Wendle Motors Stops by the Smart Compliance Podcast (Interview)

I have the pleasure of speaking with Robin Parse, who is the Office Manager and the person in charge of Human Resources for Wendle Motors in Spokane, Washington. Robin, good to talk to you today.

Robin: Good to talk to you too.

Tell me a little bit about what Wendle Motors does.

Robin: We’re a family owned business. We’re actually an auto dealership. We own three franchises, Ford, Nissan, and Infiniti. We’ve been in business since 1943, 3rd generation owner.

Wow, that is a long time for a company to be around. You’re doing something right when it comes to compliance, obviously.

Robin: Yes.

The compliance aspect is tricky for those in the auto industry. Explain a little bit about why it tends to be more complicated.

Robin: We are held to such a high standard, not only being in the auto industry, the regulations we’re held under for that, but also we really fall under the same regulations that a bank would fall under, because of the financing end of it and the customer information we have.

We have to follow a lot of different regulations from different areas.

Such as what? I know we had talked a little earlier that the terror watch list is something you have to keep in mind.

Robin: Yeah, we have to … They call it an OFAC. We have to do OFAC training for all of our employees,  so they know how to run an OFAC and make sure they’re not on the terrorist watch list, just because we are required not to sell if you pop up on that list, or at least without doing some additional work after that.

The same holds true for what you mention about the banking standards, when it comes to managing customer’s finances, correct?

Robin: Yes, yes. We fall under privacy and safeguard rules. We have to make sure that everyone’s trained on where to keep customer’s information, who you can give information to, and so forth.

I never thought about that but when you think about buying a car, you provide a lot of data to whoever you’re buying the car from.

Robin: Yes, yes. Definitely.

You have to make sure all your employees are in compliance with how to handle that, correct?

Robin: Oh yes. We have to make sure that they understand … As far as reporting of cash handling, if we have anything over $10,000, we have to report that. There’s cash reporting requirements on that. Privacy, like I said, safeguarding customer’s information, making sure that we are getting things to the bank in a certain manner, there’s just a lot to go with it as far as each area.

And a lot of details to keep track of. Remind me, how many employees do you have again?

Robin: We have 144.

That’s a lot of people to keep track of a lot of compliance data for.

Robin: Yes, it’s very hard and especially because we have them in all different areas. When you get over to the service side, you have technicians who are required to have specific safety training every year, such as asbestos brake training. What else? Heat exposure training, STS training, all those types of things, a lot of OSHA stuff.

Using a service like Compli, how does it help you do that?

Robin: It makes our job so much easier. Really, it’s as simple as, they do most of the work for us. They tell us … They put together the video training. They put together tests for us. They put together sample policies. It’s just us rolling it out, assigning to our employees, and the system does its work. It actually will resend it back to them every year to make sure that they do it. You can run a report. You know how compliant everyone is. You know who has, who hasn’t, done it. Once they do it, it’s filed in their history so it becomes an employee file.

That’s great. That simplifies a lot of the paperwork.

Robin: Oh, there’s no filing of anything. There’s no having to hold numerous meetings during the day to make sure everyone’s covered. People can do it at their own timeframe.

Everyone likes getting out of a meeting too. That certainly has to help.

Robin: Yes, yes. Except they miss the lunches sometimes.

Are you using it for tracking their time off as well?

Robin: Oh, yes. It’s really, like I said, our employee file. Our handbook is on there. Our accident prevention book is on there. All of our forms are on there from if they take time off. They request their vacation there and it actually tracks how much time they’ve taken for the year, how much they have left. It tracks the sick time. It could be jury duty. It could be any of those things that we might have in place as far as benefits. It allows them to change their address, change their W-4, fill out an I-9 at the beginning of hire. All those things you would normally do by paper, we don’t have to do anymore.

That’s fantastic.

Robin: Yes, right.

Especially as an HR person, less paper’s a good thing.

Robin: Yes.

Talk, actually, about when you bring an new employee on board, for example, how does the onboarding process work and how do you use Compli in getting somebody new into your system?

Robin: It’s actually pretty simple. They’re just set up in a group, and by that group, I’ve told it what types of items they have to do, from signing specific policies to filling out specific forms, to specific training such as harassment training, or if they’re a tech maybe they need to have asbestos brake training. All of our safety program is on there. There’s a safety training and testing, all that, and it’s all in one group. As soon we sign them up on Compli, all that is stuck in their inbox and ready for them to go. It tells you when you log in. They know how compliant they are, and they know how much they have to do.

Excellent, very good, and, as someone who’s been in the industry for … I think you said 23 years. Is that right?

Robin: Yes.

The regulatory environment has changed. The compliance requirements have changed. Looking ahead, what do you see in terms of, will it become a heavier lift in terms of compliance and what do you looking at Compli to help you do?

Robin: I don’t see us getting less … I don’t see less regulations coming out. I see probably more, if anything. It just seems like every time we turn around, we have to do another training on something, or we have to make sure that we’re … You know, we have to create another policy to cover everyone. I don’t see that getting any better.      

I do know that Compli helps us, because I don’t have to worry about when something comes up, necessarily coming up with a new video or creating a test. They’re usually way ahead of us.

A good example is the I-9 just changed and they’re already updating that and going to make sure its out there for us.

Very good. Well, Robin, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to chat with us today.

Robin: Well, thank you.