Employees like culture, not companies. To keep your business on track, hire for culture, not just skills/experience.
It all starts with the hiring process – you need to make sure you hire people who fit your company culture or else you’ll find your company quickly going off track.
If you’re not hiring for culture, all the industry knowledge doesn’t matter. At Highland, we would rather take longer to fill a position with the person who fits our culture than try to fill it quickly and risk making a bad decision.
While many things can be used to define a person’s culture, culture starts at the top with ownership and senior management. The best culture for us includes the following elements:
- Strong team environment
- Friendly and cheerful
- Employee Dedication
- Customer loyalty/satisfaction
- Work/life balance: we work to live and not live to work. While we all have busy days, family should remain a priority.
We believe that having a culture based on these principles helps to ensure the longevity of employees. People want to feel like they are part of the company’s story. When employees have a purpose and can see how their work directly impacts the customer, they know they are an integral part of customer satisfaction.
When people feel that they are important to the company and their ideas and suggestions are valued, they will automatically do what is best for the customer and therefore for the company. That’s fundamental.
Employees should also feel like they are part of a team and working with people they really like and in some cases friends with outside of work. They need to know that their manager and business owners care about them and their families by providing flexibility and support when needed when they are going through a rough time.
Listen to your employees and get their feedback – none of us are perfect and we all make mistakes, but if we listen to employees we can learn from those mistakes and make positive adjustments.
In addition, employees grow and evolve over time and their needs change. At Highland, we do our best to meet people’s strengths and goals and as the business grows, that means there are more opportunities. There are no boxed jobs – everyone helps where and when they can.
Celebrating 10 years at Highland, Project Manager Chase Williamson has held both estimating and project management roles over the years. Tyler Hamilton started out as a service technician and now works in our calculation department. Scott Hudson, who has been with the company 11 out of 15 years, used to lead the company’s service department and is now a senior account manager. I saw the need to ramp up and manage the company’s IT services in addition to my human resources responsibilities and asked for the additional responsibility.
While we do our best to offer a competitive compensation package, it’s our culture that keeps people from looking or leaving. Employees can always find a company that might pay a little more or offer a new benefit, but the daily happiness with their jobs and colleagues is the most important. Work should be fun every day. Everyone has heard the saying, “people don’t leave companies, they leave managers.” In some cases, we’ve seen employees come back to us when they realized the grass wasn’t greener.
In summary, owners should drive the company culture to as many employees as possible and focus on who they hire – do they fit into the culture – do they share the same values and vision? That is the most important.
About Highland Roofing Company
Highland Roofing Company is a family business with offices in Wilmington and Raleigh, NC. Highland Roofing Company’s mission is to build relationships and make life easier for its customers by providing exceptional service and quality at a fair price. Highland delivers quality work at a competitive price and is committed to completing the project as promised so that his clients recommend Highland to their friends and colleagues – which is the ultimate compliment. For more information visit highlandroofingcompany.com.
Shari Leon spent 4.5 years at Highland Roofing as Human Resources Director. She is responsible for all aspects of HR, including recruitment, employee relations and benefits. Shari has over 20 years of HR experience, of which 15 years in the construction industry.
Comments are closed.