When Carolyn LaHousse
co-founded
ReviewWorks in 1989,her idea of an open-door policy
was far different than it is today.
The president and CEO of the
company says that back then,
she was involved in everything
at the provider of medical cost
containment solutions and disability management services.
However, as the company grew
to about 70 employees and
more than $11 million in 2007
revenue, her definition of an
open-door policy changed.
“(It’s) being open-minded and
accepting input, criticism, suggestions, new ideas from everybody
in the organization,” she says. “To
legitimately consider that you are
not the sole answer to every
question the company faces.”
Smart Business spoke with
LaHousse on how to create an
open culture and how to find
the right people to work in a
team environment.
Q. How do you know if
someone is going to be a
good fit for the company?
Our rule here is to trust your
gut. Usually, if you think you are
unsure of a new hire and you
are asking to have a second
interview, you might as well just
stop right there because something is telling you that this person isn’t exactly what you are
looking for. Something is a little
off there.
There could be other reasons
to have a second interview. But
if the reason is because you are
unsure — a lot of times, second
interviews are when you get
into your benefit plan and you
get into more specifics and you
get into greater detail about the
person.
Q. Once you hire people,
what is the key to retaining
them?
The key to retaining employees is opportunity, advancement, empowering them. I think
it’s recognizing them. Giving
them the tools that they need,
giving them the resources they
need and investing in them.
We invest in our employees
over the years, when we’ve had
changes in technology, when
we’ve had changes in the way
we do business because of technology.
Recently, we’ve gone to an
imaging process, and rather
than having paper forms, we are
on a paperless system to a large
degree. So we retrained our
people in handling the
documents and the different processes, and we’ve
adapted the processes
and promoted the people
to handle that advancement in technology.
