When John P. Hayes took over HomeVestors of America Inc. in early 2005, it was to fulfill the company founder’s dying wish.
Hayes switched careers from consultant to president and CEO, and began nurturing the real estate company’s culture while creating a
focus on growing profits. He convinced his 80 employees and 250 franchisees that the company would grow and, true to his word, 2006
revenue grew 17 percent over the previous year to a projected $38 million, and the number of employees doubled.
Smart Business spoke with Hayes about how giving away gas cards and going to Texas Rangers games help foster an environment that
makes employees want to stay.
Q: How do you communicate change to employees?
[Support] didn’t happen by me sitting in the ivory tower sending out e-mails or letters. I get in front of them, and I speak very frankly
with them.
I’m not going to tell them something I don’t believe to be true or know that is true. They respect that, and that’s a lesson I’ve learned
through the years from my clients, that when there’s trouble in paradise,
don’t run away from it — get out there and face it.
We also have opportunities to meet throughout the year with all of our
employees and in our weekly staff meetings. The vision, mission and our code of values are discussed frequently.
Employees rank-order our code of values and how well we’re living up to our code of values. The bottom two that don’t fare, we make
a concentrated effort in the next 90 days to improve our ability of that value that seems to be lacking.
Q: How does establishing those values help the company?
When they see that we don’t only talk about the code of values, but we live up to the code of values, then that creates an environment
important to growth because you need to keep these employees — they’re your internal customers.
We need to develop a relationship of trust with them, so when we tell them something, they know we’re not just fooling them or lying
to them. We’re telling the truth. We have a value that says we communicate honestly, and that helps keep walls from building.
We also have a value that says we ask for clarification when we don’t understand. That’s huge because if I ask you to do something, and you think you know what I mean, but you’re not sure, and you go away and do it and come back, and I blow up, that
doesn’t help anybody.
If you’re getting direction, seek to understand what it is. That eliminates many of the stresses.
I was a consultant for most of my life to franchise companies. I would see a founder or CEO knew what he was trying to accomplish or what she wanted to do, but the 22 people working for them had 22 different ideas of what they wanted to do.
That retards growth, and that’s the first step, assuming you have a great company with a concept that produces results. Make
sure that every internal customer or employee understands this is what we’re trying to achieve, and this is how we do it, and these
are the standards we’re trying to live up to, and if you don’t like our standards, or you don’t want to fulfill our vision or help us
do that, we’ll be happy to help you find a job somewhere else, but you can’t work here.
Q: How do you maintain the culture?
Focus on fun, which a lot of companies don’t do. We sent five of our employees and their guests to the American Idol tour concert. Several times in the last year, we’ve said, ‘The cost of gas is outrageous, and you have to get to the office, so here’s a gas
card. You don’t have to win it or qualify for it — it’s on us.’
We took the entire office to a Texas Rangers game and rented a skybox. It’s costly to us, but these are our customers and important people to us, so we need to help them and take care of them. We do things where we make them feel like this isn’t just a
place to work, it’s a place to stay for a long time.
We believe in continually enhancing our knowledge and skills. We’ve established a reading room that’s stacked with books and
magazines and really comfortable chairs.
We encourage people. If you want to learn more about marketing or finance or real estate, we have the materials for you, so
borrow these CDs or books.
I don’t like to compare it to a family because that’s more sacred and personal, but we spend more time here than with our families, so it’s a culture in which they feel comfortable and know they can have fun, and there are not barriers.
HOW TO REACH: HomeVestors of America Inc., www.homevestors.com