Corporate leaders searching for the core value that will lead to sustained prosperity and remarkable business performance often say its is personnel that hold the key.

For iconic automaker Mercedes-Benz, "it's the people who create a great culture and brand while also providing the company with the energy to live a sustainable long life", said Klaus Maier, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz (China) Ltd.

His answer explains why the German luxury brand pays so much attention to training and managing the talented staff at its offices, factories and dealerships around China.

The company recently kicked off the third year of its tailor-made People in Retail (PIR) program in China that aims to address retail challenges such as recruitment, organization, remuneration, training and development.

As part of Mercedes-Benz's human resource development plan, the PIR program is designed to increase staff competitiveness and commitment.

Mercedes-Benz is currently the only automotive brand in China to have developed such a program for professional management and development for all employees in its dealerships.

"In the past three years, Mercedes-Benz has enjoyed rapid sales growth in China at an average rate of nearly 60 percent year-on-year," said Maier.

"Our investment in the PIR program has played a key role in contributing to such an encouraging achievement as it motivates retail employees to provide the best sales and after-sales service to our customers."

Encouraging results

"The PIR program has produced encouraging results as Mercedes-Benz China's retail network has shown increasing levels of employee satisfaction every year since the program commenced in 2007," added Christian Schroeter, vice-president of Network Development for Mercedes-Benz China.

"These results show the satisfaction of our dealer employees is well above the international average."

"This is greatly due to the program being tailor-made to specifically address comfort, fairness, brand and team - the four factors that have been proven as having the greatest influence on employee satisfaction in our dealerships in China."

The annual PIR conference underway is designed to bring together HR managers and general managers from dealerships to examine, discuss and exchange ideas on retail employee management.

"Through the PIR program and the conference, Mercedes-Benz has consistently made significant investments that have truly benefited all of our dealer employees," said Tony Zhang, general manager of Tangshan Jidong Star Automotive Sales & Service Co Ltd.

"The level of commitment among all of our sales and after-sales employees has improved noticeably as they are even more inspired to provide higher levels of service to our customers. "

The conference also helps participants identify key challenges for the upcoming year and provide additional training to improve dealer employee satisfaction.

"The event is dedicated to recognizing the outstanding achievements of Mercedes-Benz dealers throughout China," said Schroeter.

Nine Mercedes-Benz dealers were received PIR awards at the conference for their achievements in improving their overall HR environment. Several retail employees also received individual honors including the Long Service Award to recognize their commitment to Mercedes-Benz.

This year, the program has been further enhanced to cultivate Mercedes-Benz as the most attractive employer in China's auto retail industry.

In addition to supporting the development of dealers and employees with the PIR program, "we would like to introduce and implement some new concepts, including job descriptions, incentive schemes and career development, as an overall standard in all of our dealerships", said Maier. "That means if someone moves from one dealership to the other, he knows exactly which position he has come for."

Another goal recognizes that the automaker's operations "will grow considerably fast, so we need to hire the best people and become the best employer", said Maier. "We will support the dealers in various ways during their hiring process."

Mercedes-Benz currently has 148 dealerships across the country, and is expanding its network by adding 20 to 25 new ones each year. The company now has five centers in China to provide employees with a wide variety of training and literature.