How a car dealership tackled inadequate L&D in the motor industry head on
Car dealerships have had something of a bad rap in popular culture. Whether it’s the wheeler-dealing Arthur Daley or the lascivious Swiss Toni, they are invariably portrayed as unprofessional or incompetent. The stereotype, however, couldn’t be further away from the experience of stepping through the doors at Vindis Group.
With 17 retail sites across six counties, the fast-growing franchise has doubled in size over the past 12 years, and now employs 800 people, from apprentice mechanic to experienced head of business. Founded in 1960, the franchise is still very much a family-run affair, and now sells vehicles from across Volkswagen Group’s range, from commercial vans to high-class Bentleys and Ducati motorcycles.
Selling and servicing several brands of vehicle meant that Vindis had more than adequate manufacturer-specific knowledge, but with the growth of the business there was a need to develop wider skillsets. And that’s where its L&D initiatives come in.
Not happy to simply make do in an industry where, historically, training “didn’t get the focus it deserved”, head of HR Victoria Stubbs has recently overseen the development of its own, bespoke, training provision.
“It’s absolutely about succession planning,” says Stubbs, who leads the HR team at the group’s head office in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Having grown up in Norfolk, she started her working life selling “big coastal-going cruisers” but, after relocating to Cambridge, it was a choice between selling canal boats – not quite the same prestige – or trying something new. Joining Vindis in 2004 as a receptionist at Huntingdon Audi, she worked in roles across the company before rejoining HR in 2012 – a function she first experienced aged 18.
While Vindis still views the training offered by manufacturers as valuable, there was a need to develop learning that was specific to the individuals on the course and the environment in which they would apply it, says Stubbs. Retailers within the motor industry are also vastly different, she says. “You can get some very small retailers, which have no recruitment or L&D processes, and then you get the big retailers, which have very established HR functions.
“Because we lean more towards the bigger operations, we were finding that our staff were going on training that either they’d already received in some way within our company, or that wasn’t necessarily relevant to the way their particular business worked,” she says. Vindis was keen to look at the reality of the skills required in different roles and how it could support them with bespoke learning. “There is a place for manufacturer training and a place for ours, but they need to complement one another more than perhaps they have previously,” says Stubbs.
She has been instrumental in developing Vindis’s new internal leadership programmes. After three years in the making, its first scheme, ‘Ignite’, launched in 2015. ‘Spark’ came soon after in February, with ‘Flare’ set to launch later in 2016. She admits the launches were probably the biggest challenges the 10-strong HR team had faced in some time, “but it’s already seeing great success”.
Vindis took a top-down approach when it came to rolling out the schemes. Ignite is targeted at heads of business, with 16 currently enrolled. The 17-module programme provides participants with the opportunity to develop in areas such as performance and talent management, motivation and empowerment, and reporting and statistical analysis.
By contrast, Spark, which has 32 participants on its current course, has been designed to develop employees who are showing the ability and inclination to be leaders of the future. Flare will target existing managers, and aims to help them develop their skillsets for the future, as well as making them more effective in their current role.
“Historically, people would be progressed just because they were good in their current position, but they weren’t necessarily given the skillset to deliver in that next role,” Stubbs says. “The overall objective [of these programmes] is to start developing talent so that people are ready to go into their next position, rather than putting somebody in a role and then trying to develop them afterwards.”
And the programmes are already seeing results, says Stubbs. “Of the 32 people we have currently going through Spark, four have been promoted to senior roles since they began the course.”
Both Ignite and Spark have gained accreditation from the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI). “At the end of the two accredited courses, people will come out with a nationally recognised qualification,” says Stubbs.
While this wasn’t the purpose of the training, she says Vindis used the IMI framework to offer the qualification to those who wanted it. On top of being a succession planning strategy, she believes the new internal programmes will also benefit retention levels and staff motivation.
And not content to simply focus on its current employees, Vindis is also looking to encourage the next generation into the business, by working to forge relationships with schools to educate young people that the motor industry isn’t just about selling cars; you can find yourself in marketing, purchasing – or even HR.