E16_Building a Successful Workforce Transcript
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Clayton
Welcome to another episode of Executive Sessions where we discuss trends and developments in the industrial manufacturing sector. I'm your host, Clayton Gullett and we've got a wonderful show lined up for you today. The backbone of a successful business are the workers who produce the goods and services that we utilize every day. However, employees that are competent, skilled, and motivated are really hard to come by.
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Clayton
In today's episode, we'll discuss what it takes to build and maintain that successful workforce. Joining me today to discuss this, we have Tom broccoli to my left, the CEO of Arrow True Line. Welcome, Tom.
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Tom Broccoli
Thank you Clayton. Good to be here. Yeah.
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Clayton
I'm glad you were able to make it out.
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Tom Broccoli
Me, too.
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Clayton
And then we've got to my right. Mr. Ron Lindsay, the CEO of Lindsay Precast. Welcome to the show.
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Ron Lindsay
Thank you Clayton.
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Clayton
I hope. Oh, yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad both of you guys can come out. These, these two gentlemen are incredibly busy, so we're really happy to have met on the show today. So. Well, let's dive in. Let's dive in. So, to both of you, let's kick it off. Just a base level question. As CEOs, how do you define a successful workforce or what do you think a few characteristics of a successful workforce are?
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Ron Lindsay
Well, for Lindsay Precast, a successful workforce would be that all employees understand what their what their objective and their goals for the day are, and that they understand also that that their goals and objectives are tied in aligned with what the companies are. So they know if they hit their goals, they are contributing to the success of the company overall.
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Ron Lindsay
So we want them as they're pulling out of the parking lot, they know where they've had a good day or not. And it's not so much important that they hit their goals, although of course we want them to. But the but the point is that they understand what those goals are. That way that they're easier to train.
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Clayton
Fantastic.
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Tom Broccoli
You know, I would I would agree with that. I think just to expand that a little bit, I think it's all about engagement with the with the company and knowing what is expected of them, having the tools to do the job and and having it aligned with the vision, for the company is all part of that engagement.
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Tom Broccoli
Certainly, you know, I think an employee is going to be engaged for different reasons, but I think there are some common elements. And and one certainly would be respect, you know. Absolutely, yes. Do we respect each individual as an individual and for the contributions that they provide?
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Clayton
I think that that's a really good point. I mean, if you I mean, if you've got a workforce and everybody is, respectful to one another, I mean, I do think that that actually makes a big difference in production. And, just the fact of people being more efficient in general. But what are the metrics that you all use to determine if a workforce is actually performing efficiently?
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Tom Broccoli
We use the Gallup Q12 survey. Over the years. Gallup has narrowed down the questions that they use to, understand the engagement of an organization to these 12 questions. And so we measure our progress against, the prior year on those 12 questions, just to see how engaged we are.
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Clayton
Just out of curiosity for our listeners who don't know what the the Gallup 12.
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Tom Broccoli
Is at 12 yet.
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Clayton
What what is that?
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Tom Broccoli
It's a, list of 12 questions that, are geared to understand just how engaged the workforce is. And some of them are intuitive, like, are my, instructions clear? Do I know what is expected of me? Am I getting feedback? Two things like, do I have a best friend at work?
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Clayton
Okay. Okay.
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Tom Broccoli
And so we use that to understand how we're doing for engagement and then to identify those areas based upon the survey that we want to improve upon, that we want to target to move the needle, I'll say, for next years.
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Clayton
So how often do you administer this test?
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Tom Broccoli
We administer the test once a year.
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Clayton
Once a year. In fact.
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Tom Broccoli
We're just about to do that.
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Clayton
Oh, okay. Ron, what about you? What do you guys do over at Lindsay?
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Ron Lindsay
We, actually also do the Gallup Q12. Really? Just. We just implemented it. We did our last survey. We do employee surveys twice a year. Okay. And we really excited about the about the Gallup one because it's unique questions compared to most surveys. Basically, it's a list of 12 questions. And what you find out from those questions are, whether the employee understands the expectations of them, whether the employee feels that they have value, that they're valued by the company, and whether there's growth, growth opportunities, whether the employee feels there's growth opportunities that, you know, to be offered.
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Ron Lindsay
So it it, sounds kind of warm and fuzzy, but it really by by the answers, it really gives you an avenue to be able to improve the relations with your employees, the respect side of it.
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Tom Broccoli
Yeah, I completely agree. And it does sound warm and fuzzy, but an A and engaged workforce, I'm convinced leads to a, a healthier bottom line.
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Clayton
Honestly, my background, whenever I first started was, was blue collar and one of the, one of the main things that always kind of upset me about the jobs that I had worked was it never really felt that management cared about any of our opinions or how we felt. It was just kind of like, come in, do your job, and if you don't want to get out.
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Clayton
So it's it's really refreshing to hear CEOs talking about what it means to them. Having this type of survey. So that way they can actually see how their employees are doing. You know what what they think. But so this is this a newer test that I know you said this is newer for Lindsay. Correct. Correct. What about you, Tommy?
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Tom Broccoli
I think this will be our third year that we have done the the, Q12 survey.
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Clayton
So what what metrics did you all use before?
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Tom Broccoli
You know, it varied. There are all kinds of employee satisfaction surveys out there, and we have employed them over the years. But, we're going to stick with this one.
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Clayton
What about you, Ron?
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Ron Lindsay
Same thing. You're more generic questions, right from 1 to 5. How do you feel? This company. How do you feel Lindsay Precast does with safety. Fantastic. So and those have effectiveness. But the questions, that are asked by the Q12 are much more, targeted and easier to act on.
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Clayton
Yeah. Fantastic.
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Tom Broccoli
So feedback for instance, we focused on feedback, and recognition last year. So we put in place a, a system called it was based upon Award Co is the company that does that. It's an intranet where employees can recognize other employees for the work that they've done. Oh, well, you may or may not even see and it's it's actually kind of fun.
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Tom Broccoli
And you can you can give, what we call arrows because we're arrow true line. But you can convert arrows into cash. You can convert them into merch, whatever. So it's just a good way to recognize some of these efforts.
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Ron Lindsay
It's important. Recognition is so important.
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Clayton
Absolutely. Do you think that, between the combination of the survey and, these internal awards is, helping with employee retention? Oh.
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Tom Broccoli
Yeah. There's there's no doubt. The one of the things certainly that helps with retention is making sure that you're paying, wage that is competitive in the local market. We've made a lot of progress over the last couple of years with that.
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Clayton
Fantastic. What about you, Ron?
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Ron Lindsay
Yeah. In addition to the survey, because we just began it. But there's been a lot of studies out there that show and we agree with that to retain, you know, dependable, high performing employees that you need to, it's not so much that you have a good company, but you have good managers. Those employees want to work. They're direct.
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Ron Lindsay
Supervisors are very important to them. Not so. It might be the the reputation, what the company has to offer to get them in. But to to keep them it's all about the managers. So we definitely, strive management training and whatnot for that employee engagement to keep that, just because someone's a good worker has been there a long time doesn't necessarily mean they're a good manager.
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Ron Lindsay
They need to have people skills. They need to at least understand the importance of taking care of their team to achieve the goals that they have to achieve.
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Clayton
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. You know, I, I've known many guys, who've who've been, who used to work at, a refinery back in my hometown. And they, there were guys that have been there for, you know, 30, 40 years, sometimes even longer than that. But, they'd be the first to tell you, like, you know, I've been here that whole this whole time, but I don't know how to run it, so, you know, it's,
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Clayton
I think honesty's a big key in that. Oh, yeah. I am curious, though. You both talk about engaging your workforces, getting a pulse of how your, your workforce is doing, making people feel as though they are part of the team because they truly are, and empowering your workers. How is the labor shortage impacted your business?
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Clayton
And how where where are you today?
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Tom Broccoli
Right. For for us, the labor shortage was, intense during Covid, and, we had quite a bit of turnover, during that period. And since we have started to increase the wage rates, we've certainly seen that come down. But it's not just that that really is kind of the ante to, to keeping people on board. You've got to have a competitive wage, but there are a lot of other things that go into it.
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Tom Broccoli
Certainly the communication that you do with the the team, letting them know what you're planning to do and not only what, but why, you know so but the shortage was was tight. It was a crazy time period during Covid. It has certainly eased. We've gotten the turnover down to, next to nothing.
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Clayton
Oh, well that's great. What about you, Ron?
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Ron Lindsay
Yeah. We fortunate we really haven't had that experience of the labor shortage like others have at our locations. But we do struggle with certain positions. For example, engineers, we have, we go to, job fairs at the local universities. We try to get a relationship with the department heads of those universities for the type of positions like that.
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Ron Lindsay
We've actually adjusted our, our policies concerning remote work due to necessary. So there are challenges out there on certain positions, but overall, we have not had, the experience, the struggle of the labor shortage like others.
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Clayton
I do think it would be important to, to inform our listeners I meant to do this at the beginning of the show. Tom, could you tell us, about Aero and what you all produce?
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Tom Broccoli
Certainly. Aero true line is a 54 year old company. We have we make all of the garage door hardware that you see on the back side of your garage door. We're based in northwest Ohio. We've got about 250 employees. We service North America. We, we're we're the largest hardware manufacturer in North America.
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Clayton
Rumble. Tell us about Lindsey Precast.
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Ron Lindsay
Sure. Lindsey Precast is, before we join the middle ground team, we were a family run business. My father was the founder in northeast Ohio. We expanded to nine locations spread out throughout the United States. Our largest division, the precast division. We pour concrete into molds, strip the finished product out the next day, and deliver that to job sites, typically for infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, things like that.
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Clayton
Fantastic. And if you want to learn more about their businesses, go to our YouTube channel and you can check out some middle ground mades. You might recognize the voice anyway. Okay, so you you've both made it through Covid there. There is labor shortage issues. You're, dealing with having to work more, finding more complex solutions, for various problems, for today's market.
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Clayton
So how do you go about attracting the top talent in our current labor market?
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Tom Broccoli
You know, there are a lot of factors that go into attracting talent. Certainly. You've got to have a workplace that is attractive, a workplace where a person can come in expecting to learn every day, expecting to contribute and expecting to, to grow. And and we like to think that we are focused on those things that enable, learning and growing and contributing.
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Tom Broccoli
You also want to work for a company that, I think is a good corporate neighbor, somebody who is focused on things other than, say, productivity, but also making sure that you are, focused on sustainable issues. We just recently got our ISO 14 001 certification for environment, environmental, our environmental actions. And, I think all of that factors into an attractive workplace that allows you to attract talent.
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Clayton
Know know what type of, you mentioned that that was an environmental certification. Like what is that specifically?
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Tom Broccoli
It is a it's an ISO certification that requires not only, you know, passing the certification, but also maintaining it. And you are looking at different things like waste and how you handle waste and how you reduce waste. You're looking at your, energy consumption. We're currently 100% renewable energy at zero true light.
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Clayton
Oh, well.
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Tom Broccoli
You're looking at water usage, all kinds of stuff. We meet regularly as a management team to look at those items that allowed us to get certified.
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Clayton
Fantastic. Ron. Yeah.
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Ron Lindsay
Of all the things that that, Tom said, especially very important for the younger generations, sustainability and whatnot. We've done sign on bonuses for certain positions, such as truck drivers. Once again, the job fairs, we are, we're more flexible. We don't actually fund any, continuing education, but we're very flexible. That will work with anyone to better themselves, you know, within, within reason.
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Ron Lindsay
So we we like to think of ourselves being a manufacturer. You can't not everyone can work remotely. Someone has to be there to to pour the concrete. Of course. Yeah, absolutely. But, we've trying to step up and cater to the younger people entering the workforce as best as we can.
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Clayton
So for the business owners who are out there and they're thinking, you know, Ron Tom, well, you guys could have a your own radio show, The Ron and Tom show. Yeah. But the okay, the people who are thinking that in addition to the idea of I'm doing all of this, I have incentives, we're paying strong wages, but we're still struggling to retain talent.
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Clayton
What what do you say to them?
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Ron Lindsay
So if you truly have a competitive comp package and wages, what I suggest is they take a hard look at their managers, because if they if you cannot retain, you know, talented people, it that tends to be the reason why. And so you need to, you know, do a compare and contrast either a location or a department or whatever that is being successful versus one that isn't trying to understand the traits that make that, that make that manager successful and train towards those goals.
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Clayton
Fantastic.
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Tom Broccoli
Completely agree. Yep. 100%.
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Clayton
Honestly, it really seems like the more time passes. The more companies are valuing just your, your personality. Like, if you're, if you're a pleasant person to work with versus somebody who may be more qualified, but may not get along with people as well, and they may be more abrasive, that would definitely run people off. So yeah.
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Tom Broccoli
Well it is.
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Ron Lindsay
We've experienced that, you know, we've had great form and they get a lot done. But we can't keep people. So they're they're not valuable.
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Tom Broccoli
So. Right. And it's not always rosy. Certainly you've got to give hard feedback at times. And you want a team that is, willing to not only give that peer to peer, but also receive that or manager to employee. So, I think, you know, you can't shy away from the difficult conversations, but you don't want to be a jerk about it.
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Tom Broccoli
Certainly.
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Clayton
Yeah, I would say so. Or Tom actually. Okay. So we're talking about challenges. I know arrow has you guys have faced a lot of challenges over the years. But you guys are now the top performer, in your industry. And I got to know, how has having a strong workforce played in that, in that success?
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Tom Broccoli
We we wouldn't have done it without them. We have a core group of people who know the business, who are dedicated to improving our operations, dedicating to dedicated to making, the customer experience better. So yeah, we couldn't we couldn't do it without them.
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Clayton
So, Tom, you know, you and I had talked, in a previous meeting, about, work safety. But you mentioned that arrow uses something called, the best friend approach. What is that? And why do you believe that works?
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Tom Broccoli
Well, I think you're referring to the, Gallup Q12 question that asked you. Do you have a best friend at work? And that really is an indicator of your your safety at your at your workplace. There are all kinds of measurements for safety as well. And we're daily looking to improve them. And we're not where we want to be certainly.
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Tom Broccoli
But but we are out there as a management team and and hopefully as an entire team looking for ways that we can make our place safer. We're also looking for things that we can do to create more, opportunities to develop those relationships amongst the employees at work. We have, quite a few celebratory dinners, whatever. We, reach a milestone like the ISO certification recently, certainly around the holidays and so forth, and, and promote, that sort of of team building.
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Clayton
Well that's fantastic. Do you think, in conjunction to that, that safety management and, putting like worker safety at the forefront is making a difference or an impact?
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Tom Broccoli
Well, I certainly hope so. You know, safety is paramount. You I don't want to be in a business that is in an unsafe environment. I want to make sure that the employees have a safe place to come to work and and go home with, with everything that they came in with. So, yeah, it's absolutely critical.
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Clayton
I, Well, I'm I'm curious. I'm assuming safety would probably be a part of the assessment that you. It is the Gallup poll, right? Yeah. Okay. How have you noticed any improvements in the safety since, oh, issuing that, Gallup poll?
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Tom Broccoli
You know, I'm not sure that I would attribute it to the Gallup poll, but certainly we've seen over the years, tremendous improvement in our safety numbers. When we do have an issue with whether it be an actual injury or whether it be a near miss, we are out there investigating. What does it take to make sure that that never happens again?
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Tom Broccoli
So, that is it is part of our culture, and I want it to continue to be.
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Clayton
What do you say to workers who are in that that type of environment where you're out and you're investigating a near miss or you're investigating an injury and they're afraid to come forward with information or they're afraid, to to point out, a safety issue for fear of getting somebody in trouble or dealing with repercussions.
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Tom Broccoli
Yeah. We, we emphasize safety and certainly identifying hazards. Every time that we're in front of the group, we have the supervisors talk about it daily. We, we are issuing reminders anytime, we're coming back from a break or from lunch, just to keep people aware of the hazards that are there in any manufacturing environment, and to identify those things that we can do to, mitigate the risk.
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Clayton
Fantastic. All right. Well, that yeah, that. Thanks for sharing that, that's, that's that's really good perspective. Okay. So I've got a question, now for both of you back out on, on the floor. So automation presents, massive opportunities for, for improvements and efficiency, but it can be a sensitive subject for employees because a lot of people think nowadays when you mention automation, people think of job replacement layoffs.
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Clayton
And, really kind of replacing a lot of the human workforce. How have you all approached automation opportunities and how have you manage that transition with your employees?
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Ron Lindsay
Yeah, we we really haven't experienced a push back from automation. Now in the concrete industry, there isn't that much of an opportunity to have significant, headcount reduction due to, automation. So it's more of, efficiency improvements that might affect them. And our workers are just happy to make that their jobs easier. And we have been fortunate that we've been able to just, you know, flex workers from one department to another, perhaps as one gets more efficient and whatnot.
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Ron Lindsay
So, yeah, we really have not had any any issues with that.
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Clayton
Can you give an example of, an efficiency that Lindsay has implemented and how that's impacted your workforce?
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Ron Lindsay
Yeah, it would be like tooling. We would we actually design our own tooling and make our own tooling for the most part. So we're always looking for the the better, more efficient. But the tooling is the molds that the concrete goes into. Okay. And so they there's tricks to it instead of bolts. And nuts. You just have handles, you know, very basic things.
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Ron Lindsay
But they would have big impact from day to day. And, and once again make, make the job really safer, quicker, and better quality for that matter. So, so the employees are all over it. They understand what we're trying to accomplish. We're very transparent with what we're doing. And, that we get buy in.
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Clayton
Have you noticed any increases in, Well, not increases I would say decreases in, work injuries or near-misses, anything like that. Since the implementation of the automation to your workforce.
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Ron Lindsay
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's all part of it. I would call that part of the, the automation is, is to keep it as safe as possible.
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Clayton
Fantastic. I'm curious about arrow.
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Tom Broccoli
Sure. All right well I agree I agree with Ron. I, I think investing in the business is certainly a good sign to the to the workforce. It it will result if it's, if it's done properly in, more efficient operation, which means that, you know, you have more output per labor hour, for instance. But what we do is we redeploy people.
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Tom Broccoli
We either retrain them to run the new equipment or redeploy people to other parts of the facility. And, I, I haven't received any negative pushback about the investments that have been made over the years, either in automated hinge machines or tooling that, goes from multiple stampings to to one, you know, one hit. So it it is a it is a real positive and middle ground.
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Tom Broccoli
Certainly has been a supporter of our automation activities.
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Clayton
Fantastic. I'm curious, you know, Ron was talking about and, we were talking about the increase in safety, making it easier on your workers. Are you noticing any, any changes with job satisfaction since the implementation?
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Tom Broccoli
You know, I don't think I could dial in job satisfaction to the automation effort.
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Clayton
Okay. Yeah, I'm just curious on that one. Yeah, yeah. Run back to you now. Yes, sir. How would you approach the the changes in management with your employees?
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Ron Lindsay
Yeah, we've had some significant changes over the past three years. And, what we have found is communication, of course, is the key. And transparency, sometimes change is, not necessarily good news to the employees that are involved. So the way we look at it, the way we, we approach it is we always want the highest level executive to present what the changes are.
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Ron Lindsay
We want it to be, face to face in person, not email, not even zoom if possible. And we want to do it as quickly as possible. So, for example, when we announced that we are no longer a family business and we joined the middle ground team, my executive team went to all the different locations and, including myself.
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Ron Lindsay
I was in Florida and we literally met one on one with all salary people and all key hourly people, even. Oh, wow. And tell them to tell them what's going on. Gave them a chance to ask any questions and whatnot. And then furthermore, then, middle ground always has a town hall. Then they come in, they introduce themselves.
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Ron Lindsay
We introduce ourselves when it comes to for the Dutch land deal. And, all employees are there once again, they're given an opportunity to ask questions each and every one of them. And then Middle Ground even sets up a website. So that they could, you know, anonymously or not ask questions after the fact. What's they thought of them?
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00:28:12:32
Ron Lindsay
So once again, the key is to, be as transparent as possible and to do it quickly because you don't want people to hear things through the grapevine. That's how rumors get started. And you work really hard to build trust with your workforce. And a large change like what we've experienced can can, you know, erode that. So you want to nip that in the bud right away.
00:28:12:43 -
00:28:22:57
Ron Lindsay
Might have to work on building that back up. It's it's the way it is. But by being honest and transparent that's the way to do it.
00:28:23:02 -
00:28:45:47
Clayton
I'm just curious because you mentioned two things that caught my attention. You said that, workers having various concerns was one, and then you also emphasized the importance of doing everything in person. Did you notice that there was any common, concern or like one concern that kept coming up over and over again? And why do you think it's important to do this in person?
00:28:45:52 -
00:29:05:11
Ron Lindsay
Well, I just think it's a matter of of trust. It helps build trust when we're sitting here talking together versus through a screen or certainly through email. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it, they can be a little bit more candid in their questions or their concerns and concerns is just, you know, everyone wants when there's big news like that.
00:29:05:11 -
00:29:26:43
Ron Lindsay
The question is, well, how does this affect me? Yeah. So, actually it was it was pretty nice that when we met with everyone about the one on one about the, middle ground during the middle ground, a lot of the, the majority of people response was say, well, you've always been good to me. Up to now, we'll just ride this out with you and find out.
00:29:26:43 -
00:29:34:59
Ron Lindsay
So, it just makes it more personal and more, meaningful. I do it that way.
00:29:35:04 -
00:30:00:41
Clayton
You don't. You had mentioned, the ideas, of that, but then you also had touched on briefly. You mentioned Dutch Lentz name, Lindsay and Dutch merged fairly recently, correct? Yeah. Two years ago. Two years ago. So this is, this is pretty fresh. Pretty new. So I am, I am curious, what did, what did the training process look like with the merger of of two separate companies?
00:30:00:45 -
00:30:29:11
Ron Lindsay
Right. So, it's a little bit of an unusual situation in that, Dutch land manufactures a unique product that we're integrating into the other lindsie locations. So. So the integration work both ways. We had to train them and educate them on on the way that Lindsay does things. But then they also had to train the Lindsay locations on how to, how to make the product.
00:30:29:25 -
00:31:03:02
Ron Lindsay
So it worked both ways. You know, that's one is a good, strong company with a strong culture that we did not want to, affect negatively in any way. And, and that makes it easier. There were some surprises along the way. Or really challenges in that, first one being the, the Dutch. The gap location of Dutch Island was a single location, and they just joined now a network of locations which they were going to now have to take care of with their product line.
00:31:03:07 -
00:31:25:06
Ron Lindsay
So it it affected the responsibilities of a lot of managers there that they had. We had to figure out a way to, that they now not only have to worry about get Pennsylvania, but they have to worry about North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Colorado. So that has been somewhat of a, a learning experience in that way.
00:31:25:06 -
00:31:55:39
Ron Lindsay
And then the other thing there's been a bit of a challenge is that the that's some product line is the only one that we have to install at the job site. So there is a construction aspect to the doesn't product, which we don't have with any of our other, locations. We're, we're still getting through that one, that that construction can be a little bit of a different attitude, a different philosophy than the manufacturing.
00:31:55:44 -
00:32:10:46
Ron Lindsay
We're both learning on it. Once again, the key is to come up with with goals and objectives that we're all in align with and that we all have clarity on, and then we'll work it out together on how to achieve that goal.
00:32:10:51 -
00:32:25:34
Clayton
I get, okay, this is open to both of you. How do how do you empower hourly workers, for example, to make them, feel that they have an equal voice and they can speak up with, process opportunities or safety concerns?
00:32:25:39 -
00:32:27:12
Ron Lindsay
So. Sorry, Tom.
00:32:27:25 -
00:32:58:12
Tom Broccoli
No, you know, for us, we we listen, we, we get the feedback and we act on it together. We want a workforce that is identifying ways that we can go off and improve the processes, be more productive, provide a better customer experience, and to be a safer, organization. And that's that's what we're about. So, so it's in the actions taken after receiving that sort of feedback that can, really be the indicator.
00:32:58:17 -
00:32:59:37
Clayton
Fantastic. Right?
00:32:59:42 -
00:33:24:45
Ron Lindsay
Right. So the important when you get input from an employee, you need to act on it. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you do what the employee recommended, but you respond back the reason why not and challenge them to come up with a better idea or a different idea to to handle what that issue is. And if an employee makes, a suggestion that helps helps better achieve the goal.
00:33:24:50 -
00:33:42:18
Ron Lindsay
You need to recognize it, especially with, with his or her peers. That's very important. And then and, you know, award, award them in some way, like like Tom said, if if suggestions are made and no action is taken, there will be no more suggestions.
00:33:42:23 -
00:34:07:57
Clayton
Fantastic. It is all about action and actually taking time to listen to your fellow workers out on the floor and taking that pulse. It really, it really does make a difference. So if you're listening to this and you're a business owner, listen to your employees. This is from two very successful business. All right. I have another question for both of you CEOs that invest time and money into work service worker safety and satisfaction.
00:34:08:02 -
00:34:13:05
Clayton
How have you seen the investment pay off, financially or otherwise?
00:34:13:10 -
00:34:41:58
Ron Lindsay
Yeah. What comes to mind me right away is we invested in a, an app for, all of our employees phone. It's a scholarly. It's called safety amp. AMP safety. And what and what that app does is it gives the all employees the opportunity to, if they see a, a potential hazard or a near miss or even an incident, they can report it real time.
00:34:41:58 -
00:35:01:39
Ron Lindsay
They can even snap a picture of it. It goes out to everyone, and that works out to everyone to so that it can be fixed in real time. And it has, you know, it's not that big of an investment at all. And it is it is paid back. You know, my, VP of, of HR, safety is in charge of safety.
00:35:01:39 -
00:35:16:52
Ron Lindsay
He said that it it just day one enabled all the to worry about safety. And once you're talking about action needs to be taken or when it goes out to everybody and anybody on their phone, something's going on. There is action taken.
00:35:16:56 -
00:35:22:45
Clayton
Okay. So you mentioned that app specifically. Where would employers go to find that app?
00:35:22:49 -
00:35:27:58
Ron Lindsay
I have to find that out. I don't know my HR found it so and okay. And so.
00:35:28:03 -
00:35:35:43
Clayton
Well Ron's going to keep us posted on that. Mr.. Tom, same question to you. Have you seen your investment pay off?
00:35:35:45 -
00:36:09:19
Tom Broccoli
Well, you know, it's difficult to tie particular activities like your safety improvements to the bottom line. Certainly, if you take a look at our dart numbers and our incident reports going and compare that to four years ago, we are light years better than we were. And, if you take a look at employee satisfaction, we're certainly not where we want to be, but we're making improvements and if you then take a look at the earnings for the company, we've had steady growth and earnings.
00:36:09:19 -
00:36:21:58
Tom Broccoli
So those aren't the only factors that contributed to that certainly. But I don't think you continue without a a workforce that is a safe and be engaged.
00:36:22:03 -
00:36:34:30
Clayton
This advice fantastic. So seriously business owners take it and run with it. These two know what they're talking about. Closing thoughts Tom, kick us off.
00:36:34:35 -
00:36:58:44
Tom Broccoli
You know, it's, it's a good time to be an industry. It is. We're past the Covid period. And I believe that the market for us certainly is poised for a lot of growth. We're behind as a country in, the number of houses that we need. If you take a look at family formation versus housing starts where we're behind.
00:36:58:44 -
00:37:07:32
Tom Broccoli
So it's a good it's a good time to be in the industry that we're in. And it's a good time to be investing in that industry and investing in the people.
00:37:07:37 -
00:37:10:07
Clayton
Fantastic. Mr.. Ron.
00:37:10:12 -
00:37:39:00
Ron Lindsay
Yeah, it's all about the people. You can be the most technical technologically adapt and and lucky, but if you don't have the right people you still don't have success. So you build trust. You you be transparent. You have you set goals and objectives that they understand, you measure, you recognize, you award. If you do all that, you are well on your way for success.
00:37:39:05 -
00:37:57:43
Clayton
Well, fantastic. Ron. Well, guys, that's, that's it for today. We're out of time, unfortunately. But I'd like to say thank you for joining us for another episode of Executive Sessions. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on audio streaming services and our YouTube channel. Be sure to hit the notification bell so you'd never miss an upload.
00:37:57:57 -
00:38:03:14
Clayton
A big thanks again to Mr. Tom Broccoli and Mr. Ron Lindsay. Thank you guys so much for being here today.
00:38:03:19 -
00:38:04:41
Tom Broccoli
Thank you Clayton.
00:38:04:46 -
00:39:03:20
Clayton
Well, until next time. That'll do it here for us. And join us next time when we discuss more about trends and developments in the industrial manufacturing world. We'll see you then.
