Happily Ever After

Employees want job satisfaction

Smart bosses give it to them

(From left) AG Architecture Inc.'s Rebecca Bornowski, Eric Robert Harrmann and Amber Olsen take a break in AG's Wauwatosa offices.

Photo by Brian Ebner/Optic Nerve

Dozens of camouflage-clad warriors roam the woods, guns at the ready.

In the distance, there’s a flash of blaze orange, in this case representing the hunted, not the hunter. A closer look reveals the word “Boss” emblazoned across the person’s orange back.

It’s Great Lakes Roofing Corp.’s annual Brawl in the Fall Paintball War. And taking a shot — either with paintballs or taunting words — at co-workers or bosses Don Puccetti and Mark Bartolutti is encouraged.

At this fall’s event, the company shot 64,000 paintballs and honored employees for being the biggest trash talker, getting the most splats and being the most trigger-happy.

“It’s a break from the monotony of the everyday,” said Maureen Mecham, Great Lakes’ office manager. “Roofing is hard work, and people have a great time doing this.”

Employees from Great Lakes’ Germantown and Appleton offices are given the day off to take part in the event. It’s the company’s way of thanking them for the hard work they put in the rest of the year.

Employees at Great Lakes Roofing Corp. know there's nothing like a good paintball war to generate job satisfaction.

Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Roofing Corp.

It also goes to the root of Great Lakes’ strategy for retaining its employees. The company’s leadership believes that encouraging camaraderie and showing appreciation is essential to keeping the best employees in the fold.

Attracting and retaining talented workers is a major concern for companies in a day and age when many young people are told to expect nine or more jobs in their careers in an industry with many job opportunities.

Carl Jaskolski, a human resources consultant who also teaches at Concordia University and Upper Iowa’s Milwaukee campus, teaches companies how to best manage employees. The goal, he said, is to foster job satisfaction. The strategy is to focus on meeting an employee’s needs each day.

“Many companies believe it is about money, but I’m telling you it’s not,” Jaskolski said. “It’s about how you are treated.”

That isn’t to say money doesn’t matter. Companies must offer competitive wages and benefits. But that alone won’t make people like their jobs enough to stay a lifetime, he said.

Events like Brawl in the Fall are a good first step to creating an open relationship between management and the broader work force, Jaskolski said. But to follow up on special once-a-year activities, supervisors need to show daily appreciation and respect to employees.

Employees of Great Lakes Roofing Corp. enjoy a day off to build team spirit at the Brawl in the Fall Paintball War.

Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Roofing Corp.

Supervisors at Great Lakes Roofing know that, and, Mecham said, they try to show that respect often, maybe by bringing food to a job site or just stopping to talk over concerns with workers.

“Verbal praise is like having a trophy on a mantelpiece,” Jaskolski said.

Too often, supervisors fail to give that praise. Or worse, they demean their employees, he said.

Kevin O’Toole, executive vice president of Brookfield-based Hunzinger Construction Co., said he watches closely how management in his company works and talks to those it supervises. He said he realizes that a worker who has earned a management promotion needs training to understand the responsibilities and pitfalls of the position.

The company, O’Toole said, is committed to bringing in nationally known speakers and experts to help supervisors learn the art of employee relations and the difference between effective leadership and traditional management.

Hunzinger is in its third generation of family ownership, and the family atmosphere is an essential part of the culture, O’Toole said. That means the 200-some employees, whether office workers or field laborers, are encouraged to see ownership as approachable, to recreate with each other and to keep the working atmosphere respectful, just as they would in their own homes.

They even review the company’s financial statements.

“We take all of our people, and when they are new, they meet with our financial officer for two and a half days to learn how to read a financial statement,” O’Toole said. “When that session is complete, we show them our company’s financial statement.”

That document shows employees that large revenues do not necessarily mean large profits. It also reveals how the day-to-day actions of employees can help reduce expenses and leave more money for their professional and personal benefit.

Sharing financial statements with employees is an unusual level of openness, Jaskolski said, but it is an admirable action that undoubtedly will bear fruit.

“If [companies] would involve the employees in the day-to-day — if they weren’t so secretive — it would increase their employees’ appreciativeness,” he said.

Hunzinger employee Dan Odermann said that level of communication has direct results.

“What I really enjoy about working here is I know the owners and the family,” he said. “I see them regularly and can speak freely.”

As the third generation of his family to work at Hunzinger, Odermann said the emphasis on family was one of the factors that convinced him to apply there. He worked at other jobs first, and there were several elements he was looking for in a job before he became a mason tender for Hunzinger.

“Money’s always important, but in this industry, more important than money would be stability,” he said.

Having spoken with his grandfather and father, he knew at this job he wouldn’t have to worry that the company would disappear or lay him off each winter. And there was something else: the ability to work his way up through the company.

He was recently promoted from foreman in the field to shop supervisor/ expeditor.

At Wauwatosa-based AG Architecture Inc., the family feel its owners hope to create is powered by team-centered work opportunities and company-sponsored social hours.

At 4:30 p.m. on any given Friday — more regularly called beer:30 — employees can be found in the lunchroom, sharing a drink with co-workers, said Gene Guszkowski, AG’s principal and president.

It’s a time when employees of all ages and job descriptions can interact casually, and it fosters team spirit, Guszkowski said.

“One of the things that has happened, there’s been a huge cultural change between the baby boomers and generations X and Y,” he said. “Baby boomers succeeded by working long hours, giving up Thanksgiving. You got noticed because you worked hard.

“Today, people expect a different reward and recognition program.”

Architectural intern Amber Olsen said her priorities have shifted even in the 10 months since she was hired by AG. As a fresh college graduate, she accepted the job with the goal of gaining real-life experience. But as she settles in, taking on greater challenges is becoming more important to her, as is preparing for one day becoming licensed.

And since different things are important to different people at different times, it’s necessary to take a multipronged approach to fostering job satisfaction. At AG, that means arranging beer:30 and other appreciation events while still paying close attention to short- and long-term disability benefits, health insurance and other more traditional motivators.

All of the day-to-day elements of job satisfaction rest on the basic presumption that employees are earning a competitive wage and benefit package. And that basic foundation is being rocked, said Tom Fisher, business manager for the Madison-based Construction and General Laborers Local 464.

“The two biggest concerns right now are health care and retirement for the laborers in the field, and, of course, money on the check,” he said.

Double-digit increases in health-care insurance costs have eroded the take-home pay for many workers, and it is a situation that neither the employees nor employers can be expected to fix alone, Fisher said.

Although the union has been successful in negotiating good pay and benefit packages, the majority of any financial increase is going to health care. It’s a necessary cost, but employees also need to clothe and feed families, Fisher said.

At AG, health-care finance was the largest business challenge in the past five years.

“Health-care costs have run amok,” Guszkowski said. “We used to cover health care 100 percent. Now, if we were to pay the full boat, it would be a $300,000 to $400,000 expense. We’ve had to throttle back and pass some of that cost to employees.”

It’s not the perfect picture of job satisfaction, but health-care costs don’t exactly give employers a lot of options. But by exploring different programs, such as flexible spending and health savings accounts, AG hopes to help control costs while still offering a desirable benefit package, he said.

“It’s a huge battle,” Guszkowski said.

But it’s not necessarily the key to job satisfaction, Jaskolski said. Even those who say earning more money would make them more willing to put up with their jobs generally cannot be wooed to stick around with a raise.

“A pay increase lasts for a hot minute,” Jaskolski said. “Studies have shown pay is not the No. 1 reason people leave. The No. 1 reason employees leave is because of management.”