This month I wanted to share some insights from a monthly mentoring program I have been part of. The subject is company culture.

When we speak of E-mc's culture, we are largely talking about the employee's, the most valuable asset in our organization. We have lived this out over time in the organization through: a. Behavior, b. Symbols and c. Systems. Said that, we know the people cuture element being the most powerful factor in the organization. We see that today more that ever in large companies.

Culture factors are driven by the industry we serve and available company resources. When we look at the industry, we see a very competitive industry that lives and dies on serving clients. To survive and grow, we need to repeat customers, new customers and maintain a healthy profit margin. Our competition understands this all so well. Available resources, i.e. front line workers, managers, cash, credit lines, technology are the underlying factors that fuels the enterprise to operate efficiently and spur on growth.

So let's look through a couple windows of the culture of E-mc Electric.

1. E-mc Electric current culture.
2. What is our desired culture in the future.
3. What is each of our roles.

Our current culture (in my opinion) is a very personalized culture through long-term relationships and the "hands on" of the owner. Gerald's passion for people and business makes himself available to all in the organization and personally is in touch with all clients. He encourages the same message to all managers to follow his lead with this personal touch.

The behaviors at the company are; everyone rolls up their sleeves and pitch in, no job to small or too big. There is a entrepreneurial spirit along with confidence in the owner for leadership and guidance.

The desired culture in the future is yet to be written. Based on conversations and meetings I have been involved in, I wanted to highlight a few elements that could shape this future culture.

1. Legacy of E-mc continuation.
2. Employee owned.
3. Long-term youth based leadership.
4. Accountability to stockholders.
5. Multi-diversity of markets and skills.
6. Transition of ownership.

These are just a few possible symbolic culture elements that could possibly exist in a future total employee owned company. In any case, these will be driven by future ownership transition, new leadership, market conditions and future resources. Bottom line, the road will be marked with people like you and me to chart our course within the frame work of culture and make the livings we desire for our families.

So how does each of us play a part in company culture? First, it is important that we know and understand what is going on around you. Stay in touch with market, political trends and economic conditions. This always has a cause and affects on our business decisions. Therefore, ultimately affects you and your family. (vote, vote, vote) Understand your company values, behavior and systems. Don't hesitate to ask questions. Over time; you gain in site, company knowledge and create positive collaboration.

As managers, office staff, front line workers and good stewards of the business, we have to understand these in sites and what it takes to run the ship. No matter what company you work for or manage, to fit in, you need to understand the values and systems to ensure personal success. Our understanding is then echoed to our clients of a healthy company culture.

Lastly, personal growth can impact both you and your company culture. When you and I grow, we become a greater assest, with greater assests the culture changes and with healthy culture growth, companies grow. This ultimately is a positive financial impact for all.

Billionaire entrepreneur Richard M DeVos says, "The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible."

The right thought plus the right people in the right environment at the right time for the right reason = the right results.      John Maxwell

Dan Woodson

One of the key challenges  that we face every day is communication. This subject has been an important one that requires all of our careful attention and it has been discovered to be a broad subject.  Many questions have arisen on the subject like how much communication? What to communicate? To whom? What method? And so on.

As we are moving forward toward in improving our communication here at E-MC Electric; we are finding that our language gaps is a key part of communication challenge. Specifically verbal language shot across the bow to each other on the job.

One of the main ingredients for verbal communication is understanding the definition. No matter what industry or walk of life; definition is very important. Not understanding the meaning of the words or phrases can impair communication. As an example, the meaning that we put on titles or names is can makes a difference. This is important in the learning process as well. We all have to face the same scenario where we can speak the language or dialogue and not knowing the definition gets us in trouble. Whether you are the one sending the message or receiving it, knowing the definition is crucial. The error of this can cause misunderstandings on the job and have financial impacts.

To better ourselves, we must be willing to learn, to teach, have the patience with those around us that are new. We have to ask the right question when we don't understand. As supervisors, ask key questions after giving instructions or directions to get feed back. Also follow up during the process to make sure you like the out come.

In my opinion, the short cut to being successful is learning from those that are very successful on what they do. 

It is not how we say it or the method we use. What is important is being understood.  After all IT'S IN THE DEFINITION.

“ESOP” is an acronym that stands for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Technically, the Plan is operated or administered pursuant to a tax-exempt Trust; accordingly, the Plan is alternatively referred to as the ESOP.

The purpose of an ESOP is to enable employees to acquire beneficial ownership in their Company without having to invest their own money.

The Plan is also a tax-exempt entity for Federal and state corporate income tax purposes. This enables the Company to make cash and/or Company stock contributions to the Trust, which is used to acquire stock of the Company on behalf of its employees. The advantage of the ESOP is that employees are able to acquire this stock without paying a current income tax on the stock. Again; this results from the fact that the contribution is made entirely by the Company and is not taxed to employees personally as it is allocated. The advantage to the Company is that the ESOP makes pre-tax dollars available to finance Company growth and/or to create ownership liquidity at the time of retirement.

Because employees are not taxed currently on the stock which is acquired for their benefit, they are able to acquire up to twice the amount of stock which they could acquire if a Trust arrangement were not used. That is, if shares of stock were issued to an employee by the Company, that employee would be taxed currently on the value of those shares. Also, if an employee buys stock directly from the Company or other shareholders, that employee is using “after-tax” funds rather than pre-tax dollars. The use of a Trust eliminates this tax problem since the Trust is not taxable and frees employees from income tax liability until the shares are distributed.

The following advantages are material to the adoption of the Plan.

The ESOP will enable the Company to buy out the current owners, using tax-deductible Company contributions.

The ESOP will enable the employees to share in the current and future economic rewards of ownership.

An ESOP will be a better incentive plan for employees than other alternatives.

The flexibility of the ESOP to not only invests in the stock of its own Company but to diversify its investments over a broad range of opportunities makes it a valuable retirement asset.

 Create Better Incentives and Urge Better Employee Productivity.

The third goal of Employee Stock Ownership Plans is to encourage and reward increased employee productivity and efficiency. Increased employee productivity and efficiency is one of the largest variables in the overall profitability of any company. In many instances, a 5% or 10% increase in individual employee productivity may result in increasing company profitability by 50% or more. The goal of the ESOP is to reward employees for their efforts so that they automatically share in the growth of the company. The ESOP creates a direct link between employee productivity and employee benefits.

Gerald McDonald

SOCIAL MEDIA

Getting started in social media is a lot like getting started in investing.  It definitely pays to have a plan.  And much like investing planning, social media planning involves assessing where you are now, determining where you want to go and establishing a plan to get there.

As a team here at E-mc Electrical, we are just getting started on our social media plan and in order for us to get this plan in flight; we need to start with the big picture.  We need to start on broad subject matter areas first and then work our way and zero in on the details.

While I was reading and trying to find ways for our Social Media Committee to hit the ground and run with this, I ran across an article that detailed out 7 key components that each social media committee should include in their plan.

1.      Get your starting point.

a.      Wherever you are in your social media efforts, look around and take look at what you have.  Do you have a blog?  Blog subscribers’? Social media profiles?

b.      Linked In profiles are a great start.  But how complete is your profile? How many connections do you have?  How many groups do you belong too.  And if you don’t have any of the above, it is still ok, right now you are just on the establishing a baseline.

2.      Scout your competitors’.

a.      Search your competitors’ names in Google and see what comes up.  If they are active in social media, chances are they a Facebook, Twitter, Linked In profiles.

b.      Take note if their profiles are complete, visually appealing, how many connections do they have, when was the last time new content was added.

c.      Ask yourself this question, “If I were a client of this advisor, would I connect with this profile?”

3.      Define your goals and objectives.

a.      Like a good financial plan, a solid social media plan needs to come with goals and objectives and the trick is to know which goals and objectives are right for you.

4.      Build your team.

a.      Success in social media is going to involve you and your compliance officer. Depending on your plan, you may also need to involve others in your firm. It’s a great idea to think through who handles what ahead of time.

b.      Who gather’s the data? Who submits to compliance and follows up on any changes? Who does the actual data posting to the profile?

c.      On an ongoing basis, success in social media requires content. Content creating, sourcing, approval and posting can be a full-time job. Make sure you know who owns it before you go live.

5.      Develop and maintain a content calendar.

a.      Social media is all about content. It’s why people link to you, follow you, like you and share what you post. To keep your audience interested, it’s important to feed them new content on a regular basis.

b.      The best way to manage this is to create a content calendar. A content calendar is a timeline that lays out your content subject matter, week by week, month by month. It eliminates the “Oh boy, it’s Wednesday and I have to come up with a blog post” syndrome. You can use it to list topics, decide format and assign responsibility.

6.      Round up some partners.

a.      Who can you partner with to help you succeed? Chances are you’ll need a social media compliance partner to meet your regulatory requirements.

b.      There is a shortage of people vying for your attention. Who offers web ready content that you can post on your website? How about a portfolio manager who will do a phone interview? Or a white paper you can offer followers? Start asking around.  You will be surprised.

7.      Establish and maintain meaningful performance reporting data.

a.      Much like portfolio’s, the on-going success of your social media plan requires tracking your progress against your goals. Decide upfront how you will track and measure your results.

b.      If you are hosting a blog on your website, make sure to install Google analytics for tracking. There are also a variety of tools – some free, some paid – that can help aggregate all this data into a dashboard.  Even having to use a spreadsheet, it’s worth the effort to know how you are doing.

As I hope this will redirect our team as well as assist your social media committee in hitting the ground and running.

Social media is important to have in a company as to who you are as a company, where you want to see your company go and what markets your company needs to be focused.

Tish Herod