CADA 360 Drive HR integrates AI and automation to improve accuracy, culture, and employee engagement.
A new wave of innovation is redefining dealership HR, giving dealers something they’ve never fully had before: real control over people risk, compliance, and culture.
The CADA 360 Drive HR platform, powered by DealerPILOT’s DriveHRIS, is rolling out to dealers across Canada. It blends automation, compliance, and intelligence into one connected experience, so HR leaders can stop managing tasks and start managing impact.
“This isn’t a facelift or an upgrade of an old system,” said Michael Stassen, President and CEO of DriveHRIS, in an interview with Canadian auto dealer. “We built CADA 360 Drive HR completely from scratch to handle AI and automation natively. It’s not an overlay or a plug-in. Intelligence is built into how the system operates.”
For years, dealers have used HR systems to handle payroll and training. But most legacy platforms were designed long before today’s dealership realities: when dealership consolidation, complex health and safety compliance, and integrated data became the norm. “Older systems carry a lot of technical debt,” said Stassen. “You can keep patching them, but that slows everything down. We wanted a clean foundation that can evolve with dealers for the next decade and beyond.”
That foundation is designed to address risk in a more proactive way. CADA 360 Drive HR automates documentation and approvals that keep dealers compliant while surfacing potential issues before they become problems.
Dealers track every financial risk in real time, yet the greatest variable in their business is still people. Drive HR helps them measure that risk before it costs performance or reputation. Drive HR gives them the tools to control it.
Michael Psotka, CADA’s CFO and Executive Director of Member Services, said the new system fits perfectly with the association’s risk management philosophy. “Given the exposure and liability dealers face, automation backed by intelligence isn’t just the next step, it’s the safeguard modern dealers can’t operate without,” he said. “It helps with risk management, creates accuracy, saves time, and ensures nothing gets missed.”
CADA 360 Drive HR automates every stage of the employee lifecycle linking each record and task in one secure, digital environment.
Recruitment and onboarding are handled electronically: dealers can post directly to job boards, manage applicants through the mobile app, issue offer letters, and have new hires complete onboarding and policy acknowledgements online without any manual paperwork.
Training and compliance are built in through an integrated Learning Management System (LMS) that hosts both HR training and CADA resources, including the new Anti-Fraud Guide and health and safety modules. Completion data can even link to the CADA 360 Garage Insurance program to demonstrate compliance.
Performance management is automated as well, with pay bands, review cycles, and approvals controlled within the platform. Raises or bonuses that fall outside parameters trigger alerts before they become errors or policy breaches.
Scheduling, time tracking, and payroll are fully integrated. Shift scheduling, time-off accruals, and year-end rollovers run automatically, with secure connections to a wide variety of payroll processing systems.
On the employee cultural side, CADA 360 Drive HR helps leaders listen at scale, using comprehensive configurable surveys and sentiment insights to surface what’s working, where engagement is slipping, and how to close the gap. “It’s all about listening first,” said Stassen. “That’s how you improve culture and retention.”
Even offboarding is handled cleanly, with digital checklists, exit surveys, and automatic account deactivation through single sign-on integration.
“Every phase of employment carries risk,” said Stassen. “ CADA 360 Drive HR automates the guardrails, so managers can lead confidently and focus on people, not paperwork.”
As dealership groups expand, balancing consistency with flexibility has become a major HR challenge. Daniel Locksley, DealerPILOT’s Vice President of Product Innovation, said CADA 360 Drive HR was designed specifically to address that.
“As dealer groups expand, they need one system that drives consistency without killing flexibility, a platform that can scale rules and respect local realities. “said Locksley. “CADA 360 Drive HR gives them a single environment that can do both.”
“At the end of the day, you can standardize across 20 stores or customize down to an individual employee at just one store,” added Stassen. “That’s the level of control today’s dealer groups expect.”
Drive HR is also central to CADA’s broader effort to connect its member programs and reduce administrative friction.
Through its LMS, for example, the system hosts CADA 360 Garage Insurance training. “If a dealer can show that every employee has completed the course, that’s proof of compliance and prevention,” said Psotka. “That documentation can influence risk assessments and potentially lower premiums. The synergies between CADA 360 programs can be a significant cost saver for dealers. It’s too large to ignore.“
The next phase is full integration with the CADA 360 Employee Benefits platform. Dealers will soon be able to push new-hire data directly from CADA 360 Drive HR into the benefits system in one click, eliminating duplicate entry and missed deadlines. “No other HR platform in Canada connects compliance, culture, and care this seamlessly,” said Psotka. “It’s unique to CADA 360 members and designed to make life easier for our dealers.”
CADA 360 Drive HR’s artificial intelligence is embedded directly into its workflows. It uses AI to parse résumés, rank candidates, summarize applications, and identify trends such as hiring velocity, training completion, and turnover.
“AI isn’t a buzzword for us, it’s how we turn information into insight, and insight into action,” said Stassen. “We’re using it to detect patterns and flag anomalies, not to replace human judgment. It gives managers better information, faster.”
Future updates will deepen those capabilities, expanding AI analytics across recruiting, engagement, and compliance. But the core goal remains constant: helping dealers reclaim time and reduce exposure.
“When HR runs smoothly, leaders can spend less time reacting and more time driving performance, engagement, and growth,” said Stassen. “We’ve automated the parts that create risk so dealers can focus on the parts that create value.”
CADA 360 Drive HR is now available to all CADA members. Existing DealerPILOT users can transition at their own pace, while new customers start directly on the new platform.
“CADA 360 Drive HR has earned exceptional retention among both upgrading and new customer dealers, a clear sign that the system has exceptional product market fit “ said Stassen. “That tells us we’re delivering what the market needs: a modern, mobile, compliant HR system that truly manages risk and drives HR performance. It’s the only system that is built for dealers by dealers.”
Dealers can visit cada.ca/cada360 for more information about CADA 360 Drive HR or other CADA 360 programs, including Garage Insurance, Employee Benefits, Retirement Savings, and Security Services.
