Editorial: Houska Automotive Takes Its Time When Hiring

A couple of months ago in this column, I wrote about a tire dealer who prefers to hire people “at warp speed” — my words, not his. The editorial elicited an email from Jason Lightbody, who runs the tire division at Houska Automotive in Fort Collins, Colo.

Jason wanted to talk about the virtues of hiring slowly — and what it takes to keep employees happy after they’re on-board.

Despite operating in a hot job market where good workers are in high demand, Houska Automotive, which employs around 50 people, moves slowly and deliberately when hiring.

"For us, the goal is to not need to hire a replacement later,” Jason explained. When interviewing candidates, “we ask as many questions as we can. We do as much social media investigating as we can. We even have team members look at candidates’ vehicles” to see how well they’re maintained.

"We take our time. Everybody gets interviewed twice. We want to know how someone will fit on our team. Whether we’re  hiring for a service advisor or technician role, we have a playbook” that’s followed religiously.

The company will disqualify candidates who don’t want to work out sufficient notice with their current employers. “If we interview someone — even if they look like a good fit — and they say, ‘I can start anytime. I don’t need to give a two-week notice,’ we move past them, regardless of their credentials.”

Refusing to give notice “just tells me they’re going to do that to us down the road. I don’t want to hire somebody with the hope that I’m putting my competition at a disadvantage. We don’t go to battle that way. We want to beat them based on service. And our employees see that. They know we’re trying to get the best person we can and if it takes a little longer, that’s OK.”

Our conversation shifted to the subject of employee retention. When I asked Jason to share the secret of successful employee retention, he simply replied, “It’s love. It’s us loving our people. We give them a 401(k). We give them a very robust health care package. We pay the most competitive wages. And we want to know how they’re doing” on a personal level. We want to know what’s going on with their kids and their spouses. It’s genuine. We 
encourage our people to have lives outside of work. Our owners have a townhouse in a ski town and they allow employees to go there and spend time and get away from work. We also encourage (employees) to have hobbies.

"This month, we’re taking what we call ‘tenured employees’ — employees who have been with us longer than 10 years” — via shuttle to a Colorado Rockies baseball game in Denver, some 65 miles away from Fort Collins. “We’re renting a suite for them.”

The day out has become an annual tradition at Houska Automotive. “People talk about it and new employees will say, ‘I can’t wait until it’s my turn.’”

Management actively seeks feedback from employees. “At Houska Automotive, you can walk into the president’s office at any time. We’re never like, ‘I’m the boss. You’re going to do what I say.’ We say, ‘What are your thoughts? How can you help?’ Fifty-four people together is a pretty smart machine.”

Jason told me that new employees are sometimes surprised at the level of care and concern Houska Automotive’s management team displays. “We have some guys who come here from other shops and they’re used to ownership-down management and finger pointing. That’s not what we do."

Rolling out the red carpet for new employees is par for the course at Houska Automotive, according to Jason. “I took the last service advisor I hired to lunch on his first day. The next day, one of the guys he was going to start working for took him to lunch. A few days later, someone else took him to lunch. It blew his mind that any one of those guys on any one of those days would take him — a new person— to lunch.

"We didn’t go to lunch so we could milk ideas from him and discuss what his previous employer did. We already knew what those guys were doing. We wanted him to understand right from the get-go who we are.”

The average tenure of a Houska Automotive employee is 10 years. “I have a lot of guys on the tire side who’ve been with us between 10 and 15 years. Three guys have been with us longer than I have.” (Jason joined the company in 2010.)

It's evident that Houska Automotive has developed a system that works extremely well. What’s working for you? Let us know. We’d love to hear your story.

Comments? Questions? Email me at [email protected]