SPOTLIGHT
INDEX
MANAGING YOUR GREATEST RESOURCE
Roman Albert got into the sweeping business
in the late 70s, launching Lot Maintenance in
Tulsa, OK. He has diversified his business in
innovative ways that have kept his company
and employees going even in a soft economy.
In
“We talk to our guys every morning in the break room and go out
on jobs with them during our peak season. Sometimes they have
special expenses. You don’t want them taking advantage of you,
but you help them out when you can. One of our guys needed to
go back home for his mom’s funeral. So, I gave him some money
to help out and just asked him to give back whatever was left
over. It was just the right thing to do. When you do things that
make a difference in your employees’ lives, they remember and
tell their co-workers. It’s those men and women that are the secret
to our success, and those little things matter. You also don’t ask
them to do things that you wouldn’t do.”
“Cleaning sewers, sweeping streets and mowing highways is a
pretty dirty business. It’s a lot of tough, difficult work. These guys
want to be treated with respect–this is what they do and they take
pride in it. I was on a tractor with them yesterday helping them
catch up. When they see that I’m out there with them, it makes a
big difference to them.
Albert gets creative during the off-seasons to generate revenue and
prevent the cycle of lay-off and re-hire, which can be expensive
when you lose people and have to train new hires. “From April
through October, we run two to three trucks cleaning pipelines
and then in the winter, we run seven to eight when the guys
come off the tractors and sweepers,” says Albert. “It balances
us out and we don’t have to get rid of anyone. We also use that
time to repair our equipment. We service everything—jetters,
mowers, sweepers—and have eight to 10 people working on it.
addition to diversity and staying debt-free Albert says the
secret to success is in your employees. “In our business,
everyone is their own supervisor,” says Albert. “It’s not a
factory where you can monitor them. We have 25 to 30 crews that
go out every day. The guys need to like each other and watch out
for each other. We haven’t had a worker’s compensation claim in a
long time. We monitor each other on a daily basis.
14 NORTH AMERICAN SW EEPER NOVE M BE R 2013
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