Employee Relations for Automotive
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
What this looks like in automotive
The parts of employee relations that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Relations Across Plant and Dealership
Two very different relations environments in one group.
What this coversHide
Relations Across Plant and Dealership
Two very different relations environments in one group.
What this coversHideAn automotive group commonly holds an organised industrial relations environment at the plant and an entirely individual one at dealerships, and the two require different competence.
Plant
- Structured grievance and disciplinary process
- Consistency across shifts and lines
- Union or works committee engagement where present
- Supervisor capability in handling issues early
Dealership and workshop
- Individual grievance handling
- Incentive and target disputes
- Customer complaint handling that involves staff conduct
- Consistency across locations
Consistency across locations is the recurring failure. The same conduct handled differently at two dealerships creates a precedent problem that surfaces at the worst moment.
The general method — what employee relations covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the grievance and disciplinary process page. What is above is the part that differs for automotive.
Other HR topics for automotive
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.