Q. How do you keep
employees involved as
the company grows?
The biggest way is basically
through our enthusiasm and by
getting them involved in the
process. Looking at some of the
pain points we’ve had in the
organization as we’ve grown,
the staff wanted to put in a
change control process. Then
we had two teams that came
together on their own initiative
to put in a solid and state-of-theart change control process for
our customers. When our employees see
opportunities for improvement not only in serving our customers
but in how we operate, they’re
not afraid to step forward.
Q. How do you encourage
your employees to bring ideas
forward?
We basically encourage them
to talk to their team and talk to
their managers. That’s something else that you learn along
the way: It’s hard to have 200
employees coming in and then
you say, ‘OK, just go ahead with
that.’ You have to figure out the right process so you’re including
all the right people at the table.
There is some systematic way
to approach that. We’re pretty
good listeners, and when we think someone has a good idea,
we always encourage them. ‘OK,
that sounds good. Go back and
meet with Fred and talk about
getting that implemented in
your area. See what he has to
say about it.’
That way, they were heard, and
you’re teaching them how to
approach problem solving and
implementing in the workplace.
Q. How do you create those
opportunities for your team?
We have a new director who
has come in, and she is working
to put career paths into place
for the team. We also have formal education and training, so
we offer a benefit to all of our
staff for training related to their
field of interest.
You have someone who started out as an account manager,
and now they want to become
a business analyst and move up
to a senior business analyst. Or
someone who comes in as a
receptionist may want to move
up to a stronger support role in
the organization.
Initially, we had a lot of people learning along the way. But
the larger our organization
grew and the more staff we
brought in from the outside, we
were definitely looking for people who had already had that
level of expertise or experience.
Then you work really hard to
start developing some mentors
within the organization so we
can mentor people up. When
you’re small, you don’t have
that opportunity. You can’t
afford it, and there isn’t time.
As we’ve grown over the last
couple of years, we’ve tried to
afford ourselves a little bit of
both.
HOW TO REACH: FIT Technologies, (216) 583-0733 or www.fittechnologies.net
