Best Dealerships To Work For Canada 2021

Location: Winnipeg

General manager: Kayla Ledohowski-Becker

Dealership group: Birchwood Automotive Group

Number of employees: 31

General Manager Kayla Ledohowski-Becker on how the pandemic affected productivity of sales staff: The many changes to our retail practices fostered an environment of teamwork and collaboration in coming up with solutions to the challenges we have faced along the way. This helped to empower our team members to be a part of our evolution and they all really came together to focus their efforts on delivering exceptional service to our customers. By doing this, they were able to achieve sales excellence and increase customer satisfaction.

Ledohowski-Becker on lessons learned from managing the dealership through the pandemic: We were able to come together and develop customized purchase-experience options tailored to accommodate our customer’s personal preferences while adhering to the evolving global pandemic. During the period where we had to close our showrooms for in-person vehicle sales, Birchwood developed a fully integrated ‘buy from home’ program in which customers can purchase a vehicle without ever setting foot into one of our facilities.

Chief Human Resources Officer MaryAnn Kempe on steps taken to recruit and retain female employees: In 2019, we launched a Maternity/Parental/ Adoption Leave Top-up Program. The program top ups team members’ wages by 45 per cent for 15 weeks. Our internal group Women In Automotive Leadership’s purpose is to shift women’s perspectives so that they consider the automotive industry as a rewarding career choice, and to help develop, inspire and support the present and future women of Birchwood.