Customer Story
Automotive
"We like to grow fast. [KPA] understanding how we operate and how can they help us improve has been fantastic."
Client Profile
Going strong and growing after more than 50 years in business
Campers Inn RV is one of the largest family owned and operated RV dealerships in the United States. The company started in New England in 1966 and today operates more than 30 locations across 19 states, with more than 700 employees.
Challenge
Managing standardization during acquisitions
Over the past ten years, the RV industry has grown primarily through dealership acquisition and consolidation. For Campers Inn, this has meant challenges with standardization. Each acquisition might bring 50-100 new employees and a host of HR considerations, from payroll benefits to workers’ comp and safety. And that’s on top of recruitment and team-building concerns.
Laurie Hirsch has helped navigate these challenges as the company’s Administrative Services Manager. She initially joined Campers Inn in 2015 to lead acquisitions. Then, in 2018, her role grew to include HR as well.
Solution
Dealership audits plus learning management equal a comprehensive solution
Campers Inn was already a KPA client when Hirsch joined the company. In her early days, KPA was used primarily to support dealership audits.
Since then, they’ve taken advantage of much more capability, adopting KPA’s EHS and HR course content as part of their internally developed Learning Management System.
“That’s been a cool feature, to have that library of courses,” Hirsch said. “All Campers Inn employees take safety training by job role. I’m the course content person, which is insane because we have like 90 roles.”
“Everybody in the company takes a core set of courses including: Slips, Trips, and Falls, Harassment, Ethics in the Workplace, and a few more. Then you get your job-specific courses on top of that.”
Additionally, Campers Inn appreciates KPA’s quarterly site visits for both advertising, sales and finance and safety audits as a resource for compliance to complement the efforts of the company’s internal auditors.
“The KPA team is quick to adapt to what we need.”
“For instance, we have a safety binder, and they’re looking at it with outside eyes to ask, ‘Does this make sense if I’m a brand new receptionist? Would I know how to find an SDS and report an injury?'” she said.
Result
KPA sets Campers Inn up for continued growth
While Hirsch says it’s difficult to draw a direct correlation to dollar savings, she thinks KPA’s partnership is helping change the company culture to spot potential problems before they become issues. She specifically points to lack of major injuries and a reduction in eye injuries.
Service from the KPA team is also greatly appreciated. “We like to customize, and we like to grow fast. So, Matt and Stephanie [from KPA] understanding how we operate and how they can help us improve has been fantastic. Getting all the consultants on the same page, plus implementing the safety binder, has been a huge help.”
Hirsch said that KPA has become such a trusted part of operations that she can’t imagine operating without it.
“I hope we keep digging deeper,” she said, noting that when the next spate of acquisitions comes along, she’ll feel better knowing they’re prepared with KPA Software as their foundation.
