* What is it like in the HR department of a company that over a very short period has lowered its employee numbers from 3,800 to 2,000?
Our business model is changing. The previous model was created for high-volume purchases and sales. We’ve dramatically reduced our hiring activities, but not stopped them altogether. People keep sending in résumés coming in. We’ll be opening up about 10 positions by the end of the year. We’re focusing more on quality of employees now. Our criteria were not as strict before, due to our expansion, and at times it backfired on us, so now we’re focusing on quality. Just between 2006-2007 we hired over 2,000 new employees, with a fluctuation rate of twenty percent.
* Are you only reducing employee numbers or lowering salaries as well?
On the contrary, salaries are increasing. People that have stayed and are willing to work even harder than they have up to now, we’re training to handle other tasks than the ones they’ve been doing so far. A current sales person that did not necessarily have to be an expert on cars and their construction is maybe getting training for purchasing. On the one hand they’re growing professionally and in addition to that they can earn extra commission. A system in which one person covers numerous activities we call „multi-skilling“. I for example as vice president of the company was responsible for the HR department and managed the call center, which I myself founded. Now I am also responsible for the IT department and two communications divisions. (Corporate Communication a External Relations).
* What about those people you no longer have positions for?
For those losing their current positions, we try to find appropriate positions elsewhere within the company. Others that have had to leave have found jobs through an employment agency that we work with, for example. Part of the employee reduction fell to seasonal workers, mainly auto prep workers. Next season we’re not going to replace them with new people but we’ll spread their work amongst the remaining employees.
* Among your most prominent employee benefits you provided company cars for employees. The number of these cars has decreased from 960 to approximately 500. Has anyone left because of this?
It was actually the other way around … we got rid of company cars because there are now fewer employees.
* You’ve completely withdrawn from the Polish market. What happened to the employees there?
It was very difficult to conduct an honest business on the Polish market. A lot of cars with unclear origins are sold there, while customers look for the lowest price – as if legal consequences did not bother them. Legal guarantees on the vehicles we send are one of the pillars of our company policy. Some of our Polish employees found work at our Ostrava branch, and one of them actually got promoted to a managerial post at the Prague headquarters.
· You mentioned a change in the business model. In a situation where you are getting rid of almost half of your workforce and shares of AAA Auto on the Prague Stock Market have fallen in value by tens of percentage points within one year, this sounds like a euphemism. How do you plan to adjust to the current situation which from this point of view doesn’t look all that rosy?
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We don’t expect any major drop in sales, though we have seen a significant change in customer behavior. They no longer go to a used car lot just to look, but come to buy a car, usually a specific pre-selected car, which they found on our website. This shows the dramatically increased the role of the Internet as a sales channel. Coupled with sophisticated telemarketing this makes it possible to achieve the same results with fewer employees.
