BL Companies, a Meriden firm focusing on integrated architecture, engineering, environmental and related services, says it’s committed to providing professional excellence to its clients through positive workforce practices.
BL Companies says it has worked to improve employee communications, revamp its orientation program for new staff and create a leadership development program, ensuring that each employee is invested in the firm’s success.
Principal Jennifer Marks, who also is BL’s director of survey services, said the culture at the firm, which has both municipal and private clients, is a result of it being an employee-owned company.
“The employees are the foundation of our business,” Marks said. “Everyone has a stake in our success. We’re all pulling in the same direction. We share our rewards with employees.”
President and CEO Carolyn Stanworth said BL has dedicated, high-performing individuals working together to provide creative solutions in concert with the company’s client needs.
“We believe in investing in our people through various forms of training — project management, technical and leadership development — as well as investing in equipment and infrastructure to assist our employee owners in delivering those services,” Stanworth said.
The training and development programs offer many benefits, Marks said.
“They give us a common language that we all speak, teach us how to communicate with each other, and provide a foundation for how we do our work and how we interact with each other,” she said.
The leadership development program is multi-tiered, and begins with the “leadership foundations” program. A base course that all employees complete, it focuses on communication styles, leadership styles, accountability, feedback and active listening skills.
“You learn how to give feedback and how to receive feedback,” Marks said. “It gives us the skills for listening to each other and then using that in our day-to-day work practices. This is not project management; we call them almost the ‘soft skills to be successful,’.”
Many employees then enter the “essentials” program, which starts building on team development concepts.
“First, you have to know yourself, and then you have to know your team,” Marks said. “How do you motivate and develop your team?”
Project managers and other team leaders progress into the essentials program, and a select few are chosen to enter the “advanced” program, which further develops these skills. Participants in both the essentials and the advanced programs all take on a project outside of their day to day work aimed at helping move the company forward.
“The projects require some research and implementation,” Marks said. “It may be a new technology, it may be in one of our disciplines that needs some attention. We have at any one time, 25 to 30 people in the essentials program, and if you have everyone doing something extra, it’s feeding into our financial success and our cultural success.”
In March, BL expanded its Hartford office, hiring nearly 50 new employees, and new- employee training and assimilation became a priority. The company’s senior leadership formed a committee to create a new, year-long orientation program for new hires.
“When this employee walks in the door, they fit in and they start to understand our culture from day one,” Marks said.
The employee orientation is structured so that employees et everything they need to succeed from the beginning, officials said. The program includes the creation of a peer-coach program, which pairs up new employees with a co-worker, ideally within their own division or group.
“That will be their go-to person if they have questions on department norms, who they should talk to about (a certain issue),” Marks said. “This person is really their buddy through that whole first year.”
At the end of the new employee’s first year, there is a new employee retreat, where employees can give feedback on the orientation program itself and other issues.
“We want to know what they thought so we can constantly be improving it for people coming in,” Marks said.
BL Companies provides a number of forums for employee-owner input, such as surveys and meetings, as well as employee engagement in decision making, such as through committees focused on healthcare, 401(k), safety and communications.
“We are a learning organization,” Stanworth said. “We learn from our successes and our challenges.”
Stanworth said it’s a priority at BL to keep employees informed and engaged.
“Employees put forth their best effort when they feel valued and vested in the company they work for and the projects they are working on,” she said. “We believe that all employee owners need to have a broader context for their decision making.”
The company hosts quarterly employee owners’ meetings in which they share the direction and goals, financial information and new initiatives, and celebrate milestones and successes. All 11 of the company’s offices are linked in through webcams.
“Employees often cite these meetings in surveys and anecdotally to explain what kind of company BL is — one that is open and transparent and one that cares about its employees,” Stanworth said.H
