Maintain your team
Even in the face of downsizing and attrition, Fegley sees to it that retaining his employees — particularly the managers that form Reno’s backbone — remains a top priority.
The economy might force you to make some difficult personnel decisions, but through all of it, you still need talent to run your business and make sure that talent is properly leveraged to keep your business able to grow and adapt when the right opportunities come along.
At Reno, Fegley does all the hiring so that he gets a firsthand look at new potential teammates.
“I want to develop a relationship with them, and that starts with one or two interviews that they have just with me, just so I can get to know who they are, how they think and how they handle adversity,” he says. “I want to know what is important in their lives. That is the beginning of developing a good relationship.
“Then, you have to give them what they want. I try to make deals with salaries and benefits. I want to make sure the people that come here are excited, interested and know that we demand excellence. We check in with new hires 90 days after they start to see if we’re living up to their expectations and we’re living up to ours. I do that myself — it’s not just my direct reports. If they are having a problem with their job, they can come tell me about it.”
The keys to retaining employees in bad times are really not much different than the keys to retaining employees when times are good. Employees always want fair compensation, recognition for their achievements and want to know that they are working for a company that values their ideas and opinions.
If you develop those principles as part of your company culture, you will stand a better chance of keeping your employees, no matter the economic forecast.
“Losing good people is always difficult,” Fegley says. “In a good economy or bad, there is never a good time to lose someone. Once you start losing people, it can be very difficult to get that loyalty and retain your employees. So it goes back to the relationships you develop. You start to recognize the people that want to be a part of your company and want to stay there long term.”
When you do have to make cuts, go a little deeper than you think you need to. Forcing your employees to endure multiple rounds of cutbacks is one of the quickest ways to ruining morale.
“You have to take action quickly,” Fegley says. “That comes down to evaluating your expenses for payroll and personnel. You generally need to freeze bonuses, freeze raises, and when you cut, cut a bit deeper than you think you have to.
“On top of that, always keep your core employees busy. Morale is always difficult to keep up when the economy falters like this, but here at Reno, we’re in pretty good shape because we’ve managed to keep our core people employed and busy. We’ve even gone so far as to have one of our superintendents drive two or three hours away to work for another contractor, just to keep them busy. Keeping our good people working and busy is one of my top priorities.”