Consumer Services
Working together
How to encourage employee involvement
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business Orange County | February 2009
Page 1 of 2
Brian Cescolini
chairman, Universal Services of America LLC
Brian Cescolini says that it’s
sometimes hard for leaders to listen to others because they’re
passionate about their jobs and
growing their companies.
“Sometimes CEOs or higher-ranking executives just have
their eye on the ball, and that’s
where they’re going to go,”
says the chairman and co-CEO
of Universal Services of
America LLC.
Cescolini recalls a conversation with one of his employees,
who told him in the organization that his 7,041 employees
didn’t know how to handle. By
listening to the employee,
Cescolini was able to reach out
to them and help solve the
issues.
Listening to his employees
and creating a trust with them
has helped Cescolini grow the
building services company to
2007 revenue of $167 million
with four divisions: Universal
Protection Service, Universal
Building Maintenance, UPS
Fire/Life Safety Services and
UPS Security Systems.
Smart Business spoke with
Cescolini about how to listen to
your employees and get them
involved in your company.
Listen. It’s something that is
learned. The more that you listen to the feedback from your
employees, the more understanding you have for the culture of your company.
If you don’t listen and don’t
share the passion with each
other, then I don’t think that
you succeed in having a great
company. You just have to
make it a priority to communicate with your employees, listen to what they say and actually act on some of the suggestions that they may have,
because there are good ones.
If you don’t listen to your
employees, that there’s a tendency to have a different perspective of how the company is
running versus what the
employees think.
Part of listening is open discussion and getting action
items on the list. If someone
has a good idea, they discuss it
in meetings, and if it is something the team thinks could
contribute, it goes on the action
list. The initiatives on the
action list are scheduled with
due dates, and someone is
selected to drive the process
and report back to the committee in the next meeting.
Sometimes an executive can
listen to an employee, but if he
is too busy to do anything
about it, then it is perceived
that no one listens. I try to
push the idea back onto the
team so they drive the
process, things can get done,
and the employee feels satisfied that he or she contributed
to the company.
When a CEO or president listens to the employee, whatever
level of the position they might
have, that encourages the
employee to want to stay and
work for the company as long
as they can.
Get employees involved in the
development process. When you
create a vision, you have to make
sure that everyone is on board. In
order to do that, it involves them
taking part in the decision-making and creation of the vision.
If they’re part of it and
involved in actually creating
the policies and procedures
and hiring the right people and
so forth, then they own it.
Empower them, make sure
that you identify the right
accountabilities for the employee and that the employee understands what they’re accountable
for and what they’re not, and
also provide incentives for success. If the organization reaches
its goals, then the employee
should be rewarded handsomely
for their efforts and leadership.
It’s like a big train. If everybody
behind you is on the same track,
then the momentum is going to
flow. That creates energy, it creates synergy, and it creates good
morale. With those three things,
then it allows the company to
maximize its ability to accomplish any goal that it sets forth,
because everybody is on the
same track.
