Customer Case Study
MileOne Automotive Group
About MileOne
Industry: Automotive Retail and Service
Employees: 3,800
Started partnership with BHS: 2019
Geography: Mid-Atlantic Region
Industry: Automotive Retail and Service
Employees: 3,800
Started partnership with BHS: 2019
Geography: Mid-Atlantic Region
MileOne Automotive Group is the largest automotive sales and service delivery network in the Mid-Atlantic region with dealerships located throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. Spanning 80 dealerships across its footprint, MileOne employs 3,800 people in a wide variety of roles from head office administration to on-site skilled mechanics.
MileOne’s leadership prides itself on its employee culture that prioritizes well-being. HR Director Ghoncheh “G” Mossanen explains, “when I first joined MileOne, one of our owners stated that if we take care of our employees, our employees will take care of our customers, and everything else will take care of itself. It is the core philosophy of our organization, to take care of our employees.”
The HR team at MileOne recognizes that the mental health of its employees is just as important as their physical health. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the team noticed that mental health issues in the workplace were becoming more prevalent, but then the societal challenges of 2020 and 2021 exacerbated those issues. The team wanted to carefully choose a workplace mental health partner that was equipped to work collaboratively to meet the specialized needs of its diverse workforce and help foster an environment where the stigma around mental health help-seeking was reduced. After carefully weighing their options, they chose BHS.
“It was important for us to identify a partnership, where they would customize, and be able to understand what our needs were from a cultural perspective because it was a very progressive thing that we were about to do for this particular company,” Mossanen says. “BHS greatly humanized the experience for us. What we loved about them was their ability to understand what our needs were, our employees’ needs, and be able to help build a program that made sense for us, and that was relevant to us.”
Nearly 12% of the workforce assisted by a skilled human clinician
Improved Employee Morale and Retention
Higher Productivity and Attendance
Better Interpersonal Co-worker and Supervisor Relationships
Crisis Response Assistance
MileOne Autogroup understands that if they take care of their employees, employees will take care of their customers and everything else will take care of itself. Watch how partnering with BHS helped improve productivity, increase loyalty and reduce turnover at MileOne during the pandemic.
MileOne’s leadership also recognized that the quality of their chosen partner’s service delivery would be paramount. In an environment where it’s estimated that 21% of U.S. adults have a diagnosable mental health issue* yet very few seek the help they need, it is critical to ensure everyone has an outstanding, low-friction care experience the very first time they reach out. Many low-touch EAP solutions in the marketplace lead with digital apps that promise better accessibility, but motivation can quickly fizzle without a skilled and caring human guide. MileOne prized BHS’s technologysupported, but human-led approach to make sure their employees seeking help had the best chance of a successful outcome. to understand what our needs were, our employees’ needs, and be able to help build a program that made sense for us, and that was relevant to us.”
It’s those relationships that they’re building, those interactions that they’re having, that genuinely enhances their ability to work through whatever challenges they’re having.” Mossanen and her team also recognized the key aspect of care follow-up that most workplace mental health solutions lack. “Whomever they make that contact with, remains their care coordinator through the whole journey, of getting through whatever challenge they’ve called about,” she explains. The severity and risk involved with each participant BHS helps is unique, as is their care pathway, but the personal benefits MileOne employees have reported after reaching out for assistance are clear:
As the mental health needs of its workforce arise, high-quality care connection is an everyday expectation that MileOne can
confidently leave in BHS’s hands. But they also found in BHS a reliable partner for unforeseen needs. MileOne’s HR team has called upon BHS to provide strategic consultation and on-site crisis support for several traumatic workplace events.
Mossanen recalls a particularly impactful set of events that occurred in the same year. Following the social trauma precipitated by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, one location needed expert help navigating very thorny workplace issues. “There was one situation when some social unrest occurred very close to one of our locations, which led to high tensions that brought about conflict and differences in opinions among some employees.” Mossanen explains. “BHS’s experts provided support to our people to mediate and work through those issues and those challenges that we were facing. And they were amazing. They helped bring perspective and helped our people discuss and work through their differences.”
Later that year, Mossanen explains “We had a true crisis situation in one of our locations, where a customer attempted to take their own life. One of our employees had to save the customer’s life. And it had a severe impact on his mental well-being and those around him. We called BHS immediately.
Within hours, they provided us the clinician, and the support we needed, to be able to serve our people, to be able to process the experience they just had, and to be able to work through that.”
*https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt35325/NSDUHFFRPDFWHTMLFiles2020/2020NSDUHFFR1PDFW102121.pdf
If you ask MileOne’s leadership, they will be very clear that their BHS partnership is about one thing and one thing only: caring for the needs of their employees. But that care naturally produces benefits to the overall organization – outcomes that are in BHS’s DNA to produce and communicate to every customer. Since BHS measures workplace outcomes with respect to several areas of impact such as retention of at-risk employees, improvements in absenteeism and presenteeism, and the value provided of services delivered.
MileOne can be confident that it has experienced a 123% inception-to-date return on its investment in its BHS partnership.
A major reason why it has realized such a high ROI is that its people use the program. In an environment where the typical lowtouch EAP results in 1-3% true program utilization, nearly 12% of MileOne’s employees have received help from a human being at BHS. This has yielded measurable outcomes that have a continuing positive impact to the organization:
MileOne also relies on BHS for “supervisory referrals” – a tool for managers to use when behavioral or productivity issues of an employee may be disruptive to themselves or others in the workplace. The supervisory referral process allows managers to refer such employees to BHS to receive assistance to address the root cause of the problem, with their further employment conditional on their cooperation with the process. To date, 80% of MileOne’s supervisory referrals were fully compliant with their recommended care pathways, helping not only improve their own lives, but also to retain good employees in their roles.
MileOne leadership credits its provision of BHS services to a noticeable impact on the company’s retention overall. “Our employee morale has improved because our folks feel like we care about them,” Monassen says. “We’re providing them these resources and support, to be able to help them with challenging situations. So there’s definitely a direct correlation with morale and retention.”
Overall, the MileOne BHS partnership has created a virtuous circle to connect more people with better care. When an organization’s HR team understands the importance of mental health services for its employees and chooses a high-touch provider, they foster a culture of care and help-seeking. In turn, when the employee has an outstanding human-led experience and receives the care they need, they help that HR team spread the word, further reducing stigma and encouraging others to come out of the shadows to seek help.