Human Resources
Rob Wilson
President, Employco Group Inc.
By John Nank
Smart Business Chicago | August 2007
Whether it’s offering flexible hours for employees with children or throwing a ballpark-themed office party for opening day of the
Cubs, Rob Wilson does whatever he can to make Employco Group Inc. a fun and exciting place to work. Recognizing that employees
are the most important component of any business, Wilson has created a culture that he says breeds happiness, excitement and
motivation — which help create a work force eager to help make its organization successful. And, with 2006 revenue of about $130
million, the Westmont-headquartered human resources and payroll outsourcing firm is a pretty happy place to be. Smart Business
spoke with Employco’s president about the importance of focus and the effectiveness of a true open-door policy.
Keep your door open. We empower people to
make decisions and know that no idea is a
bad idea. They’re not afraid to give their
opinions, and their opinions could be right
or wrong, but as a culture, we would rather
have people give us their opinions.
I have an open-door policy in my office,
and the only time my door is shut is if there
is a meeting going on. Everybody knows
that they can come in my office at any time
if they’ve got an issue or a question or want
to bounce something off me or any other
person in the company, and that took some
time to establish.
Being in the human resource business,
you hear a lot of people say, ‘We have an
open-door policy,’ and as you drill down
and talk to some of their people, how much
of an open-door policy did they really
have? What I’ve done is instilled in everybody that I trust their opinion and that
there are no repercussions for anything
they say to me. They can talk confidentially with me and not worry that there is going
to be a repercussion. That’s a key part,
whether it’s an employee talking about
something in his or her personal life or
something corporate or something off the
record about a client, employees need to
be able to know that it’s confidential, and it
takes time for people to realize that.
Maintain focus. Losing focus is something
that can cause a business to fail, and not
only losing focus on your own business but
of your marketplace. You can be running a
great manufacturing company, but you
have to stay on track with the inventory
and where the marketplace is going and
stay focused not just internally but on the
external marketplace also.
Sometimes it’s not being as involved as
you should be. In some cases, maybe
you’ve entrusted the management to the
wrong people. We’ve seen that happen a
few times with some of our clients.
The owners have brought in some people to run day-to-day, and they thought
they had someone running their businesses and doing a great job, and the next
thing you know, people took their eye off
the vision.
Communicate to all employees, not just the top
of the pyramid. It’s important to keep communication lines open because if they’re
not open, it’s too easy for a department or
a person to be thinking one thing, and, as in
anything, people talk, and you want the
right message to be disseminated to everybody.
The last thing you want in any company
is an incorrect rumor going around. Open
lines of communication really keep the correct and accurate message going through
the company.
Before we started doing the weekly meeting, we had people asking us, ‘Where’s the
company going? What’s our direction?’ and
so ... we have company meetings at least
quarterly where we say, ‘Here’s what our
retention is of our clients, here’s new business, here’s what’s happening on the horizon.’
We found a few years ago that the management of the company and the senior
people knew the direction and focus of
where we were going and the growth
plans, the sales department knew who was
selling what, but in the overall company,
we needed to have the same communication down to every level of employees, so
everybody had an idea of the vision of the
company.
Doing that enables employees to realize
that there is a vision within the company,
that they’re working for an organization
that has specific goals, that has growth in
mind, that has customer service in mind,
and it helps the culture of our company
grow. Pretty much everybody in our company deals with customers in one way or
another, and it helps them know that there
is a vision, and as they’re talking, it enables
them to be excited about what we’re doing
as a company.
Seek input. I always look for other people’s
involvement. I started the company with
my father and brother 11 years ago, and
early on, we established what we refer to
as an executive council, which consists of
key people from within the organization.
We meet regularly, and we look for their
involvement. Each person manages multiple people internally, and I value their
input. Outside the executive council, every
Friday, all of the key people from each
department meet and talk about issues. We
typically review three or four clients each
week so everybody knows what each other
is doing, but at the same time, I want to
hear from everybody about what’s going on
in their department that other people
should know about.
It’s really helped our company grow, and
it shows that we value their input. It
empowers them to make decisions and
think on their feet and to stay focused on
the customers.
What was surprising when we first started this process was that because there are
so many different components to a company, people know each other from seeing
each other in the hallway or the lunchroom
or company outings, but they have no idea
what the other departments do. ‘Ron’s in
loss control, and I didn’t even know what
that was.’ So it also started to educate different people in the organization and then
empower them to know what the different
departments do so they can interact with
our customers.
HOW TO REACH: Employco Group Inc., (630) 920-0126 or
www.employco.com
