Using social media well can help attract and retain key talent
I always tell managers that they are always in HR mode.
I tell them how they should always be thinking about how to grow their team and develop existing employees.
Sometimes we have employees that we are concerned about and are always working on trying to help them along. Unfortunately we even have employees that we know need to be replaced.
I want to talk about using LinkedIn as an HR tool in after-sales. I don’t claim to be a social media specialist or great marketer but bear with me.
I strongly believe that employees don’t leave because of pay, they leave because of the culture. When you catch your team doing something right, celebrate it.
When I worked as a fixed ops manager I was on LinkedIn every single day.
Now I wasn’t there to post pictures of what I had for breakfast but I used it for attracting talent to my dealership.
Like I said before you are always, always in HR mode. We are always looking for new talent. When I was a manager I always wanted to hire a person that was smarter than me and made me look good. What does this have to do with LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a great tool to build your after-sales team. The first thing I would recommend is create a LinkedIn account if you don’t already have one.
Once you have that account set up, connect with people you know and build your followers. Start to become active on LinkedIn. Start connecting with automotive technicians and service advisors.
Parts managers, start connecting with other parts managers and parts advisors. When you are sitting around and watching television in the evening, find people you know and just keep hitting connect, connect, connect.
Then comes the second part of all this. I want you to think about being the manager that catches people doing stuff “right.” As managers we are so good at catching people doing things “wrong” but how about we become a leader and catch people doing stuff right?
I strongly believe that employees don’t leave because of pay, they leave because of the culture. When you catch your team doing something right, celebrate it.
Maybe it was a difficult diagnosis and you walked out to your workshop and thanked your technician for fixing that car. Have someone take a picture of you shaking your technician’s hand.
Maybe you have a great CSI score and you gather your entire after-sales team together and hand out coffees and donuts to celebrate this achievement. Snap a photo of the team enjoying their coffee and apple fritters.
When you hit your sales target for the month and you are having that celebratory BBQ snap a photo. If you take your team out for an evening of chicken wings and bowling …take a picture.
When I had an apprentice write and get their license I would bring in a cake and gather the team around the cake and snap a team photo. Collect and post these photos on LinkedIn.
Tell the audience what you are celebrating or what fun event you are having with your team. This does two things. You will be recognizing an employee or your team for doing something great. It also tells everyone on LinkedIn that you are a fun place to work.
The newly-licensed tech that is working for your competition will see from your post celebrating a newly licensed tech in your shop being recognized by you and the team with a celebratory cake.
The tech in the other shop will be thinking: “No one did anything like that for me here.”
Perhaps a tech at a dealership across town will see a photo of you shaking hands with one of your techs thanking them for working so diligently on a difficult repair. That tech that sees that will think: “No one ever thanks me for my hard work here.”
I would suggest you try to post something once a week. Again you are trying to find something going right. Then, if you are looking for someone to fill a new or open position, you should post something saying that you’re looking for a technician to add to your team. Followers will reach out to you and apply.
With all the positive things that you have been posting about working at your dealership this will make folks want to work for you.
I was involved in opening a dealership in Switzerland and during the interview process our general manager asked the candidate applying to be a tech at this new dealership: “Why do you want to work for us?”
His response was: “Because I see your service manager on LinkedIn having a bbq for his staff and thanking them for their hard work. I want to work for a place like that!”
It does work and social media can reach faraway places…give it a try.
