Planning For Your Team's Success… How Are You Doing It?
- Post By: Greg Crumpton
- Date:
- Category: Blog
This past week, the Core Team of AirTight took to the mountains of North Carolina for our annual planning meeting. We had a blast and got some very serious work done at the same time. Often, I hear other people planning their year and or discussing how to do so. I find that getting us all out of the day-to-day push allows us to be more focused, gain clarity and engage in introspection. Of course, we take the obligatory breaks to respond to voice-mail, e-mail, texts messages, etc. I know you know what I mean. It’s worth every penny and every effort to set time aside to do this.
We did all of the customary things one is “supposed to do” during the course of the planning trip. We graded our performance and accomplishments against our 2013 goals, we talked about our individual performances vs. the group, and we discussed our particular teams efforts as they pertained to the company overall.
We had a great year. Still, this strong group of 9 only gave ourselves a C+. If one certain president & founder (that would be me) could have just done a better job on a few of his items, maybe it would have been even better! Yes, excited as I am to have gotten a C+, does that make me nuts? Nope, it simply means that we have no false illusions about what we need to do to continue to grow and raise our internal bar of performance measurement.
What does better mean for us?
If you ask any of the core team I referenced above, “What does better mean for you?” Chances are the verbiage of each response would indeed be different. But, the spirit of each response would be the same. No matter what words the team members use, it simply boils down to striving for excellence. Yes, common sense has to be in the mix, economics absolutely play a big role, but after all is said and done, we collectively mean allowing our customers to benefit by our actions, in regards to keeping their equipment at peak efficiency and their work environments safe and comfortable. We know that as we help our customers succeed and increase profits, we are all executing our individual missions.
How will we get there?
The HVAC industry in general, not even to mention the Mission Critical Infrastructure Support world, is about 1,000,000,000 people short. That includes sheet metal workers, pipe fitters, control & automation specialists, as well as professional service technicians. That is correct, ONE MILLION people. People who could be working if they had a skilled trade in their tool box. There are several reasons for the shortage. Baby boomers are retiring at a rate of 50,000 per day, and will continue to do so for the next ten years. I know that we are not recruiting into the trades at any where close to that rate. We have taught in high schools for decades that you have to go to college and get a degree, then get a job. That worked for many years, but now the glut of under-employed, degree-carrying young people is showing that we are behind the curve.
Our answer, as crazy as it sounds, is that we grow our own. It takes a lot of time and it is a slow process, but it works for us. We have found that if we can bring a young person into our program, educate them, treat them well and nurture them a bit, typically, they will stay with us. We have 10 or so success stories out of our internal, company paid for, scholarship program. Over 33% of our 34 person company has been at AirTight for more than 5 years, that blows the industry average straight out of the water. Educate, train and get out of the way. That is our formula.
Only 2 Bullet Points to go Home With?
That is correct. Once we evaluated all of the items we discussed, it comes down to just two specific points:
• Relentless Recruiting – We are committed to continue to find, as technician Eddie Reynolds labels it, the needles in the haystack. It isn’t an easy task to find candidates that fit within our strong technically-centric culture, but they are out there and we will get them on-board.
• Educate and Train Continuously – Education is at our core, it is what we do. Our people, our competitors and our industry peers all know this. We will only intensify what we have done for the first 15 years of AirTight.
Thank You …
Thank you for taking time to read, and hopefully understand, our mission. It is one built of service above ourselves. Thank you for training with us if you have, if not, please visit our website, www.airtight.co and sign up, we would love to have you. Thank you for hiring us to work for you if you have done so. If you haven’t, please consider us, we will not disappoint.
To each of you, all the best in 2014!
