Dealers urged to curb out of hours working

Dealers bosses have been urged to watch out for “digital burnout” among staff using remote devices to stay in touch with work outside of working hours.

Derek Webb, sales director of Jobco-op Automotive, the specialist online recruitment business, says the issue can be a particular problem for sales staff, who use remote working to follow up leads even on their days off and is advising dealers to discourage excessive usage.

“Modern technology means sales staff can do almost everything that they could do in the dealership by accessing their DMS or sales system remotely from a laptop, tablet or smartphone,” he said.

“This means that some of them effectively use this capability to work seven days a week. They continue to monitor and progress all ongoing sales activity even when they are on holiday.

“In some respects, this is good for the dealership but we have also interviewed some sales people who have felt that they were expected to work in this way and were suffering from a kind of digital burnout. The technology meant that they were always on duty and it was affecting them negatively, damaging relationships and invading their free time.”

Webb added that dealerships where this kind of behaviour was seen should consider introducing guidelines to curb any excesses.

“In the medium-long term, employees who never switch off will tend to suffer some kind of burnout and their performance will be poorer as a result. Dealer managers should take some basic steps to protect and encourage the wellbeing of their staff, whatever the general usefulness of the technology available.”