Kunes Country Auto Group owns 14 franchises in Wisconsin and Illinois, and recently seven of those stores made the annual Automotive News “Best Dealerships to Work For” list. In case you’re not familiar with this honor, this is the sixth year that Automotive News has run the program and competition is fierce. So congratulations to Kunes Country Auto Group!

In 1996, Gregg Kunes purchased his first dealership, and from the beginning, he established a Christian-based philanthropic mindset. Every year, the auto group tithes 10 percent of its annual net profits to local charities in Wisconsin and Illinois. In 2016, the group donated nearly $900,000 to charities and spent another $100,000 to sponsor local charitable events and activities.

Charitable giving helps to attract and retain employees, but the auto group also has a unique recruiting strategy. To attract candidates to the auto industry, Kunes Country Auto Group promotes available career paths in its dealership group.

Kunes Country Auto Group also emphasizes the fact they promote from within and shares employee success stories.

Management relies on assessment tests to ensure they are hiring candidates with the right attributes for the job. We recently spoke with Bill Hoile, CFO of Kunes Country Auto Group, about the group’s hiring philosophy. “We use the Winslow Profile assessment test, and I think that’s pretty good at picking up on certain behaviors and traits that people miss during a traditional interview,” Hoile said.

Once employees join the organization, it’s the culture that wins hearts and minds.

“It starts at the top. Gregg truly cares and is into building peoples’ lives and making them better,” Hoile said. “When you give people the tools to succeed, they really want to succeed.”

For Kunes Country Auto Group, community involvement and a culture focused on the genuine well being of its employees is a formula that results in high employee retention and numerous “Best Dealership to Work For” awards.

Dealerships that ranked in the 2017 Automotive News top 100 list are:

No. 13: Kunes Country Chevrolet-Buick-GMC of Elkhorn
No. 18: Kunes Country Ford-Lincoln of Sterling
No. 30: Kunes Country Ford-Lincoln of Delavan
No. 37: Kunes Country Auto Group of Oregon
No. 50: Kunes Country Chevrolet of Morrison
No. 59: Kunes Country Chevrolet-Cadillac of Delavan
No. 86: Kunes Country Ford of Antioch

Congratulations again to our friends at the Kunes Country Auto Group!