AutoNation Reviews

Current Employee – been working at AutoNation full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – You meet great people, that are just as underpaid and over worked .

Cons – You are not treated like a person, more like a machine due to extreame work load. No Raises..... Given a lame excuse when you ask for one. No recognition for anything. Management & Corporate dont care about you. Benefits suck for such a large Fortune 500 company. Contsant turnover. Now open on Easter and extended hour's. Uniforms are not flattering and make some look sloppy. Its all about "who you know " not how hard you work, or dedication. Tons of responsibility with no compensation. Departments dont communicate. Frowned on when you ask for hard earned time off. Management shows favoritism. Upper management only sees dollar signs, and bottom lines. High-End should be treated differently, the customers demand more. Only the Best should be at the best ! Very little room for growth.

Advice to Senior Management – Screen employees better. Its ok to be picky. Especially in High-End.
Give reviews and at the very least a cost of living raise.
Help with benefits, you know you can.
Train your employees, we cant be productive without it.
Keep HR issues truly private.
High-End should be kept that way. Uniforms are sloppy.
Care. We have families too.
Be more realistic with demands and deadlines.
Show appreciation, especially around holidays. Bonus and a party.
Wake Up. You have tons of unhappy, underpaid, & underappreciated employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – My coworkers were good people, and we all shared the same feelings of hopelessness, which, strangely enough, made us feel better knowing we were not alone. The hours can be long but the schedules are somewhat flexible.Once you have experience, other dealer groups, most of which consider autonation a joke, will gladly hire you and generally pay more with better hours.

Cons – Yearly pay cuts, although management will smile at you when they call it a "new pay plan." 5+ years without a pay raise, but the executives got theirs last year, of course. Penny smart and dollar stupid, they watch every penny for expenses while hundreds of dollars a day are given away to unhappy customers. There seems to be a concerted effort to get rid of the old-timers and replace all of us with kids who are desperate to work for $12/hr. See note about unhappy customers-directly related to the new, inexperienced, and of course cheap new hires. Constant turnover in staffing, nobody cares, even the store management have given up chasing the corporate carrot. Total lack of follow up with HR when issues are brought to their attention. Low morale, few chances to advance unless you know someone up top.

Advice to Senior Management – Come down to reality. Reality isn't the $50,000 per person republican fundraiser dinner at our COO's house, well, at least not for most of your employees. You'd see a better return on your money if you invested more in your income producing employees, not middle management bean counters. Embrace the concept of a pay raise. Happy employees make happy customers, such a basic concept totally ignored by the corporate hatchet men who work there. Your company is not growing. If the employees are not growing, then your company never will.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Progressive, economies of scale, training resources for almost all positions within store.

Cons – Human Resources horrible (at least in Texas). Market management more interested in coasting then developing. Direct lies to store executive management as well as misrepresentation to Regional and Corporate management on stores’ personnel. Keep your head on a swivel if you join this group.

Advice to Senior Management – The company install tools/software/reports in each store to assist various levels of store management to make decisions based on facts rather then emotions (short of the Maroone speech of "...each store (GM) should posses entrepreneurial spirit to lead...). The market, region and corporate office themselves should review those same tools prior to making decisions on store movement and or removal.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation full-time for less than a year

Pros – The commute was great. Other than that....

Cons – It is a giant corporation where you are spoon-fed their propaganda about how great they are. It's a ruse. An employee must work for 6 months to get their Health Insurance. After you get it, you are sadly disappointed. It is expensive, has a really high deductible, and it costs a fortune to add your family members.
The company doesn't respond to requests for office equipment for new employees. The process to hire takes weeks. However, when you start work, nothing is ready for your arrival! They make a great first impression! You will feel not welcome and confused.
I was hired to be a sales person and was to respond to Internet Leads. After a month and a half, I still had no phone, nor a computer. My fake managers, who were sales people who were just told they were managers..."Poof! NOW, you are a Manager, Dude!"...told me they made several requests. They did not.
They also told me they ordered my Business Cards. They never did.
Finally, I was criticized publicly, in a sales meeting, in front of my teammates and ridiculed as a "Squeaky Wheel"...because I wanted the tools to do my job. It had only been a month and a half with no phone or computer. I only got ONE Internet Lead in all thse weeks. I was starving!
An effective manager knows to "Praise in public and criticize in private"...but these guys have not even been to Amazon.com to peruse books on Management!!! I would have gladly loaned them my computer, but I never got one.
The really nice guy at the desk next to mine soon grew weary of me using his phone. I could only have access to it when he had his days off. I still didn't get incoming calls because I had to leap over to his phone and it was always too late. Someone, who HAD a phone, always beat me to the call.
When I "walked", they were astounded. "Let's go in and talk." They wanted me to go into a room with the door closed and speak with 2 of the "managers". No way. I offered to "talk" right there...but, then, they wouldn't be "in control"; on their closed-door turf. So, if I wouldn't go into that office, they would not speak with me.
I'm glad I remembered to go back in and get the office chair they had me buy. I was to be reimbursed. BIG SURPRISE!!! I was never reimbursed for the chair! It's mine now. GROAN
Do not work for this company. Their training programs lock-up and kick you out. You end up taking the same modules over and over, until you finally get them to complete. it does no good to point out all the "bugs". No one listens...and they already know that they can't change their system...let alone improve it. It's been broken so long and they have been brainwashed into believing they are working for the best company ever. The Kool-aid is very good. To me, t was YUCKY!!!

Advice to Senior Management – Read the above message and learn some things.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Large enough company that an employee that is lazy or inept can keep their job (pro for that employee).
Management can make a low 6 figure income, pretty easily.

Cons – Return for shareholders is more important than taking care of the customer and employee. Yes, a public corporation is created for shareholder value (by law)… but the only thing management truly cares about is moving the stock price to affect their options.

Corporate attitude- CYA, who you know is more important than production, etc.

Advice to Senior Management – Truly focus on the customer and the employee and shareholder value (net profit) will take care of its self

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Big name is the only pro.

Cons – EVERY department is constantly dealing with pay cuts. I have never seen anything like it. I put up with it for 5 years. Only hourly employees are safe. They only care about the stock. This includes sales parts AND service. All that plus a lot of training! YAY.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation

Pros – my supervisor was very accomodating, because I knew what I was doing and he knew I would watch out for him
when first hired, everyone seemed happy and helpful

Cons – I would have to say everything! Pay is below average wages. Benefits are extremely expensive and in combination with the low pay, I couldn't afford benefits. This company is NOT employee oriented at all. They are only concerned with the bottom line. You are expected to work constantly, non-stop!
NO down time at all. Would advise anyone who is considering employment at the Shared Service Center, DONT! Turn and run away as fast as you can.

Advice to Senior Management – Be realistic when asking your teams to perform certain duties without sitting down with them and seeing what steps are involved. Have more sympathy for your employees rather than just the bottom line. AND PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES A DESCENT SALARY. Then you wouldn't have the tremendous turnover you have!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation

Pros – Location in downtown Fort Lauderdale
Half day off day before a holiday

Cons – Top management flies around in corporate jets and stay at over priced hotels while everyone else is cost-cut to extreme. Middle managers have to fight over a $5 variance in hotel bills.
Hourly people have to clock in and out. This is a corporation, not a factory.
Salaries are uneven. You can work hard and get the same lousy 1 to 3% raise or no raise at all every year.

Advice to Senior Management – Get out of your bubble and try to work within the confines you expect the rest of us to work. Share the wealth a little more.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AutoNation

Pros – the benefits are above average

Cons – when all else fails, chop the sales force pay to compensate the upper management.

Advice to Senior Management – get to the bottom of why the top sales specialists are a breed of professional people now gone from the front line!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AutoNation

Pros – Working at AutoNation allows you to interact with customers and coworkers of various backgrounds. You also get to wash and clean your own cars for free.

Cons – Everyone is constantly mistreated. Management tends to be very greedy, especially with the people who are out to earn a commission. You can be rest assured that if you work in an hourly position, the people who are earning commission will make you work very hard so that they can earn a bigger paycheck, at your expense. Also, although sales guys may get mistreated once in a while, they are treated like Gods. Management will walk stomp all over you in order to make them happy. They earn the company a lot of first time buyers, and A LOT of money.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your employees. We voice our concerns for a reason. Do not try to overwork us for low pay and put us all under very stressful conditions, just so you can look good to the higher-ups in corporate. Also, don't leave us understaffed for several months and complain about why performance level has dropped from previously. We get tired! We are not machines! We are human!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend