Founded in 1957, The Spice House
is a purveyor of the finest spices, herbs, blends, and extracts to customers
ranging from renowned Michelin-star chefs to home cooks everywhere. They’ve spent
over 60 years curating their global network of premium growers and distributors
to offer their customers unrivaled quality and selection. Spice house is now the fastest-growing craft spice
merchant in the Midwest, thanks to a booming eCommerce business.
Spice House started working with
Launchways during a change of ownership amid a period of rapid growth. When a
Private Equity firm initiated the process of buying Spice House from its
original owners in 2017, they brought on Charlie Mayer as the company’s new
CEO. Immediately upon assessing the business’ processes, Charlie knew that he
had to overhaul the company’s HR systems, payroll operations, and benefits to
accommodate Spice House’s growth and help it grow at an even faster rate.
While he considered working with a
PEO, Charlie decided to work with Launchways instead because we offered customized
solutions with the one-stop-shop appeal of a PEO. Our HR advisors were also
able to provide expert guidance to Charlie and his team through the change in
ownership and guide them through any challenges that arose during Spice House’s
continued growth. And unlike a PEO, we were also able to replace Spice House’s
existing business insurance, which could not meet the needs of a rapidly
expanding eCommerce food industry company.
Because Spice House lacked any
centralized HR systems, Launchways implemented an all-in-one HRMS platform that
handles employee record-keeping, new-hire onboarding, time and attendance, and
payroll using systems that could scale with Spice House’s rapid growth. We also
consolidated employee benefits to a single vendor, made benefits available to
all Spice House employees, and increased coverage for health, dental, vision,
life, and added a 401k at a cost-savings of 16% a year compared to their
previous benefits package.
But one aspect of our partnership that turned out to have an
extremely significant impact on Spice House’s ability to continue to grow and
succeed was our work revamping the company’s business insurance. Their previous
vendor refused to renew the company’s coverage due to the change of ownership
and rapid expansion, so Spice House needed a business insurance solution that
would meet their current and future needs. Our insurance experts conducted an
audit of the business and put together comprehensive and cost-effective
coverage package that could scale as the company grew.
Little did anybody know how important that coverage would
become to Spice House’s future just two years later.
In early July 2019, a repairman sent by Spice House’s
landlord to fix the store’s roof accidentally lit the roof on fire with a
blowtorch. The response by the fire department was swift and effective but it
wasn’t enough to save the company’s inventory as Charlie reports,
“The fire department put the fire out quickly but they used a lot of water, so everything on the floor and in the basement was ruined.”
But the damage to the building was an even greater risk to
his company’s ability to stay open, let alone expand. If he hadn’t had
comprehensive business insurance, that Spice House location might have been
driven out of business. But the coverage that Launchways had previously negotiated
ensured that Spice House could weather the fire damage,
“In addition to having a significant loss in terms of our building and our product, we were closed for four months. Because we had business interruption insurance we not only recovered our lost income but we were also able to keep our staff employed through the interruption.”
One reason why the store was closed for so long was the
complexity involved in resolving the claim. Since the fire was started by a
contractor hired by the landlord, Spice House had to navigate shifting
liability between multiple parties.
The landlord had to get the contractor to pay for the damage
to the building before they could begin repairing the damage, greatly
increasing the amount of time that Spice House’s store was closed. At the same
time, Spice House’s initial insurance adjuster worked extremely slowly and was
eventually fired by the insurance company. Launchways worked diligently to get
a new adjuster on the case immediately, and then worked hand-in-hand with that
party to ensure the claim was paid out quickly.
Throughout the process, the Launchways team handled the
communications between the different parties and insurance companies so that
Spice House could focus on their business, as Tim Taylor, the head of the
Launchways business insurance team, explained:
“Because the fire was caused by a third-party roofing company that was fixing the roof, we had to work with not only the landlord and the roofing insurance company but also our insurer. When there is a large claim like this, we check in twice a week with the end adjuster at our insurance company and also check in with our insured to make sure that they don’t have any questions, that they know the timeline, and that they know when they can expect the money to be paid out for this type of a loss.”
Launchways’ hands-on approach made all the difference for
Charlie, making a stressful and potentially costly process as easy and
productive as possible,
“Having Launchways to talk to is kind of like having an older sibling who’s been there before and can tell you what to expect. About once a week I would get on the phone with Tim and say okay, here’s what’s going on, is this normal, should we expect more, what can I do? And he would tell me what to do and occasionally take it upon himself to go figure out what was broken and get it fixed.”
With Launchways handling communications with the insurers,
landlord, and contractor, Charlie was able to focus on rebuilding Spice House’s
store better than ever.
“I’ll never say that having a fire is a good thing but in the end, it was an opportunity to think about the store we wanted to have and to build that store. We had that opportunity because we had the right team together to help us recover and help us think about rebuilding. Tim gave us the confidence we needed to just proceed. When the process finally started to click, the fact that we had everything ready to go made it all work.”
Now, Spice House is stronger than ever with a new storefront
that fits their brand and is helping them grow even faster. This challenging
chapter ended up fueling their business because they had the proper coverage
and an active partner and consultant in Launchways. It’s rare for a company’s
business insurance coverage to be put to the test as Spice House’s has been and
Charlie is more than pleased with the results. Going forward, he can run his
business with more confidence than ever, knowing that Spice House can withstand
anything that fate sends its way,
“I just don’t lose sleep about insurance because you just need someone who understands the process who will talk to you honestly about what to do and that’s what Launchways did for us.”
A new employee’s first days and weeks of work are a crucial time. Their early impressions of the organizational structure, leadership, climate, and culture of their new environment will directly affect the way in which they approach work in the coming months and years.
On the other hand, when incoming talent is thrown into the fire or not provided the education they need to hit the ground running, it significantly lowers productivity, both for the confused, under-served new-hire and their teammates, who must constantly take time out of their own work hours to triage knowledge and skill gaps.
Preventing those hang-ups is one of HR’s main responsibilities. With a proactive, straightforward, integrated approach to onboarding, you can ensure that creating a great experience for your new hires doesn’t come at the expense of your current team’s productivity.
Moving forward, we’ll explore:
The true scope and definition of onboarding
How HR, IT, and each department or team within an organization can support great onboarding
Five things all organizations need to do to get onboarding right
What is Onboarding, Really?
In an HR context, onboarding is the process through which new hires gain the knowledge, skills, tools, strategies, and motivation they need to become great team members and productive employees.
That’s actually good news for HR professionals, as it helps focus on what most of us are really passionate about: setting people up for success.
Let’s break down that onboarding definition and look at each individual element with an eye toward what a strong procedure can truly accomplish.
Knowledge Transfer Requirements for New Employees
Your hires need all sorts of knowledge in order to thrive in their new roles. They already have most of the functional understanding they need – that’s why you hired them – but you need to teach them your specific expectations for success.
Incoming talent likely has a track record of success on some level, but that doesn’t mean every one of them knows how to complete day-to-day tasks in the specific way your team prefers. Ensuring your new-hires hit the ground running in a positive, productive manner means identifying and mitigating skill gaps as quickly as possible.
The skills you need to reinforce with your new hires will vary depending on the role and each professional’s existing skillset, but it’s best to have plans in place to address issues like:
Skill assessments for incoming talent to gauge education needs
Tutorials and lessons on relevant work software/ERPs/etc.
Leadership coaching for new or emerging managers
Specific device training for technicians
Guidance on professional communication
Tool Acquisition for New Employees
Connecting your new employees with the physical tools they need to do great work is just as important as equipping them with the right knowledge and mindset.
Knowing what each new-hire needs requires a deep understanding of your organizational chart and proactive communication across a number of departments.
For each team member you welcome into the fold, you need to determine and fulfill their needs as quickly as possible, including:
Access credentials and digital accounts for relevant software/systems (email, salesforce, or github etc.)
Work computers (desktop, laptop, etc.)
Company mobile devices (cell phones, tablets, etc.)
Device accessories (keyboards, chargers, etc.)
Traditional office supplies (Pens, folders, etc.)
Strategy Development for New Employees
At some point in their careers, your new employees are going to run into problems. Maybe they’ll have a life-changing event that necessitates an insurance change. Maybe they’ll have an issue with a co-worker that requires mediation, the list goes on and on.
You can greatly reduce anxiety for your team members and set them up for instant success by identifying as many of those common problems and frequently asked questions and proactively addressing them with new hires.
HR can support talent immediately and improve their overall experience by helping them develop strategies for:
Addressing problems with colleagues or supervisors
Reporting facilities or maintenance-related issues
Contacting security
Connecting with IT support
Discussing performance, goals, and progress
Communicating across departments
Building Motivation for New Employees
Knowledge transfer, skill building, tool acquisition, and strategy development are the four most important onboarding considerations when it comes to delivering a new employee who is ready to do a great job and become a fully integrated member of your team and culture.
Frameworks and structures for bonuses, raises, equity options, etc.
Introduction to the value of day-to-day perks and employee culture initiatives
Opportunities to interact with and receive mentorship from standout talent
Education on company success stories, exciting innovations, and other news
Onboarding as a Whole-Company Responsibility
When you look at the scope of what’s been laid out, it’s apparent that no HR professional or department can build a great onboarding process in isolation. Integrating and empowering new team members as quickly as possible must be an organization-wide value and priority in order to harness onboarding for talent maximization.
During any onboarding process, IT should be one of your closest allies. They provide the functional tools and support that complement the great job your department does preparing new hires to become great employees.
For now, however, let’s consider the traditional departmental divides to think about how responsibilities are generally spread out across HR, IT, and each new hire’s department or team.
HR Onboarding Checklist
Completion of onboarding documents and forms
Data entry in HCM and appropriate employee databases
Policy review/handbook sign-off
Payroll enrollment
Benefit enrollment
Physical orientation to the office or workspace
Introductions to new supervisor and team
IT Onboarding Checklist
Hardware assignment
Account/credential creation
Digital workspace creation
Offering availability for increased support during onboarding time
Team-Based Onboarding Checklist
Introduction to work/communication norms
Connecting new hires with resources that close their skill and knowledge gaps
Proactively communicating with HR about emerging need during onboarding period
How Interdepartmental Collaboration Improves Onboarding
The better the integration between their work efforts, the faster and easier it is to provide comprehensive onboarding and create a new talent orientation that sets everybody up for success.
At the same time, coming to the table to discuss and address onboarding needs together fosters collaborative problem-solving between different teams and departments who might otherwise not interact with each other. That whole-company understanding of supporting and managing talent helps create a strong organization from top to bottom.
Top 5 Employee Onboarding Musts
You Must Work Together with Your Colleagues
As we just detailed above, no business can onboard talent effectively if any individual or single department is responsible for the whole process.
If your HR department is feeling crushed under the weight of onboarding responsibilities, it’s crucial to reach out to your colleagues and advocate for the support you need to improve engagement and results across the organization. Tell your leaders what you really need from them to do an excellent job.
If you’re not getting the support you need from IT or some other department, find a way to address the issue, either by connecting with tools that allow your HR team to take on traditional IT tasks or by building integration and closer communication between your teams.
2. You Must Ensure Each Member of Your Team is Fully Accountable
When your onboarding process is complete, every single new hire should know which responsibilities, requirements, policies, and procedures are relevant to them. Without that backbone of accountability, it’s impossible to manage talent proactively or demonstrate how your department is creating a safe, productive workplace.
Of course, it’s not just important for employees to know the rules and policies; it’s crucial that there is a secure, high-integrity documentation trail backing up that work. That way, if issues do arise, there are vetted and agreed upon mechanisms in place for dealing with the issues.
If your onboarding procedure doesn’t empower your HR department and leadership team to manage, discipline, and hold new-hires accountable for their actions and performance, it’s time for a redesign with accountability in mind.
3. You Must Help Your Hires Make the Best Benefits Elections
Employee benefits overspend is a profitability killer, and as an HR department, preventing it should be one of your top priorities.
New hires need support in order to understand what your company’s benefits offerings really mean and which ones are the ideal fit for their situation. That means you need to provide them with whatever education and clarification they require to get the coverage they need without selecting something that will create excess costs for themselves or the company.
Part of that puzzle is connecting them with the right materials they need (your benefits broker should be a major help in this effort), but it’s equally important that your enrollment and benefits selection interface is clear, easy-to-use, and designed to answer user questions and prevent confusion.
4. You Must Offer Each Team Member a Workspace That’s Uniquely Theirs
Nobody wants to feel like they inherited the last employee’s setup – it’s a buy-in and motivation killer. Your onboarding process should be standardized in a way that makes things easy for your HR, IT, and other onboarding support professionals but also personalized in a way that truly welcomes each employee to the team.
By the time their onboarding window is complete, each new hire must feel like their functional and professional needs have been met in a way that sets them up to do great work from the outset. That requires a toolkit for provisioning and account creation that creates a bespoke digital workspace for each individual and a framework for communication between departments to make sure needs are recognized and addressed from every angle.
When new employee onboarding feels tailored to a hire’s needs without stretching or inconveniencing any members of your team, you know you’ve built something inspirational and effective for everyone.
5. You Must Make Onboarding Powerful but Easy
This is a theme we’ve come back to time and time again: onboarding should be easy. It must be straightforward in a way that protects the productivity of your core team, and it must feel approachable and engaging in a way that builds buy-in with your new talent.
With that said, that ease of experience can’t come from cutting corners or procrastinating. To work well, your onboarding process must be comprehensive, well-organized, and backed by professionals across your organization. Otherwise, you’re just creating more backlogged work and compromising your opportunity for workforce maximization.
Creating something that balances that flexibility and robust support can seem like a major challenge, but there’s a variety of emerging employee onboarding software providers stepping up to help companies understand how they can streamline and integrate this work.
Key Takeaways
We’ve taken a broad look at onboarding to explore its goals, responsibilities, and a few strategies and guiding lights you can use to improve your approach. While it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the weight of the responsibility of onboarding, it’s important to understand that, once you have effective onboarding processes running, it’s much easier to manage current talent and anticipate future needs.
Remember:
Getting onboarding right strengthens a company from top to bottom
Onboarding can’t just be HR’s responsibility – it’s a team-wide responsibility of which HR should be the hub
A successful onboarding process ensures each new employee is ready to be a fully productive member of the team in terms of capability, accountability, and cultural fit
It’s important to engage and support new hires by making onboarding personalized, easy, and well-supported
How to Learn More
Rippling is revolutionizing the onboarding process by helping HR professionals support their new hires better than ever.
By integrating all aspects of the onboarding process into a single digital platform, Rippling accelerates the new employee orientation experience, connecting hires with the tools, coverage, and credentials they need with a minimal number of clicks.
To learn more about how Rippling can smooth the employee onboarding process at your business and create a new way of managing HR and IT responsibilities, contact them today.
Captive insurance programs have been popular among business’
largest corporations since they were first created in the 1950s. As we enter
2020, however, captives are enjoying a resurgence as a growing solution for
businesses of all sizes trying to think outside the box.
Captives allow businesses to maintain direct control of
their insurance programs, creating a fully personalized experience with its own
unique challenges and opportunities for reward.
Even though captive insurance programs can help businesses
navigate the challenges of employee benefits management, reduce costs, and
build a more useful experience for employees, there’s a major lack of
understanding about what they are and how they work.
Moving forward, we will:
Define captive insurance for beginners
Explain the difference between a captive and
traditional commercial insurance
Review the main pros and cons of captive
insurance
Provide guidelines to help determine if a
captive insurance program might be right for your business
What is Captive Insurance?
A “captive” insurance company is an organization that exists
only to meet the specific insurance needs of its member/owners. That means the
business or businesses insured by the captive are its sole and total owners.
Captive insurance can help a business fulfill all its
insurance needs, from employee benefits and general business insurance to worker’s
compensation, product liability, auto insurance, and so on. That’s why captives
have historically been popular with Fortune 500 companies and major
corporations: they provide complete independence and allow businesses to
circumvent many of the inefficiencies of the commercial insurance market.
When you have an insurance company whose only focus is the
support of your business, you can achieve some pretty impressive stuff.
You can get your employees the benefits plans
they need while controlling expense for them and the business
You can scale your coverage to your exact needs
to minimize overspend
You can eliminate the offerings you don’t need
while finding the best version of what you do need
In order to gain that independence, however, you must assume
the possibility of greater financial risk. When you make the switch to captive
insurance, you’re gambling with your own money, and no longer have your insurance
provider to fall back on because you are now the provider.
Different Types of Captive Insurance
It’s important to know that there’s more than one kind of
captive. Let’s take just a minute to define the main types of captive insurance
programs out there.
Single-Parent or Pure Captive: A captive
that is owned by and works exclusively for its parent company and its
subsidiaries (as for a corporation)
Group or Association Captive: A captive
insurance program created by multiple small or medium-sized companies pooling
their resources and risk to access the advantages of a captive
Rental Captive: An existing, independent
captive operated by a business entity that other organizations can opt into
temporarily
Protected Cell Captive: A captive in
which each organization’s assets and liabilities are kept separate, allowing
access into the captive but minimizing the biggest possible financial gains and
losses
Agency Captive: A captive managed by a
specific agent, who is empowered to reinsure the company by contracting with
traditional carriers based on their assessments
How is Captive Insurance Different from Commercial Insurance?
Now that we’ve defined “captive,” let’s explore how captive
insurance is different from many of the other models you might be familiar
with.
What’s the Difference Between Captive Insurance and Being Fully Insured?
In short, a captive is the complete opposite of being fully
insured.
When you’re fully insured, you pay a set monthly fee to your
insurance company and they assume all financial risk. Being fully insured is most
useful if you don’t have the capital available to cover anticipatable risks.
A captive is only possible if your business has more than
enough capital available to cover anticipatable risks or if you partner with
other organizations to pool resources.
What’s the Difference Between Captive Insurance and Being Self Insured?
Captive insurance is a form of self-insurance, but the two
terms are not interchangeable.
A self-insured business maintains a specific savings account
for unforeseen insurance costs and uses that “rainy day fund” to cover losses
or fill gaps in coverage. However, that coverage is still purchased through the
traditional insurance marketplace.
A captive is far more complex than basic self-insurance because
it involves an organization creating its own insurance entity, not simply socking
away money to pay for insurance-related costs.
What’s the Difference Between Captive Insurance and Mutual Insurance?
In a mutual insurance company, the provider is owned by its
policyholders, acts on their collective best interests, and distributes any
profit through either lower rates or payouts.
That sounds pretty similar to captive at first, but there’s
one key difference: a mutual company, although owned by its policyholders
financially, acts as an independent entity. Policyholders buy in and then trust
the provider to do good by them.
In a captive, the insurance company is part and parcel of
the greater organization which it serves and is steered according to identified
business needs.
Advantages of Captive Insurance
We’ve laid out a lot of information about what captive
insurance programs are, how they work, and how they can transform an
organization’s approach and identity. Let’s pause to reflect on the positive
potential of captives.
A captive insurance program can help you:
Reduce
insurance costs – When you own the insurance company, there’s no mark-up
for services and no need to purchase any coverage you don’t want or need.
Captives offer businesses the best and most granular control over their costs
compared to any other insurance model.
Reward
yourself for good planning – Captives provide the most benefit to
businesses with great self-knowledge. If you understand your assets, risks,
needs, and scale well, you can create a captive that protects you with minimal
overspend in a bad year and generates difference-making profit in a good year.
Create
ideal employee benefit packages – Each workforce has its own specific,
identifiable healthcare and employee benefit needs. Unfortunately, even with a
great broker, it’s tough to create bespoke coverage that meets everybody’s
needs and saves everybody money. A captive allows businesses to get creative
and find new ways to get their employees exactly what they need without having
to spend a dime on things they don’t.
Insure
outside-the-box risks – Sometimes an organization needs to take a big risk
and gamble on itself to take the next step. Finding insurance to protect
investors and keep the core of the business whole should one of those major
strategic gambles fail is more difficult than ever on the open market. If you
have a captive insurance program, however, you can create whatever coverage you
need and avoid needing to “sell” a carrier on your business plan.
Specific
tax benefits – There’s a misconception that all the tax benefits of captive
programs have been eliminated over the last few years, but that’s actually not
true. First of all, all premiums an organization pays to its own captives are
tax deductible. Furthermore, in down years, he captive’s status as an insurance
company can earn its parent organization loss reserve deductions.
Disadvantages of Captive Insurance
Of course, as we’ve seen, the captive program approach isn’t
right for every business. Let’s pause briefly and reinforce the main reasons
and organization would not want to create a captive.
Unfortunately, with a captive insurance program, you:
Assume increased risk – When you form a
captive program, you are your own support system. There’s nobody else paying
into the pool of funds that’s used to bail you out in a pure captive, and even
in a group captive, if multiple partners have bad years, it can lead to major
financial complications. If your business is risk-averse by nature, a captive
might not be right for you.
Take
on up-front expense – Establishing a captive is a time-consuming process
that requires creating an insurance company from scratch.That means, as
you’re planning and building your program, you’ll need to take on more hires,
acquire new licenses, and bring in some consultants who are captive experts. At
the same time, you need to allocate capital to underwrite your plans.
Create new management responsibilities – People
sometimes misunderstand that a captive can be managed by a human resources
department’s employee benefit expert. That’s actually not true, as the captive
is a full-time, constantly operational insurance company. That means either
bringing in new managers to operate the division or creating new
responsibilities for other members of your core team.
Risk taking a step back –It’s possible
that, in its initial years, your captive might not do as good of a job as a
traditional provider. If you’re not comfortable taking one step back to take
two steps forward, a captive probably doesn’t fit your leadership style.
Don’t
get the tax benefits you would have in the past – While captives still
deliver some tax perks, they’re definitely not the shelter and deduction
powerhouses they used to be. With that said, if your main motivation for
creating a captive is tax protection, you’re likely not a good candidate for a
captive program in the first place.
How to Know if Captive Insurance is Right for You
In general, captive insurance is best for businesses that
are:
Large and stable (or medium-sized and stable,
backed by a group of similarly stable partners)
Comfortable taking risks with the potential for
high reward
Thinking and operating in an open-ended,
creative way
Recruiting a diverse workforce with varied
medical needs and preferences
Dissatisfied with traditional corporate and
business insurance
Confident in their ability to improve over time
On the other hand, businesses should keep away from captives
if they are:
Small or in an early developmental stage
Risk averse or unable to raise significant
capital
Relying exclusively on outside companies and
contractors to identify and manage their insurance needs
Completely satisfied with the pricing and
coverage they get through traditional insurers
Unwilling to take one step back in the short
term in order to take many steps forward in the long term
Key Takeaways
Captive insurance programs are unique, complex, and create
brand new challenges for the businesses who decide to leverage them.
At the same time, however, captives remain underappreciated
as ways to meet all of your business’ total insurance needs while controlling
costs and connecting with your ideal coverage.
There’s no “right answer” when it comes to whether captive
insurance programs are effective or not; the approach’s potential for success
is directly tied to an organization’s desire to think and work beyond the
limitations of the traditional marketplace and commitment to getting things
right.
If you’re wondering if a captive program could benefit your
organization, remember:
Captive insurance companies support only the
organizations that own them
A “pure” captive involves just one company or
corporation
A “group” or “association” captive involves a
group of businesses banding together to share risk and support one another
Starting a captive insurance program is
basically the opposite of being fully insured – you assume all risk
Captives can help organizations build bespoke
insurance plans, both for business needs and employee benefits
Captives aren’t for small or risk-averse
businesses
Here at Launchways, we take our core values very
seriously. They aren’t a list of aspirational ideals that we wrote
up on a wall. For us, they really are the soul of our company and are at the
heart everything that we do. This is largely because our team members own the
values as much as company leadership does. We take the time to review the
values every year and allow our employees to shape the values and hold
leadership accountable to live up to the values.
One of our most important values is the idea that Launchways
is driven on an individual, team, and company-wide level. We aren’t content to
just show up and do the minimum. We’re determined to win big for our clients,
our team members, and for ourselves too. This sense of drive has ripple-effects
throughout our organization. It is a cornerstone of our vibrant company culture
and employee community and the foundation for our innovative people-focused solutions.
Without our drive, we wouldn’t be able to fully live our other core values.
So what does being driven look like as an employee at
Launchways and how does it set our experience apart from working at other professional
service firms? In today’s post, we’ll cover how we:
Own our work and are dedicated to professional development
Fuel collaboration through shared purpose
Foster mutual trust and a sense of community
Respect each other’s intentions, empowering diversity and growth
Owning Your Work and Professional Development
One of the most significant impacts of living our “Driven”
value is the extent to which it allows us to own our work and development as a
person and as a professional. We don’t do what we do because someone higher in
the organization tells us to. We don’t do it to impress our coworkers. Rather,
our drive comes from within and is nurtured by our peers who value the same.
That might sound a little idealistic but it really boils
down to the Launchways principle of putting the right people in the right
seats. We carefully vet potential employees so that our team is made up of
similarly driven and dedicated individuals across all departments. And we know
that no one is going to be good at everything – but that everyone is good at
their own areas of expertise. So we take the time to identify aptitudes and put
people in the roles that let them take advantage of their skills. And our
employees have a unique amount of leeway to shape their roles to suit their
personalities, work styles, values, and talents so they can do and be their
best.
Because we get to work on what we’re passionate about and
good at, it’s much easier to build and maintain our drive. There is so much
room to grow within the organization that there is no limit to our ability to
grow ourselves and our careers as we work on many different types of projects
to serve unique client needs. As our Senior HR Consultant Christine Lewis put
it,
“Something that is really unique about working at Launchways is the ability that each of us has to explore different areas in our career and participate in projects that we would not be able to at another company. Our roles are not very siloed so we get to work with many different teams. Tackling HR issues in so many different environments has allowed me to grow my career much faster than I could working in-house.”
It also means that we get to take ownership of our projects.
We feel comfortable and encouraged to come forward with ideas for projects or
solutions and we help each other realize those ideas. Our mutual drive allows
us to have more control over our work and a greater impact on the results we deliver
for our clients. Our driven team is the key to Launchways’ innovative
solutions.
Fueling Collaboration Through Shared Purpose
At Launchways, we’re not just driven on an individual level.
There’s a sense of energy as soon as you walk through the doors and become immersed
in the team environment. We’re each passionate about our own projects but we
also get to work together to realize the goals on an individual, departmental,
company, and client level.
This mutual drive gives us a sense of shared purpose. And
because we openly acknowledge our different strengths and backgrounds, we can
easily reach out to coworkers to fill in any gaps we might have and deliver our
solutions to the client. There’s no foot-dragging or complaining about
diverting resources from other projects – people are happy to get involved and
help each other succeed. One of our Client Success Advocates, Hannah, said it
best when she told us,
The team atmosphere is my favorite part of working at Launchways. There is always a sense of support and there is a lot of trust. You can really trust your teammates to back you up and we are all in it together. It makes me feel really safe, capable, and ready to be myself.
Earning Trust and Respect to Foster Community
At Launchways, we all have a shared passion for always doing
what’s best for our clients while growing and learning new things.
And no one questions each other’s dedication. We know how much our work means
to every single person on the team and how hard we all work to make great
things happen for our company and our clients.
And when you get so many passionate people together in an
office and give them the resources they need to take ownership of their work
and do what they know how to do best, something truly remarkable happens. You
don’t just build a company culture. You create a community.
Our mutual drive creates the kind of genuine trust and
respect that is necessary for deeper connections and an organic community. All
of the realizations and benefits of our “Driven” value we’ve covered so far add
up to make Launchways a special place to work. Launchways is where people are
comfortable sharing their true selves and appreciate each other for who we
really are. And this environment isn’t just individually rewarding, it also
gives us the space to forge meaningful relationships. As our long-time team
member Maribel Espinoza says,
“Everyone here gets along so well that I call it my second family. Coming to work with great people in a great atmosphere makes my work even more rewarding.”
Respecting Intentions Empowers Diversity and Growth
Working in an environment in which every person is driven
and passionate about their work allows us to avoid many of the kinds of
miscommunications that can derail teamwork, growth, and innovation. Because it
creates the trust and respect that allows for community, it also lets us have
full trust in each other’s intentions. This means that we listen to each other
seriously without taking anything personally: enabling us to realize one of our
other core values of being “thoughtfully candid.”
Once you trust your coworkers’ intentions implicitly, you
open up a whole new world of possibilities for productive collaboration and
personal growth. Everyone is comfortable to be themselves and share their
genuine opinions and perspectives even if, and sometimes especially if, they
differ or conflict with those of others. Having so many diverse perspectives at
the table allows us to think outside of the box and truly innovate as a team
and as a company. It fuels our individual and mutual drives and allows us to
push each other to help us do and be our best. All without causing hard
feelings.
And this diversity, equality, and willingness to push each
other applies at all levels of the organization. Our CEO, Jim Taylor, had this
to say about how our team drives his work:
“What I like about the Launchways team is that, simply put: they’re good at what they do. They make me driven because they hold me responsible to be the best I can be and there is a level of mutual respect that exists that has taken me to a place that I have not been before in my career. We’re not afraid to disagree on things and know that these different opinions will take us to the best possible place. And our relationships are authentic and rewarding, so we don’t take disagreements personally.”
Key Takeaways
Here are some of the key takeaways of what being driven
means for us at Launchways:
We own our work and our professional development, which makes it easy to be passionate about what we do
Our mutual drive helps us work together to accomplish goals on an individual, team, and company-wide level
Common purpose and dedication to our work does more than facilitate productive collaboration: it builds vibrant and meaningful community
With everyone sharing the same sense of drive and purpose, we trust each other’s intentions, which lets us share our diverse opinions to maximize our outcomes and growth
The truth is that the core value of being Driven defines who
we are and what we do at Launchways. It makes our office somewhere that is full
of passionate, dedicated individuals who are hell-bent on being successful and
really making a difference in the work that they do. And it builds a community
based on trust, respect, and deep relationships.
Mighty Hook is the largest manufacturer of hanging solutions and masking products for industrial finishing and powder coating processes. Mighty Hook has on-site engineers to improve efficiency through custom solutions. Their mission is to provide customers with high-quality, innovative, cost-effective products to improve their hanging efficiency and productivity in paint, powder, and e-coat processes.
Mighty Hook relies on its highly-skilled employees to
innovate customized solutions for its clients, so the company takes employee
compensation and engagement extremely seriously. For Scott Rampala, Mighty Hook
President and CEO, it’s all about balancing offering competitive employee
compensation and competitive rates for customers. The key to meeting the needs
of employees and clients alike is to minimize human resources overhead,
optimize employee compensation packages, and reduce business insurance costs so
he can allocate resources where they matter most.
Scott first turned to Launchways when he decided to conduct
an employee compensation audit eight years ago to better compete for talent
while keeping costs low. The Launchways team facilitated the audit by ensuring
that the auditor had the payroll information they needed to accurately assess
Mighty Hook’s employee compensation. This included payroll data and
departmental allocation to guide the auditor in determining the correct total
payroll investment and compensation for individual employees depending on their
employee classifications.
The audit successfully aligned Mighty Hook’s compensation
strategy with their talent acquisition and business goals. Scott also decided
to bring in Launchways to manage the company’s payroll processing so he could
be sure that his employees were being taken care of without draining valuable
internal resources. As he describes the value of Launchways’ payroll services,
“Payroll can be a touchy subject and Launchways does a great job of tracking the vital sensitive information and limiting access to key stakeholders. Best of all, I can rely on Launchways to make sure our employees are paid on time, which is a huge peace of mind for me and my team. It means that I can focus on reaching our business goals rather than the details of employee compensation.”
But the most lasting effect of Mighty Hook’s partnership
with Launchways has been the reduction of business insurance costs across the
board year after year. Before working with Launchways, Mighty Hook tended to
renew their plans with their existing business insurance providers. Launchways
brought a new approach to Mighty Hook’s insurance, taking the plans to the open
market each year to find the best deals. This approach allows Mighty Hook to be
much more flexible, as Scott explains,
“Every year our Launchways representative comes in and takes our worker’s comp, general liability, and property and casualty and moves it to the open market. In some instances, we’ve sourced our plans from a range of providers, although most recently we discovered that shopping our entire business insurance operation to a single provider generated the biggest savings.”
This flexibility has paid off for Mighty Hook year after
year. As Scott describes, Launchways’ proactive approach to reevaluating
insurance carriers annually has helped him cut costs so he can provide greater
value for his customers while providing competitive employee compensation.
“The approach to taking our insurance to the open market every year is far preferable to our old model of just renewing with our existing carriers. It allows us to remain competitive and get the best value year after year. On average, we’ve probably seen a 4-5% decrease in costs each year and in the last year alone we saw an impressive 10% decrease in our insurance costs. Those savings are good for our bottom-line, our clients, and our employees.”
Beyond the concrete savings that Launchways has delivered
for Mighty Hook, Scott values Launchways’ role as HR consultants. No matter
what payroll, benefits, insurance, or HR challenges Mighty Hook faces,
Launchways provides streamlined and cost-effective solutions without the Mighty
Hook team having to dedicate valuable resources to addressing the challenges
internally. This matters because the less time they spend on business insurance
or human resources, the more time they can spend on their business.
Performance management and assessment are fundamental to
running a successful business at any scale. When you know who is creating organizational
gains and who is causing challenges, you can lead much more effectively.
Unfortunately, however, most organizations still assess performance
on a yearly basis. That means formalized feedback for employees only comes at
the end of long terms, and any discussions about performance in between are
seen as scary or punitive.
If your organization is still using the traditional annual
appraisal model, you’re missing out on the opportunity to have better, more
productive conversations with your employees and create a more data-driven
approach to performance and talent management.
Moving forward, we’ll explore:
Why a continuous feedback system is better than
yearly appraisals
What a continuous feedback system actually looks
like
How to build buy-in for the transition toward
constant assessment
Why Continuous Feedback is So Powerful
In general, continuous performance assessment is the best
way to support your employees and keep your organization healthy. When you’re
constantly deepening your understanding of not just what’s working but why it’s
working and how you can extend that success to new arenas, you have the power
to transform your organization into its best self.
Transform Managers into True Leaders, Not Just Bosses
Much of the strife surrounding performance assessment (and
talent management in general) is rooted in the fact that the average worker and
manager don’t have a strong, productive enough relationship to meaningfully
discuss performance.
The yearly appraisal model simply perpetuates that
disconnect, as team members rarely sit down with their immediate supervisors to
discuss goals, performance, achievement, and so on. When those conversations
are so spread out, it’s difficult for them to feel authentic – both for the
assessor and the worker. Everybody grits their teeth to get through it; nobody
actually gains anything.
When you encourage your supervisors to lead ongoing conversations
about strengths, areas for improvement, and achievement with each of their team
members, you’re creating an environment where assessment can be both less
stressful and more useful.
Continuous performance assessment takes that nebulous role
of “boss” and defines it in a way that fosters better, more productive
relationships and the kind of mentorship and coaching that drives everyone to
get better.
Become More Responsive to Talent Needs & Create Opportunity for
Improvement
If you’re assessing employees on a yearly or even quarterly
basis, you’re leaving yourself open to disaster. The wrong employee or team
underachieving in the incorrect position for months at a time can lead to
financial disaster. On the other hand, if your best talent is laboring for 11
months at a time without recognition, they’re probably looking for somewhere
else to work.
By embracing continuous assessment, you create an agile
culture in which it’s easier to:
Recognize problems or challenges in their early
stages
Strategize adjustments or corrections
Design actionable improvement plans much more
quickly, creating opportunities for employee turnaround.
That responsiveness makes assessment feel more supportive
and less punitive. In this way, you can set underperforming talent up to save
themselves, rather than letting them go in December because they struggled for an
entire year.
How to Design and Anchor a Constant Assessment System
It’s important to start by saying that any business’
performance management and assessment system should be custom-built to address
the company’s specific organizational system, goals, and employee culture. With
that said, there’s a few pillars that should inform any approach.
Identify Goals, Competencies, and KPIs for Each Position
For your continuous assessment system to be successful, it
needs to be grounded in structure, objectivity, and a deep understanding of how
you want to do business. That means working with HR and department-level
leaders to create a profile of each individual role on your organizational
depth chart.
For each position within the organization, you should have a
clear sense of:
What skills and knowledge someone needs to be
highly successful in that role
How their job success will be gauged or measured
(projects completed, revenue generated, etc.)
Which tools or applications will provide
assessors with the data they need to assess that person
What the professional journey might look like
for someone in that position (i.e. “If this person is highly successful in this
role for two years, what might be next?” or “How long can we afford for someone
to underperform in this position?”)
How that person’s direct supervisor or team
leader can guide their professional development to build success for all
Allow Employees to Grow in Ways Most Relevant to Them & Their Work
That strong understanding of your depth chart is crucial to
great performance management, but it’s only half the puzzle. Your team members
are individuals, and that means you can’t manage them like numbers in a
spreadsheet.
When a continuous assessment system accounts for employees’
individual needs, strengths, and quirks, it greatly increases buy-in and builds
better business results.
A great continuous feedback loop isn’t just standardized for
company use; it’s also personalized to maximize its value for each worker. Upon
hire or the completion of each identified assessment term, employees should
work with their direct supervisors, coaches, and other relevant professionals
to discuss:
Individual knowledge and skill goals (“What can
you do in the next six months to become even more knowledgeable or talented in
this role, and how can we support you in that?”)
Workplace engagement and employee cultural goals
(“What can you do over the next term to increase or maintain your participation
in or maintenance of our great team, and how can we support that work?”)
To maintain two-way accountability, it’s important to always
think about and discuss how work toward these goals will be measured, how success
will be assessed, and what success or failure means in terms of next steps.
Foster Two-Way Communication and Reflection
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make when it comes
to performance management is making it an entirely one-way system where
supervisors review their team members individually. That just perpetuates old
fears about the workplace power dynamic and makes employees feel voiceless.
An excellent performance management system ensures each
employee has a strong voice that’s heard and richly documented throughout their
professional journey. Managers should encourage each worker to reflect on their
own work and provide self-assessments to accompany supervisor feedback.
At the same time, each worker should have a voice in
assessing the functionality of their teams or departments and the success of
their manager or supervisor. That way, everybody is empowered with a voice and
everybody is kept honest.
Focus on Data
Qualitative feedback about people’s impressions, personal
experiences, and reactions is an important part of any assessment, but it can’t
be the whole emphasis. In order to win buy-in with your discerning employees
and stand up as fair and objective in court, your continuous feedback system
must be data-centric.
Thanks to the incredible variety of tech tools and software
applications we use on a daily basis, supervisors actually have access to more
workflow data than ever – they just have to know how to get it and how to
analyze it. With a little training from IT and assessment experts, your
supervisors can guide conversations about performance by discussing data points
like:
Job or task completion rates
Ticket turnaround times
Campaign success
Success of accounts managed
Impact on team-based or departmental goals
When you build your assessment system around data, you’re
creating something that’s actually gauging employee success, not just providing
observations about work style or personality. That means you’re creating
something more authentic, more useful, and more resistant to criticism.
Setting Your Employees Up to Embrace Change
Continuous performance assessment and management are best
for business, but they can still be a tough sell at first. That’s because when
people hear “continuous assessment,” they think that means more work and more
awkward conversations.
In order to dispel those fears and build buy-in for your
assessment system, you need to provide your workers and their
supervisors/assessors with the support they need to see the value in the new
approach and make a smooth transition.
Provide Clarity & Employee Education from Day One
From the day you make the decision to transition towards an
ongoing feedback loop, you need to be transparent with your employees about
what that means and what they system is going to look like.
You need to provide your ground-level workers with employee
education that helps them understand the philosophy of the model as well as how
it will affect what they do from day to day or week to week.
For managers, supervisors, and other assessors, you need to
bring in talent and performance assessment experts to teach them how to be
impactful coaches, use the system right, and get the most out of it.
If you drop ongoing performance assessment into your
employees’ laps, you risk significant damage to morale and company culture. If
you create a well-explained, well-scaffolded transition, however, you’ll gain
the buy-in you need to make such a drastic change.
Make Strong Performance a Core Value Organization Wide
For any initiative to truly change a business and its
culture of work, it has to be baked into daily life within the organization. If
you want employees to reflect honestly, improve earnestly, and dedicate
themselves to maximizing performance, it’s fundamental that you make great
performance a highly visible organizational value.
That requires crafting messaging for display around the
office, bringing in the right presenters to get your team motivated about
performance, and even revisiting things like meeting protocols to make sure
that discussions about performance are voiced in every context.
When performance and achievement are key daily values in
your workplace, you greatly increase the chances that your employees will
engage deeply in the process, strive for excellence, and work to better the
environment on the whole.
Honor Your System Through Promotions & Raises
There needs to be an endgame anytime you’re assessing or
judging something. If employees don’t understand how your continuous assessment
system can be of benefit to them, it’s simply an externalized structure that
they’ll engage with exactly as much as they need to in order to keep their
jobs.
For people to really honor and value your assessment system
in a way that leads to workforce maximization, you need to make it real for
them. That means there must be real benefits and real rewards for those who
exhibit high performance and take their role as part of the overall evaluation
system seriously.
Raises and promotions are the most obvious and classic ways
to make that happen.
At the same time, however, it’s important to honor the
improvement aspects of your system. For example, if an under-performing
employee exhibits a great turnaround, there should be some recognition that
motivates them to continue growing.
Takeaways
When you have a strong, continuous feedback loop for every
member of your team and each of those team members values and cares about the
process, you have the power to maximize your workforce for business and
cultural wins.
Just remember:
Continuous feedback is more powerful for
everyone
Management gains a better understanding of
talent company-wide
Struggling or under-performing workers gain the
time, structure, and clarity they need to improve in a timely manner
All-star talent gains access to a system that
helps them feel appreciated and build a documentation trail to support
promotions, raises, and so on
Any constant assessment system must be rooted in
data
Qualitative observations are never enough
Embracing data analysis significantly reduces
assessment workload for managers
Emphasis on data shows that everything is fair
You need buy-in from employees at all levels for
a continuous assessment system to work
Be sure you demonstrate the value of the system
and clarify expectations across the board
How to Learn More
If you’re a business leader looking to build an impactful,
forward-facing performance management strategy, be sure to join us on
Wednesday, December 11th to learn about
The Future of Performance Management!
This free webinar from Launchways
will be packed with actionable insights about emerging best practices for
performance assessment including…
How to assess the impact of your current
performance management program and get started on building something even
better
How to recognize the common pitfalls of
performance management
How to replace an annual assessment system with
a continuous feedback loop
How to deliver actionable, powerful feedback,
even when it’s difficult
How to build a step-by-step procedure for
handling employee underperformance
The hour-long learning experience will feature presentations
and Q&A time with an all-star panel of veteran business leaders who know
what it takes to build, manage, and continuously improve a great team.
Presenters will include…
Paul
Pellman, CEO of Kazoo, who
specializes in creating employee engagement and performance management
strategies that build purpose and success in the workplace.
Jodi Wellman, Co-Founder of Spectacular at Work, a
leading executive coach who specializes in helping business leaders maximize
their teams to build success and balance.
Adam Radulovic, President at XL.net, an experienced entrepreneur and
small business leader with a track record building and managing profit-driving
teams at many different scales.
Jon B. Howaniec, SHRM Certified Professional
and VP at Clark Dietz, who
oversees talent acquisition, staff development, and employee compensation at a
multi-state engineering firm and specializes in strategic planning.
Any business leader, HR director, or manager hoping to
improve their skills as a coach, mentor, or accountability partner should make
time to check out The Future of
Performance Management: How to Modernize Your Approach and start the
process continuously improving their team this December!
Tandem is a trusted strategy, design, and technology
partner. They deliver custom software that inspires people and drives business
forward. Their unique process brings every voice to the table. Their
human-centered design process brings in customers, researchers, engineers, and
designers to approach every problem with a broad set of perspectives. And they
partner with their clients to solve their most meaningful challenges – for
their customers, employees, and the community.
As a human-centered business, employee benefits have always
been important to Tandem. The company recently partnered with Launchways to
take its already competitive benefits package to the next level. We spoke to
Tandem CEO, JC Grubbs, to learn more about his experience with Launchways.
Before working with Launchways, Tandem already offered a
robust benefits package. The talent market for tech companies like Tandem is
extremely competitive, and Tandem sees its benefits as a key part of the
strategy to win over top talent. Working with Launchways, Tandem sought to
offer a benefits package that only took care of its team, but also offered
unique, impactful benefits that would help set Tandem apart in the pursuit for
top talent to join their team.
As he looked for a new broker to help him in this effort, JC
Grubbs said he was attracted to Launchways because of our hands-on approach to
benefits and HR,
“Our previous broker was just a broker, there was very little education with our team. I liked the Launchways approach of combining team education and HR consulting to support us as managers, in addition to the brokerage aspect of the partnership.”
Another thing about the Launchways approach that stood out
to him was the fact that unlike most brokers, Launchways understood the fact
that he wanted to improve Tandem’s benefits, not just cut costs at the expense
of employee happiness,
“Benefits are a big part of how we compete in the market for talent and Launchways prioritized improving our benefits to make us even more competitive while at the same time saving us money.”
So what did this new package look like? The Launchways team
negotiated a BlueChoice PPO that cost Tandem less than their previous base-plan
while offering significantly more comprehensive coverage for employees.
Launchways also educated employees about the plan changes during open
enrollment. As a result, many employees switched from the previously offered
plan to the newly rolled out plan.
Education was key to the success of these efforts, as JC
Grubbs noted,
“Launchways has also done a great job of giving our employees access to benefits information. The Employee Navigator platform lets our team members find out what they need to know about their benefits and choose the right plans for their needs.”
Now, Tandem is spending less on its benefits, employees are
spending less, and team members have better coverage than ever. At the same
time, Launchways worked with Tandem to expand dental, vision, and ancillary
insurance while reducing the costs of these plans.
Another major win from the partnership was the successful
launch of Tandem’s HealthiestYou telemedicine implementation. As JC Grubbs
commented, the telemedicine platform has been a huge hit with his team,
“As a company that is fairly young and tech-savvy, we’ve seen a lot of engagement with telemedicine. It makes a big difference to our team members who have new families. It has been very well received and is a competitive advantage to us in the hiring process. Launchways consistently brings in new ideas around benefits, suggesting solutions like telemedicine that we would not even have known existed without such an active benefits partner.”
Launchways was just as impressed by the success of the
Tandem telemedicine implementation. Launchways benefits consultants on the
Tandem project noted Tandem has the highest telemedicine utilization rate of
any Launchways client. This success shows the potential for telemedicine to
have a significant impact for companies looking to care for and attract young,
tech-savvy talent.
We asked JC Grubbs if he had any advice for other business
owners who are considering working with Launchways. Once again, the value of
Launchways’ hands-on, personal approach shined through.
“It’s all about people, get to know as much of the Launchways team as you can. The Launchways team is super responsive, engaged, and passionate about benefits. Build some rapport and trust, which I think will come very quickly, and make your decision based on that. Because in my experience, Launchways just delivers.”
Artisan Talent is a digital, creative, and marketing staffing agency that does things a little differently. They take a unique approach to making the right connections by realizing that they are humans helping humans – companies and talent alike. From small agencies to major corporations, this boutique staffing agency is in the business of connecting people – and they never forget it. That’s what makes them Artisan.
Bejan Douraghy founded Artisan Talent in Chicago in 1988 and the business has grown rapidly ever since. It tripled in size in the first five years and has now expanded outside of Illinois with offices in eight cities including New York, Denver, and San Francisco.
But that rapid growth has come with compliance and benefits challenges, with legislative changes and differences in requirements between states. And Artisan Talent has provided a full-scope benefits package for its freelance talent since 1995, so they have to manage benefits and compliance for their freelancers as well as the employees in their multiple offices.
Bejan first approached Launchways in 2016 after it became clear that new legislation threatened to cause compliance issues. He knew that Artisan Talent would have to adapt to meet the legislation, but did not have a clear idea of what the exact compliance challenges were or how to address them. As Bejan explained,
“We went to Launchways and they came back to us with a strategic solution to help us with ACA compliance issues. It was very helpful to us because we didn’t know what exactly it all meant and going through the audit with Launchways gave us the top priorities of what we had to do to maintain compliance.”
As Artisan Talent expanded to cities outside of Illinois, they also came up against the challenge of meeting the compliance requirements set by each state. Once again, Launchways helped Bejan and his team get a clear sense of what was required and developed strategies to bring the company into compliance efficiently and effectively.
“Launchways has supported us through our growth. Compliance requirements and available benefits vary widely between states. Launchways has been invaluable in letting us know what we need to do in each state.”
The initial compliance audit also led to a conversation about how Launchways could support Artisan Talent’s broader HR and benefits functions. After the revelations from the audit, Artisan Talent decided to conduct the Launchways Human Resources Best Practices Assessment to get instant insight into how to streamline the way they managed expenses across their human resources, employee benefits, and business insurance operations. The assessment and strategies Launchways put forward allowed Artisan Talent to reduce their overall insurance costs by 15%.
One of the key parts of this initiative was streamlining Artisan Talent’s benefits enrollment process. Launchways implemented new enrollment software that simplified the process for the Artisan HR team and resulted in a better experience for their talent. Bejan had this to say about the enrollment project:
“Before Launchways, we were doing everything in-house which obviously took us a lot of time, Launchways implemented an automated system that made it much more cost-effective. Not only is it easier for us, but the platform serves as a one-stop-shop for our employees, letting them review the plan options and enroll in the plan that works best for them.”
Launchways will continue to help Artisan Talent improve its processes and benefits offerings, as well as maintain compliance as the company expands to even more cities around the country. Beyond recommending and implementing new systems and strategies, the Launchways team also serves as an on-call resource for Bejan as he navigates HR, benefits, and compliance issues. As he says,
“As a CEO I don’t have time to research all of the issues, I need to be able to go to the experts and get what I need from them. The Launchways team members are experts in the HR and benefits field, which is highly complex, and they always come back to me with a solution which is technology-driven and which I can easily understand and implement.”
One of Launchways’ core values is to be a Community-Builder.
Our team is community-minded and constantly looking for new opportunities to
foster a richer community within Launchways and in the Chicago ecosystem. This
common vision of bridge-building helps us form stronger bonds with our
coworkers and more productive partnerships with other businesses in the greater
Chicago area.
We approach our role as community-builder in two fundamental
ways:
Fostering the Launchways community
Building a community outside our office walls
Fostering Community at Launchways
Why We Believe in Building a Launchways Community
In our mission to help our clients build thriving teams of
top talent, we often address the topic of how to create a vibrant, engaging
company culture. But within our organization, we believe in taking it a step
further and creating not just a culture but a community.
Companies have a culture, whether they take steps to shape
it or not. Letting it lie fallow can cause that culture to become toxic, and
tending to it can help engage team members and make work more meaningful. A
company community cannot exist without consistent and dedicated work by company
leadership and every single team member. The risk of not putting in this work
is not a toxic community, but the lack of any sense community at all. People
will still come into the office, log their hours, and go home. But they won’t
care about their cubicle-mates or see their work as helping themselves, their
coworkers, and their company succeed. Simply put, they’re employees, not team
members.
For that to happen, companies have to foster a community in
which everyone is invested in helping everyone else grow, succeed, and pursue
what matters most to them.
How We Foster Community at Launchways
We know that as an employer, you need to create
organizational structures that will become the foundations of an organic and
employee-owned community. So, we have implemented several systems at Launchways
that help fuel our community and allow it to take on a life of its own. Each
step seems simple and inconsequential on the surface but, added together, they
completely transform how we interact with and think about each other as teammates.
Meetings are the main formalized touch-points that employees
have with each other and with the company as a whole, so we have focused our
efforts on creating community-minded meetings. We start each week with an
all-hands-on-deck meeting where each team member discusses their number-one
project for the week and any roadblocks they need help on. These meetings allow
us to see what everyone is working on, celebrate their accomplishments, and
seize opportunities to help each other whenever possible.
Another large part of a community is having a sense of
working together for a common goal that everyone shares. As we advise our
clients, we have integrated our values, mission, and vision into every policy
and process in our organization so our team members can become their stewards.
But we also hold quarterly all-company meetings to review our goals and
progress towards those goals together as a company. These meetings drive home
the reality that we are all working together to accomplish the same goals.
Beyond meetings, “shout-outs” are a core part of the
Launchways community. Front-and-center in our office is our “Shout-Out Board”
where we can recognize our coworkers on a daily basis for doing an awesome job
and representing our core values. We also share highlights from the Shout-Out
Board at our Monday all-hands-on-deck meetings so that we can celebrate each
other’s accomplishments together. You would be surprised at how much a whiteboard
builds a supportive and engaged community.
Stepping Outside Launchways: Fostering the Chicago Business Community
Launchways is constantly forming new partnerships with
businesses and organizations in the broader Chicago ecosystem so that we can
engage business leaders in a strong community. Some of our key business partners
have included Hyde Park Angels, FinTEx, and the Illinois Technology
Association.
Over the past year, we have worked with our business
partners and organizations like FinTEx and ITA to host educational events for
business and HR leaders in Chicago and the whole of Illinois. Just this
October, we brought together five business leaders and HR experts for a panel
discussion on tackling key diversity and inclusion challenges at our D&I
Summit. We welcomed over 60 HR professionals for a complimentary dinner and
open bar, which certainly got folks networking and community building. And the
panel delivered an incredibly comprehensive look at D&I strategies for
businesses going into the 2020s.
We also worked with our business partners to host a CFO
breakfast that brought growth-minded financial leaders from around Chicago
together to learn new actionable strategies to take back to their business,
especially around the increasing role that CFOs play in their company’s HR
strategy. And on the other side of the same conversation, we partnered with ITA
to host an “HR Now” summit for HR leaders to help them form stronger
collaborations with their finance counterparts.
Beyond hosting events, Launchways also partners with other
businesses and vendors to provide additional resources and value for our
clients. This isn’t just the right thing to do to help our client community and
form the best relationships we can with them, it is also a great way to create
a symbiotic community of businesses in related industries, all working together
to meet the whole range of companies’ HR and benefits needs.
Key Takeaways
Launchways takes its role as a community-builder very seriously
because we know that being part of a genuine community makes work more
meaningful and rewarding and that every company has the responsibility to help
build and uplift their local business community. This core value impacts just
about every aspect of how we work and do business at Launchways. These community-building
initiatives contribute significantly to our community-building efforts,
including:
Leveraging weekly and quarterly meetings as community-building touch-points through open communication and judgment-free discussion of projects, challenges, and successes
Publicly celebrating coworker accomplishments on a daily and weekly basis
Hosting events for business leaders in our ecosystem
Partnering with businesses and vendors to bring our clients the best range of services possible
If working in a community sounds as good to you as it does
to us, we would love to welcome you to our team. Check out current openings and
get started with your Launchways journey by heading over to our Careers Page!
Lindemann
is the nation’s largest chimney service company. It was founded in 1969 by
former Fire Captain Gary Lindemann and continues to service Chicago’s North
Shore and Northern Suburban Area. The company specializes in chimney re-lining,
repair, diagnosing, gas logs, hearth appliances, and masonry. Lindemann Chimney
applies its core values based on honesty and integrity to deliver exceptional
customer service and an empowering work environment.
Michael Boudart, President of Lindemann, shared with us the
value that Launchways has brought to his business over the eight years that we
have worked together.
From the beginning, Launchways served as much more than just
a benefits broker for Lindemann. For Michael and his team, insurance was just
the start of what Launchways does to fuel the business’s success and ease their
growing pains.
As a chimney service company with a large fleet of vehicles
and extensive field team, business insurance was a top priority for Lindemann
and was the origin of the company’s partnership with Launchways. Their employee
benefits were just as important and the Launchways team has worked with
Lindemann to add value for their team members year after year. As Michael put
it,
“Our business is founded on the ideals of empowering our employees and treating our team and customers with honesty and integrity. This means making sure that we take care of our employees and their families. Launchways has gone beyond what we expected from a benefits broker to suggest new ways of helping our employees while saving money along the way.”
One recent addition to the benefits package has been
particularly popular with Lindemann’s employees. Just this past year,
Launchways implemented a telemedicine solution for Lindemann, which allows
their employees to reach doctors online or over the phone and get the
prescriptions they need. This solution has made a big difference for the
company’s team members, especially those with families. At the same time,
Launchways rolled out new benefits administration software that streamlines
enrollment and upgraded both dental and vision insurance.
Since they started working with Launchways as their employee
benefits and business insurance broker, Lindemann has experienced rapid growth
and faced the inevitable growing pains and hard decisions that come with
scaling a business. Their growth has required new benefits, HR strategies and
policies, more intentional fleet management, and critical business strategy
choices.
Throughout this process, Michael has looked to Launchways to
provide not only solutions but advice.
“The Launchways team is super responsive. I can use them as a sounding board and get advice on the spur of the moment which has been invaluable. I see the Launchways team as business consultants in many ways and it has been very good for us. I don’t hesitate to pick up the phone if I have a question or I want their advice on a situation that I might find myself in.”
Building A Safer
Fleet and Saving Money Along the Way
As Lindemann has grown, so has their fleet which now
includes more than 50 vehicles. Managing this expanding fleet has become one of
the main challenges that Lindemann and Launchways are working together to
address.
One of the issues created by the larger fleet was the rising
cost of the company’s auto insurance. Launchways implemented a multi-prong
approach based on telematics to decrease these insurance costs while increasing
workplace safety and overall fleet expenses.
Sally Resch, Fleet Manager at Lindemann, explained more.
“Launchways has implemented a Fleet 360 vehicle monitoring system at no cost to us. We received upfront discounts from insurers for using the system and expect to qualify for more discounts. The best part is that we are keeping our team members safe when they are out in the field, but the impact on our bottom line is also significant. As the Fleet Manager, the monitoring system makes my job easier and gives me peace of mind.”
Overall, the telematics system has helped Lindemann save 20%
on their auto insurance with more potential savings as they continue to use the
system. During the same period, Lindemann has seen a 70% decrease in fleet
accidents. And the system’s dashboard lets Sally and her team review driving
incidents such as speeding and hard-braking to address poor driving habits by
employees.
Looking to the
Future
Lindemann and Launchways have been working together for
eight years. Along the way, Launchways has helped the Lindemann team grow their
company and tackle business issues by providing business insurance and employee
benefits solutions as well as hands-on consultation. Instead of growing
stagnant over the years, the relationship has only deepened and allowed
Launchways to provide even greater value for Lindemann and their team.
Having implemented telemedicine, new dental and vision
benefits, and fleet telematics, Lindemann is now partnering with Launchways to
overhaul their entire HR function. Their team has grown significantly over the
years and we look forward to working with them to expand their HR systems and
policies to better serve their employees.
