Laws and regulations are constantly changing; a legal strategy five years ago may be unlawful now.

All of this information must be documented, and should be kept in your records. Proper documentation provides your dealership written proof of all human resources decisions and the motives behind them.

Wayland says documentation is the more important aspect to any human resources strategy.

“There’s an old phrase in HR that says, ‘If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen,’” he says. “No one’s documentation is perfect, but the more you do the better.”

Hauge says personnel documentation should be fact specific, and constantly updated. This includes any performance reviews or one-on-one meetings. He says those interactions give you the best opportunity to provide feedback on how an employee is doing once they’ve been hired.

They also provide proof when an employee claims they haven’t been warned or notified of a decision affecting their position.

“You can point to something that’s been put on paper, and then they can’t claim they didn’t know their performance was deficient, or they had a history of violating company policies,” Hauge says.

This is the first of Successful Dealer’s two-part series on making staffing changes. For the second part on on properly dismissing employees, CLICK HERE.