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In a special preview for our CMG Premium subscribers, Auto Remarketing is offering an early look at the data and insights from our Best Auto Auctions to Work For program for 2020. The full study and feature story will be available in the November issue of the magazine. 

Part II of our Best Auto Auctions to Work For issue preview can be found below.

Part II

The impact of COVID-19 extends far into the workplace across the wholesale auto industry, from preparation and sale adjustments to new workplace safety procedures.

Workplace safety, in general, has been a big topic in the auto auction industry, particularly for the traditional brick-and-mortar auctions where cars are running through the lanes.

A pandemic certainly adds another layer to safety, no matter the workplace.

Asked how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the safety strategy at Louisiana’s 1st Choice Auto Auction — a traditional, brick-and-mortar auction — auction manager Matt Alombro said: “Safety is more important now than ever before with the advent of government mandates and stricter health and safety guidelines.

“Our most valuable asset has always been our team members. COVID brought new challenges to the table with health and safety restrictions that we put in place. We canceled our large all-employee meetings, which has led us to conduct smaller team meetings more frequently,” Alombro said.

“We have several meetings per week, and safety is always the main topic. Safe T. Sam is excellent for our new hires as an introduction, and we always supplement it with the years of experience we have run a safe workplace,” he said, referring to the National Auto Auction Association’s safety training program that was developed by KAR Global.

Be it a physical auction or a company in the digital space, having a safety plan is crucial, particularly in the COVID era. And so is being able to adapt it to new situations.

At CarOffer, a wholesale trading platform, founder and CEO Bruce Thompson emphasized the importance of being able to adapt safety strategies to crises like a pandemic.

“The pandemic and sheltering in place requirements served to remind us of how nimble we are as a company. I am extremely proud of and grateful for our team who adapted to change so seamlessly,” Thompson said.

“In every crisis situation, there is opportunity to improve one’s response and preparedness strategy. Since our business is inventory management, one of the biggest challenges we faced was managing inconsistent protocols in different states,” he said. “So, access to some critical services like state inspections, for instance, were delayed. How can we ensure the process continues to move forward during a safety or health issue? We are exploring all aspects of our operations to fine tune the preparedness. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s never say never, and keep your crisis plan up to date!”

In general, a safety strategy is paramount to companies in the remarketing space, whether it’s a physical auto auction or a digital platform — during a pandemic or otherwise.

Jason McClenahan, who is president and CEO at EBlock, certainly understands both sides of that coin. He leads a digital auction company that facilities online dealer-to-dealer sales for brick-and-mortar independent auto auctions.

And his background includes time in the traditional physical auction space.  

“For brick-and-mortar auctions, auction day is extremely exciting. With this excitement, comes this fear in the back of your mind in regards to the safety of your staff and customers,” McClenahan said. “Thousands of units crossing several auction blocks, drivers all over the yard and in the lanes and hundreds of staff and clients everywhere. It’s easy to understand how critical the right safety strategy is.

“Now, digital auctions don’t have the same challenges presented, when it comes to safety. Safety is always a priority, as on any given day we may have hundreds of team members in dealerships all over North America,” he said. “Due to the nature of working remotely, it really comes down to communication and ensuring that the staff is trained and using the proper PPE.”

Asked how the pandemic has impacted the safety strategy at EBlock, he said: “Due to the fact that we’re a digital auction, our safety strategy hasn’t been impacted as much as the physical auctions.

“That being said, we have had to make some major changes in order to ensure our staff and clients remain safe during these times. The largest change we had to make as a group, was to transition our workforce to be 100% remote,” McClenahan said. “There are certain departments that couldn’t perform their jobs remotely, so we do have skeleton staff in some of our locations following all the precautions set out. We have eliminated travel as a company, and like everyone managing far more video calls than face to face visits with our clients.”

And for the record, Best Auto Auctions honorees appear to be doing quite well when it comes to safety, based on survey responses from their employees. In the Work Environment category of the Employee Benchmark Report (where the category average was 89% positive responses), 94% of the responses to the “I feel physically safe in my work environment” prompt were positive.

Training initiatives

Safety certainly involves training and learning a playbook. So, too, does general workplace operations and handling one’s day-to-day job.

With that, we asked our Best Auto Auctions honorees about the training and development measures they have in place.

At IAA, which had four locations make the list,  president and CEO John Kett said the company’s training and development initiatives have continued during the pandemic, as most of it had been digital anyway.

“Given our workforce is located in 200 plus locations and across the globe, our training and development resources are largely online.  This benefitted us with COVID — as training remained uninterrupted,” Kett said.

“We are also focused on employee engagement and community, because we know this is benefitting our employees during this difficult time,” he added. “With COVID, employees need and benefit from the IAA family and community.  We’ve enjoyed Fun Friday events such as Wear Your Favorite Super Hero T-Shirt to a Recipe Sharing section on our intranet to additional employee resources focused on child/dependent care.”

Cross-training between departments was also found to be important to give employees a holistic, well-rounded view of how the company operates.

At EBlock, new hires undergo classroom-stye learning and in-field training to give them some “hands-on experience before they hit the ground running,” McClenahan said.

“Cross-training within other departments is another key strategy that we encourage. This allows our workforce to get a much better understanding of other departments in which they rely on. This puts our staff in a better position to be more well-rounded to move up within the organization,” he said.

Over at ACV, chief sales officer Michael Waterman noted that vehicle condition inspectors are given both in-classroom training, which is now done virtually, and with the cars themselves.

“Team members from various departments will do ride-alongs in the field so that Managers are able to assess and help improve processes and vehicle assessments,” he said.

“We haven’t let COVID slow us down from a training perspective,” Waterman said. “We are continuing to invest in training our team members in new types of inspections including cross training our VCIs on all three kinds of inspections that we provide (wholesale, retail and off-lease) so they can become experts in each area and grow in their skillset and within the company.

“During these challenging times, we are providing additional instructor-led training via online learning as well as socially distant field visual training to enhance their inspection skills and overall knowledge of ACV,” he said.

Five-time honoree

Lastly, 2020 is Auto Remarketing’s fifth year of conducting the Best Auto Auctions to Work For program.

And one physical auction has made the list each and every year: Louisiana’s 1st Choice Auto Auction (Digital auctions were not eligible until 2018).

Being the only auction that has made the list of Best Auto Auctions to Work For in each of the award program’s first five years, we asked LAFCAA management what makes the auction stand out from the pack, and what gives it such a strong workplace culture.

“Culture, exactly that. We have been open since 2002, 18 years, and our management team has been here for an average of 12-14 years,” Alombro, the auction manager, said.

“We stay true to our values and do everything we can to hire people that align with our culture and cherish the same core beliefs,” he said. “This also attributes to our extremely low turnover rate and allows everyone to work so well together year after year.”

Part I of the feature can be found here.

A full list of the 2020 honorees can be found here.