Manufacturing
Job dealer
How to reap the benefits of diversity in the workplace
By Patrick Mayock
Smart Business Columbus | March 2008
Francis L. Price
President and CEO, Q3 Industries Inc.
Francis L. Price’s business
perspective can be traced back to a pushcart in inner-city
Kingston, Jamaica, where his
mother supported the family by
selling a strawberry gelatin
extract to workers digging
trenches.
Despite his success, Price —
who now serves as president
and CEO of Q3 Industries Inc., an engineered products manufacturer and supplier — has not
forgotten where he came from.
He actively recruits potential
employees from inner-city
communities while striving for
diversity among his approximately 285 employees at Q3,
which posted 2006 revenue of
$75 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Price about how to serve inner-city communities as well as
your own company by stressing
diversity in the workplace.
Hire a diverse staff. Many of our
inner-city communities, what
they need are jobs more than
anything else.
When you bring good jobs to
the community, you can see
hope grow and hopelessness
disappear. You become a real
important player when you can
hire and employ people on a
consistent basis.
If you want to ensure that in
the interviewing process you
get a diverse group of people,
then you make sure the sources
are pretty (diverse.)
Your marketplace clearly is
diverse. If you make sure your
workplace is diverse, you have
a better chance of having people who understand your market, understand who you’re trying to sell to, who you’re trying
to design products for.
From design to manufacturing to financing, if you are sensitive to your general market,
you tend to win.
Tease out sensitive issues. I have
a special part of my meeting
that I call two rumors and a
question.
You’re sometimes in a plant
full of people, and nobody
wants to talk, or they might
have some controversial issue,
and no one wants to discuss it.
If no one asks me a question, I
make up a rumor myself and
posit the rumor and try to
explain it.
I say, ‘Any questions?’ People
would ask the easy questions,
but no one would want to ask
you something like, ‘Is it true
that you’re going to do mandatory drug testing?’
I’ll say, ‘OK, there are no questions. Let’s go to two rumors
and a question. Rumor No. 1:
Q3 is going to go to mandatory
drug testing. That’s a rumor I
heard this morning.’
Well, whether I heard it or
not, I use the session to discuss
something I think is topical.
Sometimes, I actually have a
rumor where somebody would
write me an anonymous letter
or something.
It’s a way of what psychologists generally refer to as ‘draining the metaphorical swamp.’ If
you don’t discuss sensitive
issues, then you can’t assume
that they don’t exist. They still
exist, and they become cancerous to an organization.
Using the plant meeting to
throw out controversial or sensitive topics is a way of at least
saying to folks that we’re very
open, we’re willing to talk, and
we’re willing to share information. If you don’t do that, you’ve
got to understand that it doesn’t
mean that issues don’t exist. It
just means that they’re covered.
Put your values in the structure of
the compensation plan.
Compensation plans are a very
big way of reinforcing the things
that you believe in.
If you, for instance, say you
want to support education and
you want to have an educated
work force, then one of the
things that you would obviously
do is put in tuition reimbursement programs, and you would
probably put in salary benefits
for people who might have
completed degree programs or
certificate programs.
That is a very powerful communication method of having
folks understand what you
think and what you value.
Those kinds of value-oriented
practices communicate as loudly as anything else that
you can do, that you want an
educated work force, that you
want a healthy work force,
and you’re willing to spend
money on it.
The most immediate benefit is
turnover reduction. These kinds
of systems (in which) you take
care of people through health
care, different kind of benefit
programs and education programs — it’s a way of telling
folks that you care and you
value them. As a result, you
tend to reduce turnover, and
you get the better people that
would want to work for you.
Folks develop mastery in
their particular practice the
longer they stay there. If you
can keep them in continuous
employment, then continuous
improvement is a much better
probability.
Live your vision. People talk
about their vision and their
messages, but it can get
destroyed and get corrupted
very easily by the work world.
You have to be willing to live
it, and you do everything in
your power to make it come
to life.
I myself spend a lot of time
talking to kids around the
world wherever I go. I go back
to my old high school in
Jamaica, and I helped fund
scholarships there. I go back
to my university and help
them.
Just try to stay involved with
the work itself and with the
people, and talk about things
you value. Believe, and it will
come to pass if you live it.
HOW TO REACH: Q3 Industries Inc., (800) 770-0195 or www.q3inds.com
