Q. How do you handle someone in the organization who is
gossiping or forming cliques?
You’ve got to nip it in the bud.
Just like raising children, you’ve got to move fast. If you look at
it as finding the right people in
the first place, you have less of
a chance that you need to go
through that process.
It’s that ‘hire slow, fire fast’
mentality. Really reinforce that.
Let people know that this is
how it is around here. You try
to set an example and let everybody know what the rules are.
Let them know they can flourish and have fun doing it.
Q. How do you establish a
culture that makes employees
want to stay?
A lot of it is how you treat
people. There are a lot of managers out there who manage
out of fear or intimidation. I
think one of camaraderie and
friendship is better accepted.
Everything from when you
walk in the front door to their
office furniture to lighting —
we’re in an industrial park, but I
would say we probably have
the nicest office in the industrial park. You come in and we
have ceramic tile flooring and a
nice-looking lobby. We don’t
have a lot of walk-in customers.
There are not a lot of people
who walk in through our front
door, other than insurance
salesmen. But to have a nice
conference room and nice
employee lounge and having a
built-in putting tee — it’s all
things that give that feel when
you come in.
Also, we try to keep everyone
in the loop, so we try not to
have a lot of closed-door meetings. Every Monday, we get the
whole company together in our
Monday morning meeting and
we throw everything out there.
Good news, bad news, ugly
news, we throw it out there.
HOW TO REACH: FURminator Inc., (636) 680-9387 or www.furminator.com
