GNYADA December 2014 Newsletter

Why Training Is Critical

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High Gross Sales Training: Gross profit: it is yours to keep or give away. Wednesday, January 21, 2015 Streamline Your Marketing Costs: Creating a Unified Marketing Message – Learn how to maximize your marketing spend to drive more customers to your store. Tuesday, January 27, 2015 Effective BDC Management Strategies: Essential techniques for coaching your BDC to deliver higher performance and better results. Thursday, January 15, 2015 To register for a seminar, contact Carole Rogner at 718.640.2012 or carole@gnyada.com report to work during severe weather, but then doesn’t open, employers must pay any employee who reports to work for at least four (4) hours (or the minimum number of hours in the shift, whichever is less) at the minimum wage (which rises to $8.75 per hour at the end of December). If the dealership opens and then closes early, hourly employees must be paid for the hours worked or four hours times the minimum wage, whichever is greater. If an employee decides to stay home, and the dealership is open for business, any time taken off due to the poor weather conditions is unpaid or may be taken as a vacation, sick, or personal day. n n

Internal: Frustration can have a detrimental impact on the dealership as a whole; motivation and effort decrease. External: Frustrated employees are more likely to voice their grievances, especially outside of the workplace. These people can poison your dealer- ship – and your brand. It makes the case for great training as a means of nurturing employee engagement and retention. To meet your training needs, GNYADA offers seminars on various topics. GNYADA’s seminars are developed by qualified experts and dealership professionals to meet your most pressing business needs. GNYADA January training offerings include: Salaried (Exempt) Employees An employee who is paid on a salaried basis and who is exempt from overtime should be paid the full amount of his or her salary if the dealership does not open. If the dealership is open and the salaried employee does not report to work, the employer may require the employee to take any accrued leave, or in this limited circum- stance, can deduct the full day’s salary from the employee’s pay. Salaried employees cannot be “docked” pay even if they only show up for a partial day. Hourly Employees If the dealership is closed, you do not have to pay employees for any part of the day if you told them not to show up. You can let employees use an accrued personal day. If the dealership tells employees to n n n n n

Zig Ziglar sent an important message when he said, "The only thing worse than training your employees and losing them is not training your employees and keeping them." Although many factors contribute to a negative employee culture (poor man- agement, lack of advancement oppor- tunity, low pay), how well people are trained to do their job can also con- tribute to employee satisfaction. It turns out, if people feel well prepared and well equipped to succeed in their role, it increases their morale. Dealerships select and hire people, but then underinvest in the amount of training needed to help employees do their best. The impact can be felt in two major ways: As dealers prepare for the possibility of severe winter weather (which can force some dealerships to close), one of the issues that arises is how to pay your employees for days that you might be closed during or following a severe weather emergency. Severe weather may require a dealer to decide not to open or it might interfere with employees’ ability to travel to work. Storms may interfere with driving, public transportation, and utility services (phones, electrici- ty, and heating and cooling). Below are some of the issues you need to be aware of when it comes to properly paying your employees. It is up to the employer to decide if the weather is severe enough to war- rant closing. Here are rules for paying employees when dealerships are affected by severe weather:

21 Snow Day? How to Pay Employees

Dealers with union contracts must abide by the policies in the CBA.

Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association • www.gnyada.com

The Newsletter • December 2014 11