Andrew Greenlee doesn’t have room at US Farathane Corp. for slackers. Instead, he wants workers who are motivated by more than just a paycheck.
“We set up jobs where, if you want to perform, you’ll be rewarded,” says the president and CEO of the company that develops and manufactures highly engineered plastic parts and materials. “If you want to
figure out ways not to work hard, then you’re not going to be successful.”
Greenlee empowers his 900 employees to meet the challenge by giving them a say in setting their own goals. His managers then keep tabs on their performance with reviews, but Greenlee takes the business’s temperature more frequently by getting out of his office and interacting with employees on the floor.
With that open communication and team involvement, US Farathane Corp. reported 2007 revenue of $133 million.
Smart Business spoke with Greenlee about how to push your employees to perform without overworking them.
Reward employees who excel. In larger companies, I’d see all this structure, [such as] ‘This is your
specific job, and this is your job description. You don’t go outside of this. If you see something wrong in this department, you don’t worry about it.’
I tell people, ‘If you see something wrong or we can do it better, I want it brought up. I don’t care what the reporting structure is. You need to be able to go to somebody to get this addressed.’
We do not overload with structure. If you don’t perform, you stand out like a sore thumb. A ton of structure allows for lack of performance. Performers are rewarded, whether it’s President’s Awards or discretionary bonuses or announcements at picnics. There are a lot of different ways that we let the top performers know they’re appreciated and give them recognition.
Don’t push too hard. We work closely with people so we know what hours [they work]. You watch the parking lot, who’s here late and who’s early. You watch on weekends, who’s in on weekends.
That’s a barometer for me. If they’re here late or on weekends a lot, we try to address that and figure out if they’re doing more than just their job. We have to make sure we’re not pushing them too hard. We
watch very closely.
If somebody’s working too many hours, we want to know why. We either improve the resources or restructure things.
