Enriching Corporate Culture to Support Growth

For years the building products industry, like many others, has faced the ongoing challenges of a tight labor market. Most every employer I know spends considerable time and resources to ensure the success of their employee attraction and retention programs, especially as we experience industry-wide growth. I think this growth will be with us for years to come, therefore we must strengthen our organizations and create a strong corporate culture where employees feel valued, fulfilled, and happy in their jobs.

At ProVia we have several programs in place to support our employees’ development and job satisfaction. I don’t think we get it 100% right all the time, but it’s an area where our corporate leadership team places a lot of focus, because we believe “the employees make the company.”

I’ll share just a few examples here, and I’m sure many companies do these things as well. We hold a series of annual events that are very popular including Family Day, where employees and their families come together for food, refreshments and tours of our facilities. We hold steak cookouts and pancake breakfasts, wear fun costumes to work for Halloween, and put on an annual Christmas Banquet where we come together to celebrate the joy and meaningfulness of the season. In addition, we offer extensive, ongoing programs in character development, wellness, emotional assistance, and financial counseling.

We also focus on developing our employees who are in leadership positions. This fall we’ll be taking this to the next level, with the launch of our new Leadership Development Initiative (LDi), which will be an outgrowth of our longstanding character development program. The LDi is focused on developing the skills of leaders within our organization so they can provide meaningful support to employees under their care. This program is being spearheaded by Bruce Hamsher, ProVia’s Director of Leadership Development.

The Leadership Development Initiative will focus not just on supporting people’s skill sets or competencies, but also the soft skills that are more interpersonal in nature. The key here is our focus on leaders who are taking care of the day-to-day management of teams, and this is a strategic choice because it is at this level that we can foster the development of a consistent culture of caring and support.

The program was inspired by John Maxwell, who gave the keynote presentation at ProVia’s Leadership Symposium* in 2020. In his book Leadershift, John provides lessons such as shifting “from soloist to conductor,” where the point of view migrates from leaders who “call the shots” to those who orchestrate the entire production while remaining offstage and out of sight. “Without these leaders, the production doesn’t happen, but you don’t even notice them on stage where employees are involved in all the action,” says Bruce. “This is well aligned with our servant leadership approach where we put our employees in a position to get noticed, be praised and get affirmed.”

As we look toward the future, we envision continued growth here at ProVia. This means the number of our employees will continue to rise, which will increase our need for qualified and effective leadership. Therefore, we must be intentional and proactive in the ways we develop our leaders.

According to Bruce, “We’re looking to grow the capacity of our leaders, beyond the competency or the skill set. We want to move toward having an approach that provides comprehensive care around all aspects of a person. This means our leaders will get to know the people they lead, and be interested in them as people, letting them know we care about their overall well-being, not just their production throughput. People who are nurtured in this way can flourish, creating a healthy environment for growth.”

“Employee” is one of the most important of ProVia’s company values—we create an engaging work environment and form relationships with our employees, which fosters a fulfilling life experience. When we put “employee above customer,” we empower and inspire our team to provide an exceptional experience for our customers. We believe you won’t retain customers, and grow relationships with customers, if you don’t first do that with your employees.

Making sure our employees feel like ProVia is the kind of place they want to work is always top of mind for me. I look forward to the coming year as we enrich our culture for the personal growth of all, while supporting the growth of our company.

*ProVia hosts an annual leadership event near our corporate headquarters in Northeast Ohio titled “The Symposium: A Community of Leaders.” This popular event spotlights ideas and perspectives presented by the nation’s top leadership experts.