February 2020

continue to talk to each other rather than engage with me.” Confidence Rebecca continued: “I am not one to suffer a lack of confidence so I learnt what I can, introduced myself to whom I wanted to talk to. I did notice that I also needed to inform some sales teams that I was a worth a chat to; I have a sizeable garage workshop, I can purchase, I want to purchase and I was certainly not here to get as many free mugs and pens as I could. “So yes, I probably did miss out on the things out of my radar and my current knowledge but overall I got what I wanted to from the show. I am not moaning that I have been badly treated by my colleagues, I have broad shoulders but I am sharing this as it is the motor industry that has missed out far more today when many of the visitors were not worthy of their sales pitches.” She added “Isn’t it time the aftermarket grew up, joined the 21st century, became a professional industry and said goodbye to sexism? “I know until my beloved industry can stop dressing young ladies in nearly see-through Lycra – yes that still exists and we should all be absolutely ashamed but I want to stay on-topic – and assuming women are not going to buy from them or possibly don’t understand what it is about, we are all going to be the poorer.” Is Rebecca alone though? Anything and everything Tina Drayson is Operations Manger at CCM, a group of three garages that straddles the West Sussex/Surrey border, based at Gatwick, Ewhurst and now also at Cranleigh. She explained what the role entails. "It involves anything and everything. I implement the systems, I do the internal training with the front of house staff. The processes that we have must mirror each other across all three depots. We acquired our third site earlier this year. For me it was great – I just picked up the processes we already have implemented and put them in at the new depot and it works almost instantly. It was quite nice and satisfying for me as it proved that the systems we have in place do work. As well as the training, I do the HR side of things. For example, I have just redone all the employee handbooks, kept them all up to date, I do all payroll. I do all the GMS. One big change this year is that we just moved from GDS across to TechMan. I did all the research into what system we were going to go with. I looked at three of them, went out and visited people that have them so I could get a bit of an insight. I then made the decision of what we were going to go with, organised all the training for the staff. I also do one-to-ones with all the staff, to make sure their wellbeing is all good, and that everybody is happy. It is pretty much anything and everything that the directors throw at me to do." It sounded to us like she was doing everything but repairing cars: "I do everything except pick the tools up," she confirmed. Tina believes that women provide a valuable insight for businesses that male members of staff might not be able to provide: “I think we have a different way of thinking. Sometimes we can have group meetings about, for instance a customer that might be unhappy with something we have done. We offer a different outlook. We have noticed quite a few incidents like that." While a different outlook can be useful, the difference is also reflected in the way customers react to female members of staff: "Customers come in, and they will be talking to my ladies downstairs, quite happily. However, as soon as a male member of staff appears, their eye contact moves, their whole train of thought has switched to that person. They have this unconscious thing in their heads – he is a man, he knows what 10 AFTERMARKET FEBRUARY 2020 BIG ISSUE Above: Tina Drayson www.aftermarketonline.net Out of 60,000 MOT testers only around 300 are women ”

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