“I can’t trust my staff”, I hear it all the time. A controller who is frustrated, once again has found that the schedules are a mess; that accounts receivable haven’t been collected or processes that were put in place are now not being followed. It’s almost a cliché’. Controller after controller laments the fact that no matter what they do their staff just isn’t trust worthy.

Let me give you a wakeup call, it’s not their fault – it’s the Controllers. The people you hire are not the problem, it’s the direction and training you provide to them and the review processes you have in place that make the difference between a highly trained staff and ones that are allowed to ramble in whatever direction they want. As a Controller you are the leader of the team, the coach to the players you hired.

It seems that many Controllers hire staff, put them at their new desk and say “glad you’re here, go to work”. A week later after the controller comes up from solving about 100 problems they have had over the last week and they check on their new employee. What do you think they find? They find that the person has been doing what they have been trained to do. Of course, it isn’t what you trained them to do because you didn’t train them, you relied on what you learned in the interview and most likely made the determination they are experienced enough to handle the job on their own. WRONG!

Any long term relationship is built on trust. It is key to being able to grow as an organization. But too often managers try to build trust in the wrong ways. If the only way someone lasts in your office is if a new employee starts and is “good enough” to survive without proper training, you are using a shotgun approach to building your team. Chances are this “team” will never become a true team and in the process your turnover will look like what you wish your stock picks looked like on the Dow Jones.

To properly build your team you have to put as much time into integrating them into the office and policies and procedures of your dealership as you do solving problems all day long. That means using one of the other members of your team, someone who you have already built trust with to become that new employees line coach or buddy for the first 30 to 60 days. Sounds like a long time huh, remember many parts of the process only take place at month end and so at the end of 60 days your new employee might have only performed them twice. An employee needs someone they can ask a question to without fear of feeling stupid, otherwise they simply don’t ask and will take the criticism if they guess wrong. Just like you follow a checklist for closing the month end you should have a schedule in place to review the work and progress of the employee as they learn the tasks of their position in your office and the way your dealership expects things to be done.

If you’d like to learn more about how to set up your office properly, click here.

Remember: Always Tie to Something; have Confidence in your #s and get AHEAD of the Curve!

Scott