You’ve probably noticed it’s harder to find people to hire lately. The Macrotrends website says the U.S. population in 2022 is slightly less than 385 million people. The 2020 census found that more than 55 million people (about 14%) had retired. The labor force participation rate was 62.2% in April 2022, and the unemployment rate was 3.6%. There were already job shortages before the pandemic, but the pandemic worsened it. However, even though many people chose to retire during the pandemic, about 1.5 million came back into the workforce later.

Any sentence with the word “millions” sounds like shortages should not be a problem, but everything is relative. On March 29, 2022, Jeff Cox at CNBC reported 5 million more jobs open than workers to fill them. That is, employers with 18 jobs have to compete for 10 people.

Employers can no longer afford to hire only men when they need to fill jobs. The U.S. is approximately half male and half female, but there are slightly more women than men. To take the statistic above and recast it slightly, suppose you have 18 jobs and 10 job candidates, but five are women. If you default to hiring a man, those five men will compete for 18 jobs, and it’s no wonder you can’t find enough people to hire.

Hiring women starts with recruiting them. That can be challenging because many women don’t even consider working at a dealership, and the turnover rate (according to CDK research) is 88%. But women make or influence the decision to buy a vehicle most of the time. Many people in the industry think women are more likely to buy vehicles from other women, so companies that ignore women are losing out on a great sales opportunity.

Many companies in the auto industry have gotten the message. General Motors’ board is one of the most gender-diverse boards in the country. The CEO is Mary Barra, and 58% of the board members are women. Most of the committee chairs are women, too.

Other industry CEOs include:

• Liza Borches (Carter Myers Automotive)
• Mary Buchzeiger (Lucerne International)
• Flavia De Veny (Camaco-Amvian)
• Corina Diehl (Diehl Automotive Group)
• Aicha Evnas (Zoox)
• Gail Faulkner (Faulkner Auto Group)
• Julia Fream (Original Equipment Suppliers Association)
• Linda Hasenfranz (Linamar Corp.)
• Jennifer Johnson (Kendrick Plastics)
• Abigail Kampmann (Principle Auto)
• Lisa Lunsford (GS3 Global)
• Claudia Marquez (Hyundai Motor Mexico)
• Sejal Pietrzak (DealerSocket)
• Kimberly Rodriguez (Dura Automotive Services)
• Rosa Santana (Forma Automotive)
• Anuja Sonalker (STEER Tech)
• Sandy Stojkovski (Vitesco Technologies North America)
• Chrissy Taylor (Enterprise Holdings). ¹

That’s a long list, and maybe you haven’t heard of every company listed after these names, but it’s encouraging so many women are CEOs as long as you don’t think about the number of men who are CEOs. Still, it’s progress.

How do you encourage women to apply for work at your dealership? Think about what you can do to encourage girls to take classes to help them get dealership jobs. Reach out to local schools and teachers at those schools. In addition to public and private schools, talk to people at universities and community colleges. Attend career fairs and support organizations that encourage all students to gain valuable trade skills. Consider awarding scholarships and offering apprenticeships. Even a relatively modest scholarship can still help students pay for their training.

Most people will visit the website before they visit the dealership. Make sure yours sends the right message. For example, look at your dealership website and post pictures of a diverse workforce. People notice inclusive content; have prominent pictures of female employees on the website.

Train employees about gender diversity and inclusivity. Everyone who interviews job candidates should be up-to-date on these subjects. Have teams with as many women as men on them, especially those that customers see.

Hiring women to work at your dealership is a good idea, but listening to them once hired is also important. You want to create a collaborative and supportive work environment. Talk to them about the demands on their time, personal and professional. Would job sharing, flexible hours or work-at-home options help? Offer everything you can that is situationally appropriate. If your DMS system requires a VPN, switch to a cloud-native solution so employees can log in from home.

Promotions and pay raises encourage employees to stay with their companies. They are helpful, but make sure you don’t reward one gender and exclude the other. Given the gender biases of the past, it is easy to favor men over women unconsciously regardless of performance. Are women doing work that benefits the company but isn’t included in their job description? Rewrite the job description. Identify and reward high-performing employees, and provide mentorship, training and opportunities for career development that are available to and possible for every employee, regardless of gender.

In an article by Bonnie Marcus that appeared on the Forbes website Oct. 13, 2021, she noted that women have been encouraged to speak up about workplace injustices ever since the #MeToo movement, but sometimes no one takes action after listening to them. That’s a problem. People who get ignored tend to stop giving feedback, and when they have the chance to go somewhere else, they are likely to take it. The result is high employee turnover. Any company with high turnover, including dealerships, will not be as profitable as it could be.

1 To see a full list of 100 leading women in the North American Auto Industry, visit https://www.autonews.com/awards/100-leading-women-north-american-auto-industry.