Business View Magazine | Volume 9, Issue 1

55 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 1 ANDERSON AUTOMOT I VE GROUP Having taken time to do those meetings and talk about the culture of caring left the company more prepared to deal with the pandemic, but also labour issues, health concerns, getting people to come to work, and getting people to come back to work. Brennan adds, “From day one we decided to take care of our people and to make sure they felt listened to. They trusted us, trusted our decision making around COVID and because of that we didn’t have much difficulty getting people to come back to work. This paid off for us.” This was not the only lucky coincidence for Anderson Automotive. In January 2019, the organization went through a leadership training exercise to have the senior leadership create a strategy for what they would do if there was an unforeseen business circumstance that caused a major disruption. Brennan explains this as some outside force drastically impacting their business – say a 25 percent drop in sales, or what happens if no new cars are being sold. They coincidentally worked out a blueprint to deal with something like a global pandemic and were quick to put that plan in motion. Horace McCormick, Chief Human Resources Officer, explains, “Another thing that we did here when COVID hit was to create the Anderson Leadership Academy. We developed a nine- month program in partnership with some professors from the University of North Carolina and Duke University which we are very proud of and which has become extremely important for us – it is a critical part of our culture and what we are trying to become. The program is still running, and we are looking at expanding on it in the future. It teaches you about our culture by focusing on three things which are: operational excellence, the ability to lead yourself and others, and creating a culture of caring. We go into a lot of detail about who we are and how we do this as a company, and this is where we