8y
Thank you very, very much for such a thorough review. I encourage you to please reach out to me directly. My email address is ralston@accesscorp.com. I take both confidentiality and my open door policy VERY SERIOUSLY and I can help to improve your situation with more specifics – and, of course, you have my word that there will be absolutely no retaliation for you sharing your views directly with me. If you are uncomfortable reaching out to me, please contact your local human resources leadership.
Furthermore, I do understand that you are uncomfortable, or downright afraid, of communicating to your immediate supervisor and local leadership about these issues, which is a terrible situation to be in, so I appreciate you taking the time to post this review here. Again, please reach out to me directly, I can help and want to help.
I do want to be clear that a lot of what you outline here is NOT the case in every Access location, nor is every Access location – and we have over 70 locations in 6 countries – having the same leadership issues you outline. So, please, I really do encourage you to reach out to me or to human resource leadership so that we can take a direct approach to solving the issues you are experiencing at your location.
I am glad that you do see the benefits are improving. We do work hard to continue to evaluate and improve our total compensation package, including benefits, based on what we hear from the team - - so, yes, we are listening. To be clear, we listen to ALL the suggestions from team members, but we can only do SOME of them. We have to prioritize our efforts and investments.
The fact that you have not had a branch meeting in months is – quite frankly – infuriating to me. This will change and, in fact, by the time that I am posting this review, this should have changed. I have been working directly with our EVP of Operations, who oversees all US Operations, on this and he has been working with all his leaders to ensure that branch meetings are happening regularly. If you still have not had a meeting, contact me directly, PLEASE.
Also, any manager that feels a team meeting is for leadership to tell you what to do then they have the wrong impression. Team meetings are an opportunity for leaders to share information with you and the team, but also to RECEIVE information from you and the team about what is happening in the facility, out on the road with the clients, with our equipment and vehicles, etc, and to respond to questions and concerns of the team.
Next, I totally agree that we have many, many team members and leaders who would greatly benefit from more training and development, especially leadership training and training on the development others, including better formal reviews of team members, which is why we have recently hired a Director of Learning and Development who started earlier this year. Who, after less than 2 months on the job, has already created a 2018 schedule that includes over 80 training and development opportunities. So, while this will not be an immediate fix, we are heading in the right direction quickly and are making significant investments here.
Personally, I would like share that I talked to our Director of Learning and Development one-on-one about the desire to specifically train and educate our leadership across the entire organization to LISTEN to our team members (among other ways to provide value to our team members). While this review was NOT the reason for my conversation with our new Director, this conversation took place within about a week of you posting this review. Listening is like any skill or muscle, listening skills need to be practiced and worked on to be improved and used properly, so we are actively incorporating that into our learning and development opportunities.
In summary, please know that I DO CARE about a lot more than the reports and the figures, as do all other executive team members and many, many leaders Access, and we want to make Access a great place to have a career on this incredible journey and opportunity of life, but we will never accomplish that goal without continuous evolving and improving – and we need feedback like this in order to do so. Again, I am sorry that you feel you are not able to work with your local leadership to provide this feedback, but appreciate you sending in your thoughts here.
I do ask that, if I cannot solve these issues that you please (if you are able to), change your “approve of CEO” rating to red or, at least yellow. My actions are only as good as those felt by every team member and I should not receive a green approval rating, if I cannot solve these issues. Everything that happens here at Access is ultimately my responsibility and I take that charge very seriously.
Thanks, again, and please do reach out to me directly at ralston@accesscorp.com,
Rob
