Lisbeth Karpinski takes her role at Burlington Hyundai very seriously.
Like many dealership comptrollers, it’s her job to ensure the store and its employees are compliant with legislative, safety and other regulations. She needs to keep careful records to be able to prove to government officials that they’re following the letter of the law.
That’s easier said than done.
The manual system her dealership once employed meant it was difficult to track when each employee was up for training or retraining. Karpinski said her spreadsheet system made for more than
a few sleepless nights.
“In smaller stores, comptrollers wear different hats and compliance may not be a focus in our job. It’s time-consuming to go through files to see who’s done training and when — and then determining when they’re up for renewal.”
Karpinski isn’t alone when it comes to the headaches associated with managing compliance and HR record-keeping.
Michael Stassen, vice-president of sales and marketing for DealerPILOT, an automated system that helps Canadian automotive dealers track HR, health and safety, inspections and compliance systems, said most dealerships struggle to keep it all together.
“The majority of the dealerships we engage with use yellow sticky tabs, Excel sheets or pieces of paper
[to track compliance].”
He said they are typically earnest in their efforts to manage compliance, but don’t have the time or knowledge to manage all of the compliance requirements and data.
Without proper compliance records, dealerships are subject to hefty fines — and even criminal prosecution.
According to Stassen, Ontario and British Columbia are the most stringent when it comes to legislation and strict fines. For fire safety infractions alone, “managers could have liability for up to $30,000, employers up to $100,000.”
In extreme cases, under Bill C-45, which covers legal duties for workplace health and safety, an employer could be held criminally responsible for noncompliance.
Built specifically for Canadian dealerships, DealerPILOT software aims to automate the usual manual processes associated with staff training and policy acknowledgements, joint health and
safety and compliance enforcement, all in one central location.
A web-based solution, the software also automates everything from how to manage resumes when people are applying at dealerships to onboarding procedures, including benefits claims forms, business cards, schedules, time and attendance, vacation planning, safety compliance, and more.
Karpinski recently implemented DealerPILOT at Burlington Hyundai and said she’s already sleeping better.
“[DealerPILOT] does two things: It tracks and tells us when someone has to do training and it keeps electronic reports showing when people have done their required training. Without
an HR department, that was difficult for us to do. Secondly, it helps manage a lot of the HR functions that were also difficult to do manually.”
Since they’ve automated vacation requests, sick and personal days, Karpinski is seeing a considerable drop in the amount of time and confusion for employees, managers and the office.
Under their previous paper-based system, an employee would fill out a form and submit it to the manager, who would then bring it to the office for input. Today, the employee can log in to DealerPILOT, enter the request and receive approval online.
Getting people trained when they’re hired has also become a more streamlined process. “Once somebody has accepted their offer of hire, I’ll send them a link to DealerPILOT and they will complete all of their training before they even start. Before, I would have to send them 10 different links. Now it’s one link and it’s all there.”
To better serve the HR and regulatory compliance side of dealerships, Payworks and CDK Global Canada announced in February that they’re teaming up. The new partnership will provide CDK clients with Payworks’ suite of cloud-based products, including payroll, time and attendance
and human resource solutions through CDK Global Canada’s DMS.
“Without a doubt, legal compliance and the need for proper records to comply with various legislative bodies, statutes, etc. is crucial,” said Dean Anton, vice-president and general manager for CDK Global Canada.
“If you can’t defend how you’re running your business, the government may impose costs and penalties and your standing within certain government agencies could be altered.”
Stassen said DealerPILOT’s system runs parallel to a dealership’s DMS. “We’re about the people doing the work, making sure the right people are in the building and are appropriately compliant with legislation that a dealership needs to comply with.”
Beyond helping comptrollers and HR departments to manage compliance — with alerts to both employees and management to let them know when an employee is due for retraining — Stassen said DealerPILOT often works to empower employees to manage their own compliance.
Implementation typically takes four-six weeks with a DealerPILOT project management team and includes training, testing and a live roll-out. And the savings can be measured in more than just time.
“Our average dealership customer is probably saving a few hundred hours per year in non-productive management efforts. If you could redeploy those hours to business development and customer service, that’s considerable time to drive more business to serve the dealership and the customer.”
