.

Most people like to be managed

With regard to performance measurement, in truth, most people like to be managed.

To achieve the objectives, as set out in my opener, all associates need to have clarity on your expectations.

The obvious basics of employment will be defined in their contract; hours of work, holidays, basic pay etc, but operational expectations are often not.

Therefore, it is vital that from their induction and then on an ongoing basis, everyone has a clear set of objectives which are time bound and achievable to focus their activities and ensure their performance can be measured at regular intervals through either one-to-one appraisals or formal performance discussions.

Regularity of measurement is key to ensure the associate knows whether they are performing well or poorly, and in what areas.

They can then be coached or trained on identified specific items to effect improvement.

Performance levels can then be continuously measured against baseline objectives to ascertain and track improvements (or not). No surprises for anyone…

To effectively achieve you overall business objectives, your team structure should be configured in such a way that everyone needs to contribute equally to ensure a balanced business is maintained and cost-effective returns are generated.

A 100% contribution from everyone should be the underlying rationale.

Through effective appraisals, anyone not producing their contribution can be handled in a constructive way to ensure both they, and the business, benefit from their personal development.

In simple terms, building and managing your team from the top down in a professional and effective way is always key to success.

Ask yourself truthfully if your team is well structured and they know what is expected of them through clear measurable objectives that will ensure you hit your business plan.

If you have any doubts, take some action now.