Hiring That Sticks

Larger economic issues may be a big factor in the fact that only a small percentage of U.S. auto dealership employees plan to leave their posts anytime soon. But those same factors weigh on their minds.

The sentiment, captured in CDK’s second annual Dealership Workplace Study last year, shows that dealers bear the burden of attracting and keeping workers in an industry known for pressure and stress.

Auto dealerships have historically experienced high employee turnover rates. In 2024, the most recent year for which statistics are available, overall franchised dealer employee turnover was a high 42%, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. Excluding vehicle and finance-and-insurance sales staff, turnover was 37%.

And just a small percentage of current dealership employees would recommend the industry to others, according to the CDK survey: just 26%. The lowest percentage who’d point others to the sector was among generation X at 21%, the highest in generation Z at 35%.

Despite the roadblocks to drawing and keeping good employees, there are ways dealers can overcome negative industry patterns to build and maintain strong teams, say hiring and retention experts.

Tensions Up, But so Is Satisfaction

Last year, with its maelstrom of ever-shifting U.S. trade tariffs on imports, continued inflation weighing on mass-market consumers, and a softening labor market as 2025 wound down, presented workers with ample anxiety material.

In fact, 40% of the more than 400 dealer employees responding to CDK’s survey cited economic uncertainty as their top source of work stress, exceeding even difficult customers. Nearly a third, or 31%, said the auto industry’s future caused them the most stress.

Despite the larger forces troubling dealership employees, their satisfaction actually jumped last year from 74% to 82%, CDK found. At the same time, those planning to leave their jobs in six months’ time fell from 31% to 22%.

The top reason for job satisfaction was enjoyment of colleagues, followed in descending order by good compensation, skill development, belief that the employee’s dealership is on a good path, and responsive leadership.

Culture Under the Microscope

Dealership leaders have a greater role in employee satisfaction than ever, says Diane Uzelac, founder and president of Auto Careers Online, which helps dealers and vendors assemble and strengthen their teams.

The hiring and retention specialist says that since the Covid pandemic she’s observed dealership job candidates take more care in assessing potential employers’ leadership and culture, though that trend had already been growing before the crisis.

Particularly scrutinized are decision-making, problem resolution, and whether bad behaviors are tolerated. In fact, she says job candidates and new hires now weigh such considerations more heavily than employee perks and that the cultural aspects can even outpace better pay.

“They’re less willing to stay in environments that feel chaotic, misaligned or disingenuous. Companies that adapted by improving leadership, clarity and communication are retaining talent far better than those that didn’t.”

In fact, Uzelac cited poor leadership alignment among the top reasons for high dealership employee turnover, based on her observations.

“We’ve worked with clients who were convinced they had a retention problem, only to discover the issue was team structure and leadership alignment,” she says.

“Once roles were clarified, onboarding was reworked, and expectations were reset, turnover slowed significantly without changing compensation. The environment changed, and people stayed.”

Accurate Measurement Is Key

Good work environments are all the more important since the pandemic, especially for employees who entered the auto retail sector in that unusual time period, when auto supply was low enough that active sales weren’t necessary in many cases.

With consumer affordability weakened by post-pandemic inflation and other factors, plus rapidly changing technology in the dealership, employees face increased demands, says Anthony Pantaleone.

He’s vice president of sales for Go Trego, whose psychometric job candidate assessments help dealerships and other businesses find employees who fit their cultures and roles based on relevant personality traits.

The company, which offers assessments designed for the auto industry, has found that hires who are aligned with the roles they take based on the assessment’s findings outperform their peers by at least two to one, selling eight more vehicles per month than candidates who scored outside its optimum ranges for roles.

Good fits like them are crucial in auto retail, Pantaleone says, because of the sector’s unique pressures. They must have resilience to handle rejection and other stressors common to car and product sales.

“That weighs on people if they don’t have that ego strength,” observes Pantaleone, who said Go Trego’s dealer clients have a low average employee turnover rate of 11% to 18%.

Uzelac agrees that right fits are crucial for dealerships, which sometimes hire out of urgency based on resumes instead of digging into candidates’ actual experience.

“One of the biggest mistakes we see is overselling the role during interviews and underselling the reality,” she says. “Transparency is not a risk in hiring. It’s one of the most powerful retention tools there is.”

Foresight Is Crucial

Despite obstacles, Pantaleone and Uzelac agree that dealers can adjust their approaches on the front end and beyond to attract employees who’ll not only fit well in their roles but who’ll stay for the long haul.

Uzelac says dealers or auto groups often retain her firm when they’re growing quickly, struggling to scale, or losing good staff to competitors that recruit more effectively. Finding candidates for top dealership roles in particular requires a strong recruiting game, she says.

Dealers should work to define what success looks like in the roles they’re filling before they start looking for candidates, Uzelac emphasizes. “That step alone eliminates many of the retention problems companies experience later.”

Pantaleone agrees that proper alignment of hires with roles results in job satisfaction, which in turn brings longer tenures when combined with employee performance rewards.

“If they weren’t suited for the job from the beginning or they weren’t rewarded properly, that’s when they look at other destinations in the industry or outside of it.”

Go Trego believes dealers should combine their personal experiences with candidates with objective data such as its assessments produce for a holistic approach. The company also advises them on effective interviewing techniques, as does Auto Careers Online.

Data can compensate for the sometimes lack of cohesiveness among auto groups’ various hiring managers on what success looks like in a hire, Pantaleone says.

“First impressions are very important, but you also have to go a little deeper and understand whether someone can make it in the industry.”

Old-School, New-School or Both?

Dealerships should avoid the mistake of relying too heavily on technology to sift through candidates and narrow the field, Uzelac advises.

“[Artificial intelligence] and algorithms can be helpful for organization and efficiency, but they don’t replace human judgment, especially at the senior level,” she says.

“Leadership roles require context, nuance, and pattern recognition that software simply can’t assess on its own. What we see too often is companies relying heavily on automation and missing strong candidates who don’t check every keyword box but would actually perform extremely well in the role.”

Traditional methods alone also don’t cover all the necessary bases, Uzelac says. 

“The most effective approach is a blend. Use technology to support the process, then apply experience, industry knowledge, and human insight to make the right decisions.”

The Cost of Wrong Choices

Hiring the right employees matters, not only for a store’s sales success, but also by eliminating wasted spending on hires who don’t work out.

One unsuccessful hire can cost a dealership between $50,000 to $115,000, Pantaleone says. “Turnover is extremely costly. The 2025 NADA Workforce Study states that turnover costs the industry $20 billion per year.”

His firm recommends combining the hiring manager’s instincts with candidate data to make final decisions.

“I talk to so many dealerships that accept high turnover as the cost of doing business. There is a better way.”

Uzelac’s firm most often helps fill roles at the highest levels, where she says bad fits bring greater losses.

Don’t Let the Good Ones Get Away

Hiring is only part of the process, of course. If a dealer hires a solid team member but fails to integrate them into the business in a viable way for both sides, it’s likely to lose the asset and have to start over.

Early months in a new hire’s tenure are especially important, Uzelac says.

“Another major issue is confusing onboarding with orientation. Paperwork and log-ins are not onboarding. The first 90 days determine whether someone stays three years or nine months.”

True onboarding involves clear-cut goals, 30-, 60- and 90-day plans, early “wins,” regular meetings with the employee’s supervisor, and “real” training, she says. “Not just shadowing someone and hoping it clicks.”

Pantaleone advises that smaller doses of training are effective rather than multihour or multiday sessions.

“Coaching is about micro-coaching nowadays,” he says. “Nobody has time to sit down for extensive training.”

Instead, he says supervisors can incorporate coaching conversations into regular work rhythms.

Say a salesperson mishandles a deal. His or her manager can then offer suggestions for the next one. The supervisor can also look for tendencies that show up in new hires’ assessments in order to look out for potential stumbles.