Q. How does an open-door
policy contribute to your
culture?
Anyone in the company at
any level understands that if
they need to speak to me,
they can speak to me. They
will not be boo-hoed if
they’ve got an issue or a
problem. Certainly, we
encourage going through the
normal line of leadership,
but if they don’t feel comfortable for whatever reason
doing that, anyone and
everyone understands they
can speak to me.
When I say open door, I
mean that even if I’ve got
somebody sitting in front of
me in a meeting, if somebody needs to get to me,
they’ll come in and … I
answer their needs first,
because once I do that, I can
go back to my original meeting. That whole culture of
taking care of things now —
or almost now — is what I
think differentiates us
because instead of somebody
having to wait for several
days for an answer from me,
it’s done on a pretty constant
basis, whether it’s verbally,
through e-mail, through
meetings or through just
dropping by.
I walk around the building.
I want to get my touches on
the people. I encourage our
management and everybody
to do that, to really be out
there with our guys. Sometimes, you can just look at
somebody’s face and all they
need is for you to say, ‘Hold
on a second, are you OK?
You look like something is
bothering you.’
That happened earlier
today, and it already got
back to me that, gosh, I sat
down just 10 minutes with
someone and gave a hug
where needed, and that had
an enormous impact.
Whether it’s, ‘You did a
great job. I recognize you did
that,’ giving a $25 Starbucks
gift certificate because they
collected extra money on a
difficult account. Whatever it
is, it’s just recognizing
strengths.
HOW TO REACH: Staffing Plus Inc., (800) 550-9212 or www.staffingplus.com
