Page 179 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

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of the best employers instinctively understand the damage these dys-
functions can cause and build cultures in which they cannot take
hold. As part of their overall team-culture-building efforts, many
best-employer companies conduct management training to make sure
all managers understand these elements of great teamwork; then they
hold managers accountable for being effective team leaders.

: HOW TEAMWORK MAKES A DIFFERENCE AT NALLEY
AUTOMOTIVE GROUP

There has to be a reason that one company continues to appear as
number one or two among Best Places to Work in a large metropoli-
tan area such as Atlanta for three years in a row. In fact, at Nalley
Automotive Group there are several reasons, but the one that stands
out is teamwork. In fact, no other U.S. company among participating
BPTW employers in 2008 scored higher overall on the three team-
related survey items.
Nalley Automotive Group (now the Southern Region of Asbury
Automotive Group), has operated since 1919. It consists of 16 deal-
erships in the metro Atlanta area and includes Nalley Acura, Audi,
BMW, Chrysler/Jeep, Honda, two Infiniti dealerships, Jaguar, two
Lexus dealerships, Nissan, Toyota, Volvo, and three heavy truck
stores. Nalley President and CEO, Henry Day, who has been with
the company since 1975, has watched it double in size within the
last 10 years to its current employee population of about 1,500. Day
started as a service manager for Nalley Motor Trucks, and he worked
for the firm’s founder, Clarence “Jim” V. Nalley. Many of Nalley’s
dealer showrooms feature upscale lounges with wireless business cen-
ters and cafés offering complimentary coffee and soft drinks.
We spoke with Day, Service Director Domenick Colanero, and
human resources Trainer/Recruiter Ryland Owen in December 2008
to gain insight into how Nalley has managed to maintain such con-