In this episode we speak to Sharon Ashcroft, TrustFord’s HR Director. Sharon is actually the first HR director we’ve had on the series and as TrustFord is a regular in the Sunday Times Top 25 Best Companies to Work For list we were very keen to learn what it takes to keep performing internally at such a high level.
We also wanted to understand just how engagement was viewed within the organisation, both at board and colleague level, and the impact digital enablement – through TrustFord’s Engage-powered app – has had on moving the engagement needle.
In this episode we speak to Sharon Ashcroft, TrustFord’s HR Director. Sharon is actually the first HR director we’ve had on the series and as TrustFord is a regular in the Sunday Times Top 25 Best Companies to Work For list we were very keen to learn what it takes to keep performing internally at such a high level.
We also wanted to understand just how engagement was viewed within the organisation, both at board and colleague level, and the impact digital enablement – through TrustFord’s Engage-powered app – has had on moving the engagement needle.
00;00;01;02 - 00;00;05;01
Narrator
Welcome to Engaged in Conversation, the podcast from Engage Solutions Group.
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Phil Wedgwood
Sharon, good afternoon. It's great pleasure to see you again and welcome to our studio.
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Sharon Ashcroft
Thank you Phil, nice to be here.
00;00;11;21 - 00;00;16;17
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. You've been a customer of ours for quite some time now. For what is it about four years.
00;00;16;18 - 00;00;22;01
Sharon Ashcroft
I think it may be a little bit longer than four years. We were one of the early adopters to the Colleague App.
00;00;22;07 - 00;00;51;20
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. And it's really fantastic that you're still with us on that journey. And it's been fantastic working with you and your team over those years. And I think is going to be great today because you're the first H.R. director that I've had the pleasure to have on the podcast. So it's a really exciting addition and I can genuinely say across our client base, I would definitely hold trust forward in the work that you do with your team in really high regard because I think you're really understand engagement and, and understand what we do.
00;00;51;27 - 00;00;55;01
Phil Wedgwood
And I think that's one of the reasons why we work quite successfully together.
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Sharon Ashcroft
Thank you.
00;00;57;02 - 00;01;19;17
Phil Wedgwood
So do you want to just give us a bit of a background in terms of your role and also for people that might not realize, because I was quite surprised, obviously everyone's heard of Ford is a real iconic heritage brand, real global brand. But I think you've got a really exciting business here in the UK and just positioned kind of how that fits within the Ford structure and how successful a business that is.
00;01;19;18 - 00;01;52;01
Sharon Ashcroft
Sure, Okay. So we are a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company with the largest dealer owned motor group in the world. So we have around 3000 colleagues. We predominantly have car dealerships, but we also have big parts distribution centers and rapid fit and also mobile service vehicles around the UK and over in Channel Islands as well. So around 72 locations across the UK and over in Channel Islands.
00;01;52;24 - 00;02;03;17
Phil Wedgwood
That's amazing. And I think out of the, you know, not only one of the largest dealers in the UK, but as you say, globally. Yes. And you do sell quite an impressive amount of vehicles.
00;02;03;26 - 00;02;31;15
Sharon Ashcroft
We do have a large market share. So in terms of we are we are quite different to the dealer groups where a lot of the dealer groups are what we call multi franchise. So they will sell different brands. We only sell new Ford Motor New Ford vehicles. Obviously, we sell multi-brand use vehicles. But in terms of Ford passenger vehicles, around one in four Ford vehicles that you see on the road will have been sold by TrustFord.
00;02;31;23 - 00;02;44;26
Sharon Ashcroft
And that's even a bigger share for commercial vehicles where we're around 60% share. So every, you know, six vans you see out of ten will have been sold through Trust Ford. So we have a big chunk of the UK market.
00;02;44;27 - 00;03;04;20
Phil Wedgwood
Wow. That's impressive. Is really impressive. And I suppose when people think of the motor industry generally, you know, hats off because how challenging is business at the moment? There's so many things, so many macro factors aren't there that are impacting your industry. I mean, tell us a little bit about that and how challenging it must be because you sit on the main board.
00;03;04;20 - 00;03;11;20
Phil Wedgwood
Don't you of trust Ford? So how challenging an environment has it been in the last sort of three or four years, I suppose?
00;03;12;04 - 00;03;40;13
Sharon Ashcroft
Okay, so we'll probably start with the pandemic, which was, as you can imagine, a for everyone really challenging advice kept changing daily, sometimes hourly. So trying to keep colleagues engaged, communicate with colleagues was really difficult. And I know we'll talk about that in a minute, but if we hadn't had the app, we would not been able to do the two way conversations that we were having with our colleagues, keep them informed.
00;03;40;19 - 00;04;08;00
Sharon Ashcroft
And also keep them safe, which was massive. And also it gave them a voice to be able to ask the board questions and the organization questions. So pandemic has been a nightmare. I didn't even understand what the word furlough meant until two years ago, but we quickly learned that. And then coming out to furlough, we've had from Trustford's point of view or ford motor companies point of view, the semi-conductor issues.
00;04;08;15 - 00;04;38;20
Sharon Ashcroft
So you've got the resource shortage and then semiconductor shortages. So that means vehicles can't be made. People are trying to buy vehicles, but the waiting times are so long, which they pushed up the value of used vehicles. And then it's just been kind of been on a hamster wheel that they were coming out to that now. But then on top of that was a complete resource shortage, not just within technicians, which we have always had some mechanics but across the board.
00;04;38;28 - 00;05;01;05
Sharon Ashcroft
So trying to recruit is is really tricky and inflation is going up. So it's literally a, you know, a candidates market at the minute and they're choosing who they want to go and work for. Wow. While so they brand they, you know, offer and you have the recognition is really important and you know, people are now making that choice.
00;05;01;05 - 00;05;04;05
Sharon Ashcroft
Do they want to come work for you or do they want to go and work for someone else?
00;05;05;14 - 00;05;24;29
Phil Wedgwood
That's that's a really hard operating climate. And I think on top of that as well, we had this whole dieselgate thing, didn't we, before the pandemic. And now, of course, we've got that shift to electric, which has been heightened by the parts shortages, getting hold of the vehicles and of course, now bring it up today. You've got what are we heading towards truly £2 a liter army of fuel.
00;05;25;11 - 00;05;33;04
Phil Wedgwood
So it's just a hard place to be. But you seem to have ridden it out as best as you can. And you've performed phenomenally well as a group, haven't you?
00;05;33;09 - 00;05;52;04
Sharon Ashcroft
We have, yeah. We'd absolutely, you know, could not believe the profits that we achieved in 20, 21 on the back of 20, 20 and you know, the whole the way the world is changing and as you said, for electric vehicles. So if you think ten years ago you know, you employed a mechanic with a set of spanners for want of a better word.
00;05;52;12 - 00;06;20;27
Sharon Ashcroft
Now actually that whole landscape has changed and actually employed a different kind of person with different skills who need to be more computer literate. You know, they hook up to computers now when the doing, you know work on vehicles not necessarily aven oily rags. So the whole different skill set has completely changed. And there's also other things around the health and safety around electric electric vehicles and it's not just educating the people who are working on those vehicles.
00;06;20;27 - 00;06;45;05
Sharon Ashcroft
So making a repair, it's everyone around them because electrics really dangerous. Right. So if you walk in past someone and yeah, you need to be aware of if they've been electrocuted, don't go up and, you know, pull them off the car. It's around all that big educational piece charging stations, you know, a whole multitude of things around how the world has changed within car dealerships.
00;06;45;25 - 00;07;05;02
Phil Wedgwood
And that's a real huge overhead and a transition for you to make, isn't it? Because I guess like some other industries, you're having to run both in parallel. You can't turn the old world off and you've got to embrace the new world, which is very, very different, isn't it? You can't put an electric car into a traditional service, bay, because as you say, the environment's different.
00;07;05;06 - 00;07;27;02
Sharon Ashcroft
Completely. Yes. You still got the combustion engines that you're dealing with as well as electric vehicles. So you need to train equally on both. Yeah. And have specialist with electric vehicles and upskill and everyone else at the same time because by 20, 30 everyone's going to move to even a was still going to have to be postured engines that we still need to keep people skilled air will be able to say.
00;07;27;02 - 00;07;48;08
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah absolutely. Yeah and I think what's great with your with your sort of professionalism and leadership around each other as a discipline within trust Ford. You've really been quite pioneering in I think you've got you've had huge success in the Sunday Times top 25 for large companies haven't you. I think you consistently year after year in there.
00;07;48;14 - 00;08;13;01
Sharon Ashcroft
That's right and that's an absolute group effort. You know I have two of the board colleagues stripped most of our finance director is acting chairman and CEO John Lehman, our UPS director who wholeheartedly believe in nature and are really well respected within transport. But that's because it's from the top from the board. So we're not seen as an admin pink and fluffy function.
00;08;13;08 - 00;08;41;07
Sharon Ashcroft
And I think that's absolutely key that hey, Chad, do have a table, a seat at the table at the board, because that then helps the culture. So they also were equally involved in, you know, engagement supporting initiatives to enable us to get listed in the Sunday Times. But for me, what was, you know, I was so proud as the son to times isn't a beautifully written transcript submission by the marketing department.
00;08;41;16 - 00;08;51;28
Sharon Ashcroft
Sunday Times is based on feedback from colleagues. So it was what colleagues said that got us listed, not a kind of a submission into a judging panel.
00;08;52;05 - 00;08;58;22
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, that's great. But then to do that consistently year after year, that's that's a real accolade in itself.
00;08;59;02 - 00;09;21;02
Sharon Ashcroft
It is. And we did do some things in terms of, you know, their feedback is anonymous and to start with, in year one, people weren't quite trust in that. It was anonymous and were a little apprehensive that, you know, if they wrote the truth, there would be repercussions but then as we said back to them and they saw that people were writing what they want to try to there know no repercussions.
00;09;21;08 - 00;09;39;21
Sharon Ashcroft
That really built the engagement in that trust. And we did lots of initiatives around the feedback that they gave us in that submission. We acted on it and we fed back to them. It's a bit like they said, you said we did so again. That really got the engagement and people felt more comfortable. It's yeah, I do trust them.
00;09;39;21 - 00;09;49;00
Sharon Ashcroft
And yeah, I am going to be completely honest. So it was a, you know, a bit of a, you know, marathon, not a sprint in terms of getting people winning hearts and minds.
00;09;50;06 - 00;10;18;13
Phil Wedgwood
I think that's key to and I think you touched on something that I'm quite passionate about and we see across the client base that we have is that the most successful implementations are where the board are involved. And that's part of the culture it's real is really driven from the top because, you know, employee engagement started off as a bit of an H.R. thing and would often be pointed to H.R., but really for it to work it's it's across the board room, isn't it, at this 60 layer, if you call it that.
00;10;19;09 - 00;10;34;01
Phil Wedgwood
And that's really key here, isn't it? And that's your I can see that and have met some of your your peer group, haven't signed it. It's really fascinating that there really are they believe that from the top down there that that engagement piece is so paramount to the success of the business.
00;10;34;02 - 00;10;51;18
Sharon Ashcroft
Absolutely. And is about way none of us are I so it's was working collectively as a board and leadership team to get people where you need to be. So again, it's not anyones you know after fame and how I did this it's around collectively we pull together.
00;10;51;25 - 00;11;11;13
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. Yeah. No I like it and we see a lot, especially the last two years. I talk a lot about digital transformation as a thing and I think a lot of boards have had that on their agenda, especially with COVID the pace of that digital adoption has been huge, but you guys were way ahead of most people and you were lucky.
00;11;11;14 - 00;11;29;05
Phil Wedgwood
Like you've already said, one of our first clients that were really pioneering, we wanted to embrace the power of digital and the impact that could have in the sphere at scale through your workforce. Nationally taught me bit about why that came about and why you were so keen to embrace that so early on.
00;11;29;17 - 00;12;01;10
Sharon Ashcroft
Okay. So we have quite a lot of colleagues. I call mobile. So drivers were our supportive, so they don't have a traditional laptop, our PC. So how, how will we communicated to them how did they have the voice in fleet impact to just forward as well? So the way to do that for me was via an app, which would be a two way communication process so that they could we could feed out to them and they could feed back into us so that when the weather time was suitable to them.
00;12;01;26 - 00;12;29;01
Sharon Ashcroft
So an example would be, you know, we have drivers who work nights, so at some point they have to pull over to have the rest. And, you know, it made sense that they all have mobile phones so they can tap on the mobile phone while they're off in the drawing. You know, that the package or whatever you want to call it, videos that were being pushed out, send messages so that, again, it wasn't a workforce that was disparate from everyone else.
00;12;29;08 - 00;12;51;24
Sharon Ashcroft
So that it was an equal playing field. Everyone could access everything. And, you know, eventually then we did move from having you know, once we got them on board, we moved them from having paper payslips onto the app as well. And because we'd done that whole transition, the engagement piece, it was an easier process to get the off paper onto the app.
00;12;51;24 - 00;13;22;29
Sharon Ashcroft
As well. And now, you know, no one even ever mentions anything paper related. You know, there's a very much to where process they go on when it suits them to ask a message about whatever they want to ask. You know, they can watch business updates when it suits them to watch. They can book annual leave when they're at home and they're deciding as a family what time they're going to have off instead of into Pillar Phillips paper, in tech, into work the next day, they quickly do it while they're with the family on the app that it's gone in.
00;13;23;05 - 00;13;27;04
Sharon Ashcroft
So it's it's when it's good for them, not necessarily just around the business.
00;13;27;17 - 00;13;34;05
Phil Wedgwood
No, that's great. And what difference do you think that's made general business love or having that there?
00;13;35;20 - 00;13;55;25
Sharon Ashcroft
Well, during the pandemic, I'll refer to the pandemic as well. I just wonder how on earth we would communicate with all these people because we didn't have, you know, what do you do, text them all and then you get 3000 texts back. But this was great because we use the message board. You know, every time Boris made announcement, we would push out, right?
00;13;55;25 - 00;14;21;28
Sharon Ashcroft
This is what it means to his colleagues. Stay, erm, command, whatever that was furlough, how that's being calculated, whatever. And it meant they could ask questions and then what was really interesting was from a peer to peer point was as soon as Boris would make announcement, colleagues were then going on and say, right, don't start asking the board what that means for us, let them go away and digest it and they'll come back to us when they're ready to tell us an update.
00;14;21;28 - 00;14;36;25
Sharon Ashcroft
So that was really nice. And also settled people down from the fear of COVID and what was happening because they were getting the information straightaway. So there was no waiting for posting letters out and things like that. Wow.
00;14;37;26 - 00;14;53;22
Phil Wedgwood
So you don't think without that sort of digital enablement, you would have been able to carry on anywhere near the degree that you did know? And do you have stories or feedback from your peer group in the industry where maybe they didn't have that and how did they manage I mean, how.
00;14;53;26 - 00;15;25;23
Sharon Ashcroft
They were writing to people so that, you know, they were they were literally writing to people stuffing in envelopes and posting out because they had no other way to communicate with people all the way in managers to call people. Well, you must be like Chinese whispers isn't you get five different versions of a message or five different messages of what that means where, you know, all the were pulling people on to video conferences well you know, not not that's quite hard when you've got, you know, different age brackets people understand in tech.
00;15;26;09 - 00;15;31;24
Sharon Ashcroft
But because they were so used to the app it was just easier compared to some of our peers.
00;15;32;24 - 00;15;45;09
Phil Wedgwood
Wow. And do you think that helped get everybody on board? I mean I knew you were alive way before then. Did you see an increase in engagement because you had that and that was the main mechanism to engage?
00;15;46;01 - 00;16;13;25
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah. So if you look at our, you know, messaging that went up, you know, tenfold, you know, people messaging each other, posting pictures, posting updates from the government website themselves, selves. So absolutely. 100% everyone was on the app. So the people kind of just got on to the payslips every month previously. Yeah, we're all watching the app because they knew that was where they would find out what was going on and what that meant for them as individuals.
00;16;13;28 - 00;16;23;16
Phil Wedgwood
Wow. And now you come back to this kind of new normal, as they call it, how's business been, say, the last six months as we transition back to some level of normality?
00;16;23;25 - 00;16;50;09
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah. Note Business has been really good. 20, 21 was really good. Good year for us. We've done now some really good things around introducing real living wage, which is, you know, £11.05 for everyone in London, 99 to four everywhere else which is on the back of the good success. We are in 20, 21 and again we're first in industrial automotive to do that and commit to that two colleagues.
00;16;51;16 - 00;17;19;08
Sharon Ashcroft
So we've, we're, you know semiconductors still an issue but you know our colleagues are absolutely focused and are so resilient and find and adapt in different ways to still get to you know, selling cars servicing vehicles. So yeah and a lot of us through ideas from colleagues as to how we've adapted and changed things which is and the results so brilliant leadership and brilliant colleagues during 20, 21 and into 2022 as well.
00;17;19;27 - 00;17;30;05
Phil Wedgwood
I suppose you're lucky being part of such an amazing brand. Do you think that really helps provide that sort of umbrella for togetherness through these tough times that you've been through.
00;17;30;10 - 00;18;08;09
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah, definitely. So some years ago we, we did what's called RSVP, our employee value proposition and we went out to our colleagues and said, what is it that you feel around work and interest Ford and the big kind of feedback was that the blue oval makes them feel secure as individuals are job security, but also the individual locations operate as a family so our EVP is around being part the bigger of also the big wider Ford Network bought the individuality of belonging to a location that acts like family.
00;18;08;16 - 00;18;17;00
Sharon Ashcroft
So again, when we put our comms, our our tone of voice is all around working in the transport family, which again is feedback from our colleagues.
00;18;17;22 - 00;18;25;08
Phil Wedgwood
That's really great and that's quite a unique business set up there really, isn't it? There's nowhere else that has that special mix that you've got no.
00;18;25;18 - 00;18;44;13
Sharon Ashcroft
And that's aligned with our PPA. So we made it very clear in terms of what our purposes, which everyone understands, everyone is there to drive the standard in customer care, be that internal or external customer. We live along our values and we all have an ambition which is to grow and retain, you know, be the envy of our competitors.
00;18;44;23 - 00;18;58;09
Sharon Ashcroft
So all the comms we do, both internal and everything it goes through, engage every comms go through, engage is around tone, voice firmly on the line to our PPA.
00;18;59;03 - 00;19;21;13
Phil Wedgwood
And that's brilliant. And I think innovation is great to see that you're in even in these challenging times innovating so heavily and you've always done that way since we've worked with you. I think one of the most recent ones is the is the RMS, the proposition that you launched. You want to tell us a little bit about that and also some of the engagement challenges about launching that so quickly and how you did that.
00;19;21;15 - 00;19;45;26
Sharon Ashcroft
Yep, no, definitely. So AMS V, which is mobile service vehicles. So we've now got a hundred mobile technicians out on the road right up in Scotland down to the south coast and across the north and that is really challenging because when you have a technician who's live in a work and in Scotland and you've got no dealerships at that, I mean, really at the top of Scotland.
00;19;45;26 - 00;20;07;22
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah. How do you keep them engaged? How do you communicate with them? How do you handle them? You can't keep dragging them all the way down to, you know, Manchester which is potentially the nearest location. But the app plays a really important part in that. So with that, groups set within the app. So all the mobile service vehicle technicians have a group so they can share within that.
00;20;08;01 - 00;20;37;07
Sharon Ashcroft
But again, the parties are underspend being innovative. And as we have divested, move into other areas is around mobile service vehicles. So when we are selling to large fleet organizations, we can offer the whole package. We sell you the vehicle, we can also service a vehicle so it's said to have a downtime where they would have to bring into a dealership as service vehicles will go to the organization's premises as service vehicles for them when the drivers are on lunch break and things like that.
00;20;37;12 - 00;20;41;13
Sharon Ashcroft
So it really minimizes the downtime for an organization as well.
00;20;41;27 - 00;21;01;29
Phil Wedgwood
You know, it's really, really clever. And I think you've got that really nice mix of that classic sort of B2C car piece, haven't you? And then also with the commercial arm, which seems to have, as we all know, the commercial vehicle sales have gone up because everyone's been at home and wanted everything delivered. That's right. And you've been right at the heart of driving that, haven't you, in making it happen, like physically making it happen.
00;21;02;01 - 00;21;23;00
Sharon Ashcroft
Oh, yeah. I mean, our fleet and commercial vehicle teams have just been absolutely out to this world. You know, some of the customer feedback they get is absolutely fantastic. Really, really good. So, yeah, that, you know, they win awards. Yeah. Well, again, I think it's next week for the Fleet Awards, which, you know, fingers crossed we will win that now.
00;21;23;00 - 00;21;32;10
Phil Wedgwood
Good luck so in terms of now moving forward, what are your key objectives? These your top two or three objectives that you're really focused on now for the remainder of this year?
00;21;32;14 - 00;22;04;23
Sharon Ashcroft
Okay. So a big one is around diversity and inclusion. So we've just started we have really just started that. So that that's the kind of journey and it's around our strategy is that allocations need to reflect the demographics of the area that they operate with them. And what I mean by that is in Bradford for example, they you would expect the colleague mixed by as a demographic mix of Bradford, which will be different to the colleague demographics of some of our surrounding dealerships.
00;22;05;06 - 00;22;29;01
Sharon Ashcroft
So we'll start in that journey. We've got the measures and the measures, not targets. So it's directional. We can see if we are moving the needle. So we've started that and it's a it's not our initiative is a board initiative and a leadership initiative that everybody has bought into is baked for us this year because we think, you know, we can really make that change in terms of inclusion with interest.
00;22;29;01 - 00;22;53;12
Sharon Ashcroft
Ford and, you know, automotive is predominantly male dominated. So we need to move that move that around. And the other one is around retention of colleagues. So once we get colleagues into Ford, then we need to make sure we're looking after them and inducting them and training them and making them feel valued in the first 12 months of their career with interest Ford.
00;22;53;17 - 00;22;56;04
Sharon Ashcroft
They're the real big two for 20, 22.
00;22;56;18 - 00;23;16;26
Phil Wedgwood
Okay, great. And obviously with the car industry generally, it's been historically very male dominated, hasn't it? How have you managed to excel in that environment, a personal level? And then also how have you seen that the industry transition towards the sort of things you're talking about? They're more of a fairer, more balanced working environment.
00;23;17;22 - 00;23;37;24
Sharon Ashcroft
So we're members of the Automotive 30% Club, which commits to offering 30% of the board female by 2030. Well the three of us, you know, I'm female to a male, so take that based on our leadership team, you know there's eight of those four of them female. So again we've done really, really well. There is the next level down for us.
00;23;37;24 - 00;24;07;01
Sharon Ashcroft
Well that's where we don't have our heads of business. We have, you know no female heads of business, we have heads of department are female. So we've got a lot of work to do in making that shift. We're currently throughout the group. 75% male, 25% female. But this is an automotive issue to address. That is why a collective like myself on the other board directors in all the dealer groups, we work collectively together because we have to make that shift across the industry.
00;24;07;01 - 00;24;35;06
Sharon Ashcroft
And a lot of it is a perception of working in order that it's going to be those are the old enough bit like off the dealer and that's not ours. So it's going into schools, you know, talking to females around. You can have a career interest Ford Yeah, there's lots and lots of professionalism in a vehicle isn't like it used to be and you can get a really good living and that's really got some really fantastic females now who've come at the entry level.
00;24;35;18 - 00;24;42;23
Sharon Ashcroft
But I can say they're going to be progressing intensive business. But the issue is it's a marathon, not a sprint, and it's always the best person for the job.
00;24;43;07 - 00;24;59;08
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, and it's great. But I can also see though you touched on it, where traditionally certainly the sort of that technician mechanic kind of role where you know, you're lifting up engine blocks and things like that, you know, that's not going to be the case in a few. Well, arguably, even now it's started really, as you touched on, isn't it?
00;24;59;08 - 00;25;06;21
Phil Wedgwood
It's it's more you plug the laptop in and that that actually provides much more of a level playing field, doesn't it? In many respects, it really does.
00;25;06;27 - 00;25;31;26
Sharon Ashcroft
And you know what what makes it, you know, really, really worthwhile for me is when then play a female technician and they, you know, people actually ring mayors. I have employed a female technician at Gray, but they're obviously getting it, aren't they? That. Yes, yes. About the widening their lens and being more open minded to bring in, you know, more diverse talent into chose forward and are really proud when they achieve as well.
00;25;32;26 - 00;25;52;29
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, definitely. And you can see that when you go into the average dealership much more especially front of house roles now, isn't it? And many more women involved, which is great to see. I mean, and when you touch on that, that customer Segway, that interaction between the colleague and the customer, obviously in your environment, that's very real, isn't it?
00;25;52;29 - 00;26;03;07
Phil Wedgwood
That's very, very direct. How do you how do you embrace that? How do you maximize that opportunity? To enhance the customer experience through enhancing the colleague?
00;26;03;07 - 00;26;26;25
Sharon Ashcroft
10, okay. So it's really simple, Phil. You know, it's been there for years. It's happy staff equals happy customers equals up profits. It's not that complicated. Yeah. If you look after your colleagues and they're happy, feel rewarded, feel recognize what's coming to work, they will give great customer service. If you give great customer service, you will sell more product, which means you get your profits.
00;26;26;25 - 00;26;45;03
Sharon Ashcroft
It's been around for years that the three simple strands that you need to concentrate on. And again, when we're having conversations as a board, our leadership team and these great ideas, I always say is great. But, you know, if you ain't got great people, you can't do any of that. It's a strip back to look after the people.
00;26;45;12 - 00;26;47;27
Sharon Ashcroft
They look after customers, they look after the profits.
00;26;49;06 - 00;27;15;08
Phil Wedgwood
A sound you make. It sounds simple, but it isn't right. And you do a really good job, all that. But do you have measure do you actually measure customer satisfaction? You clearly do, right? And then you can link it back to the colleague interaction. And then you have that three 60 degree feedback because I know you do. I mean, gosh, when I look across our pillars that we talk about our five pillars of engagement, I look across the, the work you do with our team and the way you've enabled everything in the platform.
00;27;15;08 - 00;27;31;02
Phil Wedgwood
And I can honestly think that there isn't a pillar where I'm looking at it thinking you could do your week, your week here or week there. I honestly can't. I think it's you've done such a solid job. It's, it's really quite good. Is quite phenomenal. Really. I think you've.
00;27;31;05 - 00;27;50;27
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah. I mean, the hardest part. So we did, we did we do we have CSI skulls. We have CSI skulls from Ford Motor Company. Benchmark against, you know, everyone else who sends a sells a Ford vehicle are pinch points all within after sales. Because if you can imagine you know, when you're buying a new vehicle, you get real happy.
00;27;50;27 - 00;28;06;01
Sharon Ashcroft
You know you're going to go and you're going to buy a vehicle. You can get the shiny new thing that you're going to take home. You're going to show everybody when you've got to have your car serviced, which you're going to do. Right, because you have to for warranty are whatever so that you're going to follow the manufacturer guidelines.
00;28;06;19 - 00;28;25;13
Sharon Ashcroft
You're not very happy because you've got to come and spend some money that you don't really want to spend. Yeah. So you already know in a jolly mood when you come in anyway. You know, if you can't get straight to the counter and give your keys off and you've got to a little bit because everyone comes in between seven and nine, get the car same.
00;28;25;13 - 00;28;43;00
Sharon Ashcroft
So you all pick up at the same time. Yeah. So that means that as a customer you're not as happy as places in a customer, buy in a vehicle. So some of the surveys have it tough oh yeah. And then, you know, we bring you up and say you need a new tire. Yeah. The service advised them that conversation.
00;28;43;00 - 00;29;12;29
Sharon Ashcroft
So service customers are harder to please because it's more of a distressed purchase. So we still have a way to go in getting our CSI schools within service where they need to pay. Some do it really well. It's all around the communication with the customer and build in that rapport with the customer. So a lot of our resource is now aligned to coaching mentor and our service advisors to be able to manage that service customer in a better way so that they actually give them more positive feedback as well.
00;29;13;22 - 00;29;30;15
Phil Wedgwood
So that makes sense. So I suppose yeah, you're right. The sales roles, it's inherently more rewarding, isn't it, because you're delighting that customer and that experience is there very immediate. What about the, the obviously pass the service side, the technicians, what about that area? Is that challenging?
00;29;31;03 - 00;29;54;11
Sharon Ashcroft
It is because again, you know, people bring vehicles back and I expect technicians to be able to, you know, know straight where they're rattlers or whatever. And you know what it's like, you have the rattle, you take it out for test drive. It doesn't. Russell Yeah, it's typical. So the technicians again are trying to adapt to the new changes with engines, electrification, everything like that.
00;29;54;11 - 00;29;58;25
Sharon Ashcroft
But all this score of the CSI Scot feeds into the aftersales piece anyway.
00;29;59;24 - 00;30;08;10
Phil Wedgwood
Right? So when you look at engagement as a thing in the round, what would you say the most challenging areas of driving that in an organization like yours are?
00;30;10;17 - 00;30;35;17
Sharon Ashcroft
Change? Yeah. So people don't like change and get more people, you know, even things like off the old paper payslips, onto electronic payslips was a real challenge because then they want to email and say, Can you print off and poster? So it's around, it's around change. Yeah. That it's just been so difficult in keeping them engaged because they want to know what's in it for me.
00;30;35;19 - 00;31;02;14
Sharon Ashcroft
And we've always done it like they so why do I need, why do we need to change? So and then as you're evolving, they know the digital offerings that we have within the app and introducing new functions again, it's like how can we go about how it looked before? And it just takes a while, but you've just got to keep data and keep focused on, you know, getting good content to them that they think, Oh, actually this is really interesting.
00;31;02;18 - 00;31;28;01
Sharon Ashcroft
And actually I can see a benefit from how they're now doing things and communicating with me and also peer to peer so they can see things like, you know, when it's someone's 25 year survey and the stock congratulating each other, well, how would you do that one? Everyone's got access to internet and things like that. If we didn't do it via the app, so it's around just perseverance and just pushing different, different things out.
00;31;28;01 - 00;31;29;24
Sharon Ashcroft
Some will what? Some won't work.
00;31;31;01 - 00;31;40;29
Phil Wedgwood
If you can have a magic wand and sort of fix one thing that's maybe particularly challenging, can you think of something that would come to mind that you'd, that you'd love to just wave that one that.
00;31;40;29 - 00;31;55;07
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah, can we stop? Yeah, I'd love it. Not to be resolved. Shortage. Yeah. Around the world. Yeah, it's really, really I said earlier the candidates market so yeah. Getting good talent is really, really difficult at the minute. Really difficult.
00;31;55;08 - 00;32;02;16
Phil Wedgwood
And I suppose that puts more of a lens on retention, doesn't it? Because if you do have those people coming into the business, you've got to keep hold of them.
00;32;02;18 - 00;32;04;11
Sharon Ashcroft
That's right. Yeah, absolutely.
00;32;04;22 - 00;32;11;18
Phil Wedgwood
And is that something that you're finding challenging? Do you have initiatives in place for that that you're driving through?
00;32;11;26 - 00;32;44;06
Sharon Ashcroft
Yeah, so retention is difficult because, you know, because the job market is so buoyant, people are getting the heads turned which normally they wouldn't do when they want the security of I've been here a couple of years, I'm going to stay, I'm happy. So again, interested in looking at interview data a lot of people, it's really strange because they say, I absolutely love work in here, but actually I want a better work life balance and and a change in completely going out of industry to different industries.
00;32;45;10 - 00;32;52;23
Sharon Ashcroft
So that's that's one thing if I could fix is please stop letting people leave. Just vote yeah. Right. And stay with those. Yeah.
00;32;52;23 - 00;33;10;24
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah. It's fascinating. But I think when you look at that mobile initiative that you've launched, you could see how something like that could become much more flexible, where people could just book it, book that in as and when they want to when they want it, they might want to sort of have the afternoon off and work in the evening that might suit the customer as well.
00;33;10;24 - 00;33;13;07
Phil Wedgwood
So you could see how that type of thing would work.
00;33;13;07 - 00;33;34;13
Sharon Ashcroft
Well, yeah, definitely. I you know, we will continue to expand our movie offering. You know, the plan is, you know, and I do kind of, you know, have a bit of a heart flutter moment when this are where we need to know the and I'm thinking, where am I going to get another hundred technicians from when there's a resource shortage and there was a technician shortage before the entire resource shortage.
00;33;34;25 - 00;33;51;07
Sharon Ashcroft
So yeah. So it's difficult but again fill that's around bring in apprentices and so in a routine in our room so we're going to increase our apprentice technical apprentice intake for 20, 22 because we've got to grow our through. Isn't all these people out there.
00;33;52;15 - 00;34;00;05
Phil Wedgwood
That's fantastic to hear. If you had one initiative that you been particularly proud of, can you think of what that might be?
00;34;00;07 - 00;34;20;13
Sharon Ashcroft
Oh, this sounds really Bikaner, but it's the app. Yeah. I remember meeting with John however years ago and saying I want to Gap. Know what? No one else had got an app and it has been so, so successful. And I'm not just saying that because I'm doing this podcast with you are really her hard to believe in that.
00;34;21;11 - 00;34;46;09
Sharon Ashcroft
I think it's been a partnership with, with engage in terms of saying this is what you need on the app, but yeah, it has a different level on how we communicate with our colleagues that we would not have had before. And I think, you know, we would be in a worse place from a retention point of view and engagement point of view because we wouldn't have been able to communicate in the way we communicate with our current colleagues.
00;34;47;22 - 00;34;51;27
Phil Wedgwood
Well, I wasn't expecting that to be your answer, I thought. But thank you.
00;34;52;10 - 00;34;53;05
Sharon Ashcroft
Yes. And the time.
00;34;53;05 - 00;35;01;27
Phil Wedgwood
Yeah, I thought you might say The Sunday Times because I thought that was a real accolade for you and for you personally and the wider team. Right, to do that. What was it, four years on the bounce that.
00;35;01;28 - 00;35;03;12
Sharon Ashcroft
You did it? Yeah, four years. I mean.
00;35;03;13 - 00;35;04;22
Phil Wedgwood
That's the top 25.
00;35;04;23 - 00;35;24;16
Sharon Ashcroft
20. I mean, that's. Yeah, no, definitely but that was it. I mean they're all team efforts, don't get me wrong. But yeah, it's that for me the game changer to get as listed in the Sunday Times comes back to the engagement pace. So again, you know, it was been able to communicate for people with push pull surveys out.
00;35;24;24 - 00;35;41;29
Sharon Ashcroft
Quick response back on the app you know doing the feedback via the app which meant that I do think that shifted the needle and was able enabled us to move forward. But of course the Sunday Times yeah that's four years top 25 is absolutely fantastic that's great.
00;35;43;05 - 00;36;03;15
Phil Wedgwood
Look you know we could talk all day but I think that's a fantastic place to end. All I can say is congratulations for all those achievements. I know it's been super tough working in the environment you've worked and as we've touched on so well, done, it's been a pleasure working with you and the team. You have a great team around you and behind you, so is testament to all the great work you've put in.
00;36;03;15 - 00;36;08;11
Phil Wedgwood
So thanks very much for coming today. And continue looking forward to continue working with you.
00;36;08;16 - 00;36;15;04
Sharon Ashcroft
Thank you. Phil in Aspen, a team effort across, you know, the entire team's interest forward with the API we have.
00;36;15;04 - 00;36;16;21
Phil Wedgwood
We've thank.
00;36;16;21 - 00;36;17;20
Sharon Ashcroft
You. Thank you.
00;36;18;07 - 00;36;28;19
Narrator
Thanks for listening to Engaging Conversation. It was presented by our CEO, Beau Wajid for more news and updates on Engage. Visit our website at engage lesions. Great dot com.