Train and test. You obviously need to train people and get them involved once you hire them, but that can vary among people and positions. Historically, as we grew the company, it has changed. When we started out, we had very few employees and didn’t have any formalized training programs at all. We simply hired the smartest people we could find and gave them an assignment. For the most part, they were just tossed into the water and learned on their own.
That’s kind of an interesting test for people. We’ve had some really great successes that have come out of that. Today, things are a little more formalized. We have a process that we go through to train new employees. It starts out working with our chief financial officer, usually in an analyst position, where most of their work is focused on the economics of a real estate project. We give them a pretty good orientation on financial modeling and the criteria that we look at in a real estate project. We’re involving them in the acquisition process, so they’re seeing how we think and how that matches what our company does.
Know how to communicate. Candor and honesty are two good places to start with regard to communication. As most companies do, we have very smart employees. If you try to hide things from them, they can tell it in a heartbeat. We try to be as candid and forthright as we can. In addition to our staff meetings, we facilitate face-to-face communication on issues. Our managers will engage one-on-one with the people under their supervision. We do try to get to know our employees on a more personal level with a show-and-tell session following our weekly staff meetings. It gives employees a chance to share their outside interests and experiences, and it gives everyone listening an opportunity to know that person better.
It builds a personal connection to have that added level of familiarity with employees. You learn things, interesting talking points that can start conversations and help build unity within your team. If we didn’t get to know our employees, I’d never know that one of our account managers has one of the largest collections of coral in the country. His house is filled with coral from all over the world. To have communication that goes beyond just work helps to build a level of familiarity and comfort with each other, and that can translate to the work environment.
How to reach: The Ratkovich Co., (213) 486-6500 or www.ratkovich.net