Manufacturing
Growing performers
How to encourage your employees to perform
By Brooke Bates
Smart Business Detroit | January 2009
Page 1 of 2
Andrew Greenlee president and CEO, US Farathane Corp.
Andrew Greenlee doesn’t
have room at US Farathane Corp. for slackers. Instead, he
wants workers who are motivated by more than just a paycheck.
“We set up jobs where, if you
want to perform, you’ll be
rewarded,” says the president
and CEO of the company that
develops and manufactures
highly engineered plastic parts
and materials. “If you want to
figure out ways not to work
hard, then you’re not going to
be successful.”
Greenlee empowers his 900
employees to meet the challenge by giving them a say in
setting their own goals. His
managers then keep tabs on
their performance with reviews,
but Greenlee takes the business’s temperature more frequently by getting out of his
office and interacting with
employees on the floor.
With that open communication and team involvement, US
Farathane Corp. reported 2007
revenue of $133 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Greenlee about how to push
your employees to perform
without overworking them.
Reward employees who excel. In
larger companies, I’d see all this
structure, [such as] ‘This is your
specific job, and this is your job
description. You don’t go outside of this. If you see something wrong in this department,
you don’t worry about it.’
I tell people, ‘If you see something wrong or we can do it better, I want it brought up. I don’t
care what the reporting structure
is. You need to be able to go to
somebody to get this addressed.’
We do not overload with structure. If you don’t perform, you
stand out like a sore thumb. A
ton of structure allows for lack
of performance. Performers are
rewarded, whether it’s President’s
Awards or discretionary bonuses or announcements at picnics.
There are a lot of different ways that we let the top performers
know they’re appreciated and
give them recognition.
Don’t push too hard. We work
closely with people so we know
what hours [they work]. You
watch the parking lot, who’s
here late and who’s early. You
watch on weekends, who’s in
on weekends.
That’s a barometer for me. If
they’re here late or on weekends a lot, we try to address that
and figure out if they’re doing
more than just their job. We
have to make sure we’re not
pushing them too hard. We
watch very closely.
If somebody’s working too
many hours, we want to know
why. We either improve the resources or restructure things.
