Want to increase your company’s value? Hire for values.
There’s a new company policy at Chapman Heating & Air.
If you make it through a couple interviews as a potential new hire, you’re going to lunch with all the owners.
After the first couple interviews, they have a pretty good idea of a potential hire’s technical knowledge.
But they need to share a meal with the potential hire to get a better sense of her or his values.
At Chapman – a 55-year-old, third-generation company – values matter. They’re on the walls, alongisde the DISC profiles of every employee (and a wall full of awards for employees’ personal and character development).
These people have turned internal communication into a high art.
These are the same people I’ve written about before. It was Beth Chapman (generation #2) who first taught me something I’ve repeated more than a thousand times since:
“Our most important customers are our employees.”
The owners share their values. They also share the company goals. They share financials. They share profits.
And they know – without a doubt – that they have to hire for values first, expertise second.
And the rewards are great – the profit-sharing, plus higher-than-average wages, benefits, Shareworthy Service bonuses, spontaneous parties, waffle truck deliveries.
The Chapman family gets it. We’re blessed they’ve been our clients and friends for going on a decade now.
Sure, their advertising is important. Sure, the media where we place their advertising is important.
And yes, they’re the first company to successfully test and implement our Shareworthy Service program.
But none of it happens without a company surrounded by people with shared values and all eyes and hearts looking, thinking, feeling, and working their way toward the same goals.
Is it any wonder their market share is starting to blow past what every expert I know and trust suggests they should be able to do?
With a strong foundation of shared goals and values, the sky’s the limit.
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