Overall, the company saved approximately $224,400.
Employee Turnover: Reduced by 44 %, resulting approximately in $114,400 savings in salaries and benefit costs.
Inventory: The Company has doubled its fleet of luxury motor coaches from 6 to 12 in one year.
Founder H.A. Thompson and his son, Andy, began the family owned and operated company in 1985 with three employees servicing the Charlotte, NC, area. The company has now grown to over 80 employees and is the leading ground transportation provider in the Carolinas. In 2008, the company received the Operator of the Year award, a national award given by LCT Magazine.
How to effectively hire. The revolving door of turnover was too costly. For years, employee turnover averaged one third of their staff.
Not being able to understand or motivate existing employees was challenging daily operations.
Communications were painful; the perception between the managers was harming internal operations.
Company-wide moral was suffering from the core management team operating from personal silos.
There were some rough edges within the personalities of the management team that created sensitive outbursts and common drama.
The operations manager had been described as harsh and insulting. He had so many good attributes and qualities, and much potential, but he seemed to leave a trail of offenses behind him that included vendors, consultants and employees.
An expensive General Manager/CFO put more focus on sales calls than on operations and finances.
To recover the full management potential of the leadership team and establish authenticity.
To establish effective, honest communications and establish trust within the organization.
To hire more effectively, to reduce employee turnover and to improve the quality of operations.
To improve employee morale and job satisfaction.
To reduce stress for the owners and to bring fun back into the business.
Feedback Sessions: The project was initiated with the management team and the owners when PDP Representative, Don Crosby, began facilitating personal feedback sessions. Each session averaged thirty minutes to an hour depending on the depth of conversations.
Team Session: After the personal feedback sessions, the process lead into a three-hour team workshop to open up the group to provide individual and group dynamics. Uncovering the behaviors of each of the team members enabled each team member to better understand themselves and each other’s behavioral styles, energy, stress and trait perceptions.
Developing Effective Communication Skills PowerApp workshop: With the intention of improving communications, Don facilitated the workshop for about fifteen minutes before he stopped and announced that this was probably the last day that he would be working with Rose Chauffeured Transportation. Everyone was surprised and wondered why, so he simply shared that if there was not going to be considerate participation, there was no need for the company to waste their investment of time and finances going through the actions. This seemed to work, because the workshop finished with some measure of success and the project continued.
Training Certification: The Human Resource Manager was certified in the PDP Integrated Management System, and the company invested in a PDPworks Gold account.
Assessed Employee Base: Every individual in the company experienced their personal ProScan reports as an employee benefit so they could better understand themselves.
Employee surveys were handed out to each employee to measure overall job satisfaction. The surveys measured the level of respect they felt, what they liked most and least about their jobs and collected any suggestions for changes in the organization.
Employee Meetings: A short employee meeting was conducted for each group to thank them for participating and to discuss the outcomes, so that they felt their contribution mattered.
Employee and Management Consultation: Frequently and randomly a variety of people related challenges and issues would surface isolating core problems with certain employees and within the management team. One-on-one sessions and small team meetings were applied to reduce and eventually eliminate the major problems.
Mediation: One morning came the pivotal point that would cause the operations manager to end his five-year career with the company. There were heated conversations between the general manager and the operations manager that caused the owners’ involvement. As a consequence, the decision was made to release the operations manager. The decision was approved very quickly by the remaining managers. The owners were extremely frustrated, but the operations manager was committed to stay with the company.
During several discussions back and forth Don was able to get a new commitment from the operations manager and a verbal agreement from the owners to provide him one last chance, called the Last Dance. This was clearly the end of the road and it was up to the transformation of behavioral modification to succeed.
Management Consultation: The General Manager/CFO was terminated in December 2010 based on performance and behavior, this reduced a high overhead and the example was sent to the rest of the company as the owner was serious in making his company successful, without exception.
The Operations Manager was salvaged in an incalculable transformation. Rescuing this potential mis-hire saved the company a minimum of $110,000. In addition, in losing this key person the workload would have severely cost the company emotionally, as well as financially. One year later, he has earned the respect of almost everyone in the company.
Employee morale is at an all time high, the company has never been busier and it appears that people are better tolerating situations that would have caused far more drama in the past.
Management and operations are stabilized and better prepared to handle the increase in sales. This is key, for if operations were not stabilized, the company could have never sustained the growth.
The company has advanced to become an employer of choice, rather than just another employer.
Owner H.A. Thompson has the reward of witnessing his employees develop into serving the company’s clients as he’s always imagined, and the company relationships have produced a true working team.