Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement - S47

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 | 47
B I L L P E N N E Y T O YO TA A N D B I L L P E N N E Y M I T S U B I S H I , H U N T S V I L L E , A L A .

Rainy day fund buoys employees
Ala. dealerships cover
pay as virus outbreak
pushes sales down
Published in Automotive News April 6, 2020

Hannah Lutz
hlutz@crain.com

rainy day fund has helped ease the financial worries of employees at Bill
Penney Toyota and Bill Penney Mitsubishi during the coronavirus
outbreak.
For the past seven years that Ryan Hensley
has been CFO of the Huntsville, Ala., dealerships, he has transferred 50 to 60 percent of
the previous month's net profit into the fund
each month.
That foresight means that, despite a 30 percent drop in sales last month, the dealerships'
200 employees will receive all or most of their
pay while many competitors are laying off
staff. The fund will cover employees' compensation through April, Hensley said.
Bill Penney Toyota even advertised a service
technician opening on its Facebook page
March 25: "With all the layoffs, furloughs, unemployment or just no business, Bill Penney
Toyota is always looking for top talent," the
post said. "We're still open and doing business!!"
On March 23, the stores started scheduling
employees for three days of work alternating
with three days off, but hourly employees
were still paid for at least 32 hours and salaried employees received their full compensation.
"We wanted to take away some of the anxiety. That's why we rolled that out when we
did," Hensley said. "We think it's better than
what the government would pay if you had to
furlough."
As of Thursday, April 2, Alabama had not ordered residents to shelter in place, but public
schools are closed for the rest of the academic
year.
Management restructured the schedule to
give employees more time with their families
without worrying about missing a paycheck.
Plus, operating with half of the staff "gives everybody a chance to sell a car and to fix a car," even
when business is slow, Hensley said.
When the dealerships restructured the
schedule, the coronavirus had not hit Alabama as hard as it had many other states.

From left: General Manager Hunter Johnson, dealer principal Zack Penney and CFO Ryan Hensley
halted body shop plans to help staff. "The backbone of the store is the employees," Hensley said.

Two dealerships in Huntsville, Ala.,
are drawing from a rainy day savings
fund, which was built over the past
seven years, to retain and pay
employees during the coronavirus
outbreak.

Schedule changes at Bill Penney Toyota give
employees more time to be with their families.

There were 167 cases statewide then, according to the Alabama Department of Health. As
of Wednesday, April 1, more than 1,300 residents had contracted the virus.
In the past year, Hensley had been especially diligent about contributing to the savings
fund as the dealership prepared to build a
65,000-square-foot body shop.
But now, "we just feel like our 200 employees are more important than starting con-

struction. We've got the building. We've got
our architecture plans," he said.
"We'd rather take the money from savings
and pay our employees than get to work on
that. The backbone of the store is the employees. That's what makes it go."
The two dealerships, which sold about 5,000
new and used vehicles in 2019, previously
have directed cash from the fund toward tax
payments, but they've never had to rely on it
to cope with a crisis such as the coronavirus
pandemic.
When the fund starts to run dry, management will consider other options. But for now,
Hensley said, "we've got the money and we're
going to ... hang onto our employees." a

Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement

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