4-day workweek popular among car dealership employees

During interviews, many prospective service technicians at LaFontaine Volvo of Farmington Hills in Michigan can't believe a four-day workweek offer will last.

"We kept hearing, 'What's the catch? What's the end-around that's gonna happen when I sign up?'," LaFontaine Automotive Group spokesman Max Muncey said.

The catch? There isn't one.

LaFontaine Volvo of Farmington Hills is one of 41 dealerships honored on Automotive News' 2023 list of the 100 Best Dealerships to Work For that offer four-day workweeks.

Steve Parks, service director with LaFontaine Automotive Group of Highland, Mich., said LaFontaine first offered a four-day workweek to service technicians at its largest dealership, Buick-GMC Highland, about a year and half ago before rolling it out at service departments at all its dealerships.

Parks said about 35 percent of LaFontaine service technicians take advantage of the four-day workweek option.

"The cool and impressive thing about it is that a lot of our technicians just like the comfort of the fact that they have an opportunity to do a four-day as their life dictates," Parks told Automotive News.

And 94 of the Best Dealerships To Work For said they offer flexible work hours. That's a core value for job seekers in the automotive space, according to one expert.

Adam Robinson, CEO of Hireology, a recruitment technology company that works with auto dealerships, said the desire for flexibility remains strong. And a four-day workweek "is an offering that resonates resoundingly with this market," Robinson told Automotive News.

In May, Robinson's firm surveyed 450 people who were seeking jobs with dealerships that work with Hireology. Respondents had to have applied for a job in the past six months, so some who responded were employed, according to Hireology.

The survey showed 35 percent of the prospective applicants would take a lower-paying job in exchange for more schedule flexibility and 28 percent said they would leave a dealership for one that offered more flexibility, Robinson said.

"The headline is that dealers have an opportunity to offer schedule flexibility as a perk and that perk is the most important thing to the industry's work force right now," Robinson said.

A manager at a large New Jersey store credits flexibility, including four-day workweeks for some employees, in helping retain staff and boost morale. About 65 percent of the service technicians at Gateway Toyota in Toms River, N.J., have four-day workweeks — a program the dealership started about five or six years ago.

"Employees absolutely love it," said Rick Cardwell, the store's general manager. "I mean, who wouldn't?"

And in its past fiscal year, Gateway Toyota — part of Penske Automotive Group Inc. — had just a 9 percent voluntary turnover rate. That's well below the 33 percent overall turnover average of all dealerships last year, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association Dealership Workforce Study.

Arranging a four-day workweek requires careful scheduling, Cardwell said. For instance, if someone is getting close to the end of their shift on a fourth day, a multiday vehicle repair job would get slotted to another worker.

Gateway Toyota created three teams of technicians that rotate on four days. Thanks to the rotation, each team has a five-day break at least once a month.

"With the technicians, we've got enough staffing where we allow them to have their time off and we encourage them to maximize that," Cardwell said. "You know, it's a pretty cool thing when you can plan a literal mini vacation possibly without burning any actual vacation time."

"Once someone is with us two or three years, they're usually with us for life," Cardwell added.

Dealerships such as Capitol Subaru of Salem in Oregon also are looking at ways to incorporate a four-day workweek, too, even if fewer people take the offer.

Brian Schindler, director of business development for Capitol Auto Group in Salem, said the group has offered four-day workweeks to some staff in some departments for about eight months.

Heather Krieves, human resources manager at Capitol, said close to 30 employees at the group's dealerships work a four-day workweek, including eight people at the Subaru dealership. Examples include an inventory photographer, information technology workers and parts drivers.

"Our drivers appreciate this because the job is physically demanding, so having three days off is helpful," Krieves said.

Schindler said the practice is too new to gauge its effect on keeping people but in an email to Automotive News said, "I think in time it will be a retention tool."

Joshua Johnson, CEO of Don Johnson Auto Group of Cumberland, Wis., said his group in early 2022 introduced a four-day workweek option for employees in the service and reconditioning departments at Don Johnson's Hayward Motors in Wisconsin.

He said about 20 percent, or four people, participate and that employee retention has been on an upward trajectory. The dealership's voluntary turnover rate in its last fiscal year was just 7 percent.

"While the adoption rate may appear moderate, the impact has been profoundly positive for those who have embraced it," Johnson told Automotive News. "For some individuals, the four-day workweek has been a pivotal factor in their ability to continue their employment with us."

Johnson said switching to four-day workweeks required more planning and a change in workflow, but that employee retention has been on the rise, in part thanks to schedule flexibility.

"Given our positive outcomes and feedback, the four-day workweek will remain a permanent offering in our organization," Johnson said.

"Moreover, we are exploring introducing a three-day workweek for select roles to offer even greater flexibility."

That option would be most effective "in roles that are not physically demanding and do not require direct consumer engagement, such as roles in reconditioning or administration," Johnson added.

Some Group 1 Automotive Inc. stores among the Best Dealerships To Work For also offer four-day workweeks in some departments, as does Bergstrom Chevrolet-Cadillac of Appleton in Wisconsin.

Bergstrom Automotive of Neenah, Wis., said it offers four-day workweeks to some employees, but that supervisors accommodate most requests for working shorter hours during the week or having Saturdays off.

At LaFontaine, Parks said they even work flexibility into the workweeks.

For example, employees may switch from a four-day workweek to a five-day schedule and back again, if needed.

Muncey said LaFontaine's desire to compete at top levels and retain employees inspired the change more so than it being a result of COVID-19.

He said Parks and other team members have visited local schools and training programs in recent years to hear what prospective service technicians were seeking — and flexibility is what they heard.

"As we know, technicians talk," Muncey said. "Technicians have friends at other dealerships or independent shops and we really wanted to cultivate this new culture that addresses a lot of the pinch points or barriers for people getting into the technician field."

And no matter how many other dealership owners call CEO Ryan LaFontaine to ask if they are serious, as many have, Muncey said, the answer is the same: Four-day weeks will stay.