Understand the company’s values
With a host of soft values, it might be easy to conclude that the ideal company’s employees are just going to sit around by the campfire and sing “Kumbaya.”
“That’s far from the truth,” Stefanski says. “Everybody’s engaged — and you have to have high expectations for everyone.”
Your company isn’t going to soar to new heights without a firm foundation built on respect, compassion and support for employees.
“Things like respect — you really have to give it first and then you get it,” Stefanski says. “My dad was very mindful and respectful of all employees, that they were hard-working, and they really gave it their all while at the office.”
Ben and Gerome Stefanski, Marc’s parents, founded Third Federal Savings in 1938. His father had been secretary with Pyramid Savings & Loan, which failed during the Great Depression. He managed the real estate for Pyramid S&L and over the next five years paid back 100 cents on the dollar to everyone who had lost money.
“My dad was a tough guy to work for,” Stefanski says about his late father. “He knew what it was like not to be successful in business, and he was never going to let that happen again.”
To ensure employees stay aligned with the company mission, management may use several different ways to measure successes.
When employee performance is reviewed at Third Federal, the talk is first about the values, “How have you treated other people in the organization?” Stefanski says.
“Production is actually secondary; how much did you produce? Now, if you go to other organizations, their review is based on their sales, so they’re on commission. No one here is on commission.
“We evaluate people’s performance first based on the values, and then production, and then how are they doing on the job,” he says. “If people know the values, we can teach them how to do something. But if they don’t have the values, it’s going to be harder to help them be successful at Third Federal.”
A share of the pie
Any company with an employee retention rate of 96 percent would be proud to have those figures. It demonstrates that a lot of things must be going well both on the business side and in the way employees are treated.
Stefanski feels that one of the top investments a company can offer its employees is a stock ownership program, which began in 2007 when Third Federal went public.
“Most places call it an ESOP; we call it an ASOP: Associate Stock Ownership Program,” he says. “We based it on the number of years that people had been in the organization as opposed to what most companies do. They go through the executive levels and seniority and they distribute the wealth of the company that way.
“But we felt that because of the people who were responsible for our continued success, we would change that concept and move to the people who had been here the longest, giving them the biggest share of the ASOP.”
After 12 month’s of service, the employee starts receiving Third Federal stock, which is awarded on or about Valentine’s Day.
“It’s just another way — we try to tie little things to holidays or something that has a lot of meaning,” Stefanski says. “Love is one of our values; that’s Valentine’s Day. So to show the love — a lot of times we’ll send candy or something — we’ll also add to their stock ownership plan.
“People encompass the customer side of things. So the plan is to treat our people well, with respect and love and give them all the tools to be excellent customer service representatives and make sure they’re loved on the job. And in turn, they’re going to treat the customers better.”
And that is the name of the game: customer retention.
“If they leave, a lot of times you don’t even know,” he says. “They don’t knock at anyone’s door and say, ‘Hey, I’m leaving.’ Just one day they’re here and the next day they’re not. I can’t think of anything we’ve ever done here that hasn’t been in the name of customer service. It’s always our customers first. And it’s really made a difference.”
Takeaways:
- Leading by example never grows old.
- Encourage understanding of company values.
- A piece of the pie tastes good, especially to employees.
