How A Multi-Rooftop Luxury Dealer Group Built A Safety Culture with KPA

Client Profile

A Luxury Standard Across 20+ Locations 

This multi-rooftop luxury dealership is a highly recognized and well-respected group, operating 20+ locations. Founded on a commitment to excellence, they’re a family-owned business whose ownership carries the full weight of regulatory risk, making compliance not just a legal requirement, but a reflection of the company’s character. 

The dealership’s compliance obligations span OSHA, EPA, DOT, FTC, plus state and local regulations, with the added complexity of workers’ compensation and property insurance requirements that, in many cases, set standards stricter than the regulations themselves. 

Challenge 

Seeing Education as a Growth Lever for Understanding (and Stronger Compliance) 

When the Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager pulled compliance reports in 2021–2022, he found that most of their many locations were in the 70–80% range. A handful with particularly strong management teams had crested 90%, but they were the exception.  

“I knew I had to change the culture, and in order to do that, I had to change the habits… The two pieces I had to fix were knowledge and desire.” – Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager 

This manager understood that compliance scores stall when people follow rules without really understanding the “why” behind them. Fines are a deterrent, but the real cost of non-compliance is human. The biggest area for improvement, he knew instantly, was education. But education without buy-in doesn’t work. He needed a way to give his teams both the knowledge to act and the genuine desire to do so. 

Solution 

Vera Suite as the Foundation for a Culture Change 

The multi-rooftop dealership had already been working with KPA and using Vera Suite, but the Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager set out to use the platform more strategically. Three capabilities became central to his approach: 

1. The issues list and LMS gave him a structured way to drive accountability and close the loop on training. He nailed down the new hire process so that every associate coming in started with the right foundation rather than learning compliance through attrition.
2. The documents section proved essential for building his “why.” Vera Suite provides resources down to the state regulation level, which he used as raw material to construct more digestible, context-specific content for his teams. When managers struggled with a complex topic like DOT shipping procedures — a topic that takes years to master and retraining is a significant burden — he was able to pull KPA’s quick reference guides and reformat them into something his teams would actually use. 
3. The dashboard transformed how the program manager communicated compliance performance to leadership. Where he once had to pull raw data and manually organize it, he can now take a screenshot of his dashboard and send it directly to stakeholders — making compliance visible, measurable, and hard to ignore.

 

 “A lot of the knowledge base I was able to take and provide to people came directly from KPA. I’d pull from the documents section, from the safety training programs, and put it in a format that applied directly to my team.” – Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager 

He also developed a healthy inter-location competition. With 20+ stores (plus separate accounts for each collision center) all benchmarked against one another, teams began pushing each other toward higher standards. The goal of a perfect score shifted from a management mandate to something associates genuinely wanted. 

A Partner When It Mattered Most 

Perhaps the clearest proof of the KPA relationship’s value came during a time where human error caused a workplace accident that resulted in a recordable injury incident. The program manager described the experience of navigating it with KPA’s support, which included consultants, customer success, and knowledgeable team members available to review documentation, advise on process, and help prepare materials that might ultimately face regulatory or legal scrutiny. 

“Being able to have that level of knowledge and access was completely invaluable going through that process.” – Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager 

Result 

97–99% Training Completion, 90–95% Audit Averages… And One Perfect Score. 

The numbers tell a compelling story. Since the culture-change effort took hold: 

• Training completion now consistently runs at 97-99% across all locations. 
• Audit scores average 90-95%, with some locations running higher. 
• Last quarter, the dealership achieved their first-ever perfect audit, meaning zero issues were found. 
• The company has seen measurable savings in insurance costs and continued revenue growth. 

But the program manager is the first to point out that the metric he cares most about isn’t an audit score at all, it’s whether his associates go home safe. 

“My goal is not to make numbers look good on a page. My goal is to help our associates actually be safe. How do I make that a livable reality?” – Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager 

The culture shift has also delivered unexpected business benefits. The people-first approach to safety has contributed to strong employee retention, with very few external management hires needed. Now that the culture change has taken hold, the program manager’s focus is maintenance. He distributes regular updates and documentation, attends store-level meetings, and uses KPA’s dashboards to hold teams accountable in a way that feels like partnership rather than policing.  

In Their Own Words 

For other large automotive groups weighing whether to invest in a serious compliance program, this dealership’s program manager has a direct message: 

“You need solutions that understand your needs as a larger company and can provide the software, the backing, the support that can make an actual difference. Unless you’re going to build it all yourself, which is a huge expense, you can’t handle it without a company the size of KPA.” – Internal Auditor & EHS Program Manager