Canada’s auto industry still 'males' it in

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part two of three in a series examining why more women aren't involved in Canada's auto industry. For more from this series, click here.

Allyson Bell is convinced women have some natural advantages over men in the showroom, but she has had difficulty recruiting young women to work as salespeople at her Ottawa dealership.

It could be the long hours at some dealerships, said Bell, the 69-year-old general manager of Hunt Club Volkswagen. It could also be a stigma against the job of selling cars. Or it could be the remnants of what has been a macho profession.

“There is a huge sexist cult in this business,” Bell told Automotive News Canada. “There is still this horrible thought that it is a man’s business.”

The Canadian Automobile Dealers’ Association estimated in 2018 that men made up 78 per cent of the dealer workforce and 95 per cent of dealer principals.

And, a 2018 workforce study commissioned by the Ontario-based Trillium Automobile Dealers Association (TADA) suggested that automotive retail has made little progress bolstering its female ranks in recent years.

The study found that just 13 per cent of salespeople at the 158 dealerships which participated in the survey, were women in 2018, a one-point increase over 2016.  

Todd Bourgon, executive director at TADA, which represents about 1,100 new-vehicle dealers in the province, declined to comment on the study, saying it was proprietary. 

The survey, which was obtained by Automotive News Canada, also found that women made up 36 per cent of finance and insurance managers, unchanged from 2016. Women accounted for just 24 per cent of service advisers, up slightly from 21 per cent in 2016.  

And one per cent of Ontario auto service technicians were female.

However, 17 per cent of respondents had a female service technician on staff in 2018, up from zero per cent two years earlier. 

The study comes as the industry grapples with a chronic shortage of skilled labour as well as rapid technological change.

It also found that finance and insurance managers make 55 per cent less than their male counterparts, female service advisers make 11 per cent less, and female sales consultants make 14 per cent less. 

‘DEMORALIZING’

Tanya van Biesen, executive director of Catalyst Canada, an organization that works to address the concerns of women in business, said female employees in the auto sector report higher levels of bias than those working in other types of jobs.

Women who work in the sector “talk about high rates of sexism, they talk about high rates of sexual harassment, they talk about being given lower level and less impactful assignments than men which, for anybody that has a brain and some ambition, becomes demoralizing over time,” Van Biesen said in a telephone interview.

Those are all issues that could chase women out of the industry or convince young women to stay away from it, said Van Biesen.

As for the compensation gap, she said, it is something that exists in all industries across the country.

WHERE WOMEN ARE ‘AMAZING’

At Hunt Club Volkswagen, a woman manages the 13 technicians in the service shop. Two of the three service advisers are women. So, is one of the five salespeople. 

“These young women in our service department are amazing” said Bell. “They astonish me every day, the way that they treat people like it’s their mom and their dad.”

And, the lone saleswoman holds her own when it comes to moving product, often outperforming her male co-workers, said Bell. “She was the top salesperson several times in 2019.”

At Charlottetown Mitsubishi, Tammy Roach markets the fact that she is the only woman dealer principal on Prince Edward Island — and it’s paying dividends for her store. 

“I use the fact that I’m a woman in almost all of my advertising,” said Roach. “It’s really important to my customers, and it shocks me every day how many women come through the door and tell me all the horrific stories they’ve had at dealerships.

The public is demanding that dealerships become more diverse because customers generally feel more comfortable if they see people like them among the store’s employees, she said. Of her 10 employees, four are women. 

To create a better gender balance, “as managers, we need to provide environments for women to feel safe to work in,” Roach said, adding, “We have to hire men who are also respectful of women.” 

‘TENDER LOVING CARE’

Bell landed her first job in the auto business after moving from the United Kingdom in 1980. Her nursing records from Britain had disappeared in the mail during a postal strike so she went to work as a payroll clerk at a dealership. 

She was eventually was promoted to business manager. And “then I thought, if I want to do anything in the car business, I have to go out to sell,” she said. Bell has since worked at two other dealerships and was promoted, first to sales manager and then to general manager.

Some of the traditionally feminine traits of nursing were her secret weapons in auto sales, she said. “Tender loving care was a huge influence in people’s recovery,” said Bell. “And I have discovered that tender loving care solves a lot of problems in car dealerships too.”

In addition, she said, customers tend to trust women more than they do men. “So, can we use that to our advantage? Absolutely.”

Women, she added, are better listeners and less intimidating.

“It’s been my personal experience that women are able to take the stress out of the [buying] process, and customers relax and become more comfortable with the process much quicker,” she said. “The public tells me all the time that they love seeing women in the car business, women [who make most of the big buying decisions] like dealing with women.”