9 1/2 Questions
appreciative.
LD: So now we’re able to give six [scholarships] a year. I know
every year we keep raising the bar saying, “another $50,000 more,
let’s get it up to half a million”. I think that’s what our new goal is,
so we can keep awarding scholarships in her name. She really meant
the world to us, and talk about embodying the culture. And we have
so many Jane-isms it’s not even funny. Her favorite expression was,
“help me, help you”. We do keep her memory alive every single
month. So that’s another non-monetary thing.
KS: We also have the Spouse-Of-The-Month award. Our most
recent recipient was our audio engineer that also does a lot of our
IT work, so he’s here some nights and weekends updating things
on the server. So it’s something to give back to the spouse for their
patience for when someone is away or when people travel. We’ve
given it to some people that work on a golf tournament in South
Carolina. We give them a gift certificate to 2Vine [restaurant] to
show them appreciation for the time they take to be away from
their family for a little bit.
LD: I don’t think many leaders take the simple things like hand
written notes, the thank you, the little tiny things that go so far.
Every Friday I come in an hour early and the reason I do this is
because its not a natural thing for me, I’m always on the move and
onto the next thing … I know how important it is. If I go around
this building, I can see my notes up on people’s bulletin board. It
means something to them. It means something to them that I’m
acknowledging them for going above and beyond. Its very important
for leaders to do this … Every Friday I come in and write my 10
notes—I’ve been doing that for 15 years now maybe. It takes a
little discipline, but it means so much to people by just saying a
simple thank you.
6. How do you collect your data?
LD: We do it by the Great Places to Work survey. So there are 52
questions in different categories: Trust, Camaraderie, Fairness,
Pride, Respect, and Credibility. There are 50 questions where you
rate us 1-5 and two others: “Why is this great place to work?” and
“what could we do to make this a better place to work?” We get
those surveys back verbatim so we can see exactly what they need
and want. Karen and I sit and go over them. Karen always goes to
the best and I always go to the worst. They’re not earth shattering
things like “Can you make the parking lot bigger?” which we’re
—
working with the town to get another lane. The Great Place to
Work survey is the thing we look at every year. We focus on three
things and we work really hard all year long, and we convene a task
force. The great thing about this survey is that it breaks it down by
demographic group. That is very important because different demos
rank us differently depending on the question. So we can attack
every single thing in a very thoughtful meaningful way. Karen
and I sit and we discuss the things we’re hearing and how we’re
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| WINTER 2015
going to go about trying to raise the bar in that area. Training is a
good example. One year we had a lousy score. It was by a specific
demographic group, 25-34 years olds, ranked us horribly in training.
Above 35 we scored a 100%. What we found out was their [25-34
y