How Best Dealerships To Work For build staff loyalty

Dealerships that pay for employees’ health coverage, provide and protect time off and are transparent about store financials drive employee loyalty, according to this year’s 150 Best Dealerships To Work For.

Employee turnover at dealerships is often high, and stores are vying for the best salespeople, technicians and other talent as hard as they compete for customers. In that competitive environment, medical, mental health and work-life balance benefits are essential recruitment and retention tools. They keep employees healthy, productive and loyal, dealers and industry experts say.

Staff at Automotive News’ 2026 Best Dealerships To Work For say they have better benefits and relationships with leadership than unsuccessful applicants, a Workforce Research Group analysis found. Workforce Research Group, an Automotive News partner for the annual awards, uses confidential employee surveys and management information to measure dealership workplace satisfaction.

This year’s ranking of the 150 dealerships will be announced Nov. 4.

Repeat winner Patriot Subaru in Saco, Maine, measures the success of employee benefits “in longevity, both in their physical health and their time at work,” said owner Adam Arens. The dealership has better outcomes if employees “can work better, if they have better energy.”

“If it hasn’t positively affected our bottom line, I would be shocked,” he said.

Patriot Subaru employs over 100 people, and the dealership pays 100 percent of their medical, dental and vision costs, Arens said. Covering employees’ medical expenses has grown more costly, but Arens is committed to continuing the program.

When employees are healthy, they do better work and stick with the company longer, and that also translates into high repeat business and referral customers, Arens said.

“I don’t expect them to be loyal to my building, and I don’t expect them to be loyal to my cars,” Arens said. Customers are loyal because they recognize familiar faces every time they come into the store, he said.

All four of Capitol Auto Group’s dealerships made the list this year: Capitol Nissan of Salem, Capitol Chevrolet-Cadillac of Salem, Capitol Toyota of Salem and Capitol Subaru of Salem. The Oregon dealership group employs about 450 people, more than double the number the group employed 15 years ago, said Matthew Casebeer, group partner and dealer principal.

“We’ve added so much, and I attribute all of that to our people,” Casebeer said. “It’s all about our culture, and our people are the ones that prop that up.”

Capitol Auto Group assesses its benefits package every year to best meet employees’ needs, Casebeer said. When dealership employees are happy and aren’t stressed, customers can feel it, he said.

Ninety-two percent of staff at winning dealerships said they have enough paid time off and sick leave, compared with 74 percent at unsuccessful applicant dealerships, according to an analysis of Best Dealership winners and nonwinners. Meanwhile, 95 percent of staff at winning stores said they believe the dealership values them, compared with 81 percent of staff at nonwinning stores.

Hiring for auto retail jobs is competitive, said Michael Piehler, part owner and general manager of Land Rover Rochester in New York, another store on the Best Dealerships To Work For list. The dealership employs 25 people.

“It’s just very difficult to find good people,” Piehler said. Benefits his store offers, such as competitive health care coverage and profit-sharing, can “entice someone that’s on the fence with a couple other dealerships.”

Best Dealerships more likely to offer certain benefits

A comparison of benefits offered by the 2026 Best Dealerships To Work For and unsuccessful dealership applicants reveals some notable differences.

Source: Automotive News, Workforce Research Group

Benefits and balance set winners apart

Work-life balance is a key differentiator between this year’s Best Dealerships To Work For and unsuccessful store applicants.Ninety-four percent of winners’ staff said they are satisfied with the number of hours they work each week. That’s compared with only 81 percent of stores that didn’t make the list.

Dealership groups make a statement to potential employees through benefits packages, said Fleming Ford, director of strategic growth for NCM Associates, an auto retail consulting firm.

The offer is “a promise of the brand because it supports what a company is committing to” employees, Ford said.

Similarly,92 percent ofwinners’ staff said they rarely miss personal events for work, far higher than73 percent of staff who agreed but worked at nonwinning stores.

Most employees at Patriot Subaru work four days a week, part of the work-life balance and flexibility it offers, Arens said.

Management style and culture translate directly to employee longevity at a dealership, Piehler said. It is important to hang onto good people because not just anyone can succeed working in a dealership, he said.

If an employee leaves the store, owners and managers should ask themselves: “Did we offer enough tools? Did we offer enough opportunity? Why would someone want to go somewhere else?” Piehler said.

Top 10 contributors driving employee engagement

A Workforce Research Group analysis of Best Dealerships To Work For employee surveys found workers who rated highly these 10 statements tended to have the highest emotional connection to their company and job. The statements are ranked in order of importance in producing that engagement. The survey data also shows that the percentage of employees who agreed with the statements is higher among winning dealerships compared with employees who agreed at nonwinning stores.

Source: Automotive News, Workforce Research Group

Opening dealership books builds buy-in

Of the winning dealerships this year, staff at 89 percent said they are aware of the store’s financial status, compared with only 66 percent of stores that did not make the list.

Management at Patriot Subaru hosts an 8 a.m. meeting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday that is open to all staff, Arens said. There is an informal book club during the meetings, but employees also are welcome to discuss what’s on their mind about the business, he said.

Auto retailers have to balance “the needs of the associate and the needs of the company,” Arens said. “When we can get this to happen where they overlap, it works really well for everybody.”

Capitol Auto Group holds an all-hands meeting at the beginning of each year to share details — including new and used sales, repair orders and gross profit earned from repairs — about the previous year’s performance across stores and departments, Casebeer said. Managers also can access daily metrics across the dealership group, he said.

“They can see what’s going on, how they need to cut or improve,” Casebeer said. “We want them to feel like owners, especially on a manager level.”

All staff at Land Rover Rochester has Piehler’s cell phone number. The employees work as a team, and everyone is very close, Piehler said. For example, he knows when his service manager has to coach lacrosse and when one technician has to attend his daughter’s gymnastics competitions.

“Nowadays, where things are coming at us from all angles, we have to be as unified as possible,” Piehler said.

Dealership leaders should “drive that unity,” he said. “You will get results out of [employees] that you would never expect.”