Consumer Services
Worth the risk
How to retain employees with open communication
By Brooke Bates
Smart Business Cincinnati | December 2008
Page 1 of 2
Ed Neyer
president and CEO, Equipment Depot
You don’t have to look very
far to figure out how important people are at
Equipment Depot.
Type in its Web address, and it’s
right in front of you. The address
— www.portmanpeople.com —
is a nod to the firm’s previous
name, Portman Equipment Co.,
and it emphasizes the pivotal
role that employees play at the
company, which provides service and sales for material handling, mostly dealing with forklifts.
“You can’t do everything
yourself,” President and CEO Ed
Neyer says.
And that’s where his 400
employees come in.
As Equipment Depot continues to grow from the business
Bill Portman and a handful of
others started in 1960 —
reaching 2007 revenue of about
$90 million — Neyer strives to
keep the “family” connected
through open communication.
“Keeping that family atmosphere and that closeness is a
struggle,” he says, but adds
that keeping his employees
informed is worth the work and
the risks.
Smart Business spoke with
Neyer about how to create a
positive work environment by
overcommunicating.
Take open communication to the
extreme. We communicate with
our people a lot. More than half
of our people are out in the
field versus in the office.
We have a quarterly newsletter about what’s going on in the
company and what we expect.
We have monthly meetings talking about how the performance
was for the month. It’s really
key to keep people in tune with
what’s going on in the company.
We use the bulletin boards a
lot. Our field people, if they
don’t come into the office, get
that information electronically
through e-mail. We definitely
overcommunicate. The key is
to let people know what’s happening within the company.
The only thing that we have
off limits is personnel-type
issues — pay, those types of
things. Obviously, that has to be
one on one and very personal
and confidential.
We are very open with what
we share with our people,
sometimes too open. When we
have important issues that
come up, sometimes our competitors find out as soon as our
people do because of the
friendships between people
and competitors. It’s frustrating. We think it’s more important to let our people know
what’s going on, even with that
risk. You have to weigh what’s
more important: having your
people know about that or the
information leaking out.
Keep employees connected. It’s
very important to keep everyone within our company in the
loop, like they’re part of it. Two
things happen [if you don’t]:
One is people don’t feel as connected, and rumors go rampant. I’d much rather have our
people know what’s going on.
The key is to have numerous ways to communicate with people and to let everyone within
the organization know as much
as they can about what’s going
on. People want to be part of a
team. They want to be part of a
successful organization.
If they feel like they’re being
left out, that doesn’t accomplish
that. Our philosophy has always
been to overcommunicate even
at the risk of having some of
that information leaked out to
competitors. It’s very important
to make sure people understand what your company’s
about, what you’re in business
for, what your expectations are.
The more connected they feel
to the company, the more they
want to stay as part of the company. If we don’t have a team
working together to take care of the customer, we’re not
going to be successful.
In a recent employee survey,
we found that the top three reasons why our people thought
that we were a good place to
work was, [No.] 1, great people;
[No.] 2, job security; and [No.]
3, family atmosphere. Pay and
benefits were No. 4. They
talked about being part of an
atmosphere, being part of a
team with great people.
If something comes up where
they need somebody to back
them up, if it’s a technician that
needs a part, people are going to
get him the part he needs. The
chain is only as strong as its
weakest link. If our people can’t
count on the rest of the organization, they’re probably not going to be here for a very long period.
