Tie it all together
One way to buy time to make the right changes in your business is to break the process down into smaller parts.
“Why are we doing it, how are we attacking the problem, what are the expected results and what is the timeline,” Henry says. “You need to go into that level of detail very early on and then on a very regular basis in many different ways, communicate your progress and solicit feedback so people know you’re working on it.”
You also have to customize your approach so it applies to your industry and addresses specific items that apply to your team.
“It has to tie in the vision and the strategy and the overall outcome of what your company is all about,” Henry says. “If you’re just doing this as an exercise that doesn’t have any real purpose, people aren’t going to respond.”
As the process began to take shape, Henry wanted people to see the bigger picture in what was being done. If employees felt better about the work environment and about management’s understanding of their work, they would be in a position to provide better service to customers and the whole company would be more successful.
“It’s easier for us at McCarthy because we’re 100 percent employee-owned,” Henry says. “Every employee has skin in the game. When we talk about the success of our company, it has a very personal and direct effect on every employee in the company. That makes it a little easier when we start to talk about success and outcomes and results.”
The key differential for companies, even those that are employee-owned, is the creation of standards and processes that truly give employees that stake in the ground.
“One of the things we continually focus on with our people is that it’s about building a career and not just a job,” Henry says. “You don’t come to our company for just a paycheck and a job that you come and go to. It’s about building a career and creating opportunity and working with people who have passion for what they do.”
If you walk around your company and you don’t sense that passion or energy, perhaps you need to look in the mirror and think about the workplace environment you’ve created.
“Any leader that feels like they need to get a more honest opinion from employees needs to take their ego and stick it in a drawer,” Henry says. “Roll up your sleeves, sit down and allow people to be honest with you without fear of retribution. For some leaders, that’s very hard because they look at it as a sign of weakness.”
When you view it more as an opportunity to get better and less as a referendum on your performance, you give yourself a chance to grow.
A renewed focus on employee engagement, combined with a relocation of the Northern Pacific Division’s headquarters to Levi’s Plaza has given McCarthy an ideal setting to continue growing its business, Henry says.
“We had an environment that was predominantly closed offices where people could just shut their doors, put their heads down and work by themselves,” Henry says. “Now we have a much more open environment and it seems to be taking us to the next level of engagement.”
Henry is pleased and optimistic about the future. But he adds he’ll never be satisfied.
“If I’m ever satisfied with engagement, somebody else should be pushing me out the door,” Henry says. “That’s something that will continuously change.” ●
How to reach: McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., (415) 397-5151 or www.mccarthy.com
