Because they’re typically implementing updated technologies for clients, system integrators must provide and maintain their own personnel with equally sophisticated skills—and attract new staff with the capability to learn and practice them.
“We’re always seeking new talent because our business has doubled in the past five or six years, and we’re anticipating it will double again in the next five or six years,” says Danielle Crough, VP of people and culture at Interstates, a national, U.S. Midwest-based system integrator, and a certified member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA). “We’re also spanning quite a few industries, including consumer packaged goods (CPG), data centers, energy and chemical, food and beverage, and value-added agriculture, and we’re likely going to get into some new industries, too.”
Crough reports that Interstates is also dealing with retirements, and needs to attract new people with the skills needed to handle rapid technical changes, including artificial intelligence (AI) and other types of digitization. One of its primary methods for achieving this goal is developing those skills and capabilities internally.
“We’ve seen technical changes accelerate, so we’ve been doubling down on internal development because it isn’t enough to simply replace individuals. We also need to develop multiple people around them, including bringing in new leadership, who can help support them,” explains Crough. “Because everyone at Interstates needs some type of development, we started assigning everyone an internal career coach in 2019. We also introduced the expectation that our managers were responsible for developing others, and bringing them up in whatever career path they want to pursue when it aligns with organizational needs.”
Inside cares for outside
This six-year-old, standardized development structure was established to convey Interstates’ philosophy and practices. It consists of the following primary areas, including engineering, construction, controls, operational technology, analytics and manufacturing, which are designed to operate as one overall strategy. This structure also enables clients to work more easily with the system integrator’s staff, and enables them to work more easily with each other.
“This development structure was inspired by our founder’s fundamental belief in investing in people and the culture that’s grown up based on that belief,” adds Crough. “This culture took hold more firmly when we adopted several ‘why’ statements in 2012, which are embraced by all team members, and include pursuing a better way, making a difference with our clients and communities, and providing opportunities for our people.
Get your subscription to Control's tri-weekly newsletter.
“This practical approach also led us to conclude that retaining existing employees is the best recruiting strategy. Logically, more retention means less recruiting is needed. Plus, employees who are retained can also help refer more new team members to us.”
Listen for the long-view
Established 70 years ago as “Johnny’s Electric TV Repair,” Interstates’ founders and leaders have had plenty of time to develop their supportive, internal, invest-in-people culture.
“Interstates is playing the long game because we want to be an enduring company that lasts,” explains Crough. “We’re not playing the quarterly game of short-term gains at the expense of the future, and we can do it because Interstates is still a leader-owned, private company. This long-term view also gives us the freedom to identify and achieve advantages that other organizations often don’t have the time to see. We’ve learned that layoffs may save some revenue now, but they’re often detrimental in the long run. For example, layoffs in the 1990s made it much harder for veterans to pass along their knowledge, and contributed to many of the skills gaps that are still a persistent problem today.”
To alleviate these gaps and difficulties, Crough recommends that leaders and managers of other companies actually listen to their employees, especially when they’re leaving.
“If your organization does exit interviews and surveys, read them,” adds Crough. “Soon-to-be-former employees have little or nothing to lose when they’re leaving, so if they take the time to fill out an exit survey, it’s important to listen to what they’re saying. This is a good way to pick up useful nuggets that may apply to other employees. The majority of people who leave Interstates have been willing to provide this kind of feedback. We can learn and identify patterns about workloads, items that leaders may have missed, positions that were unclear, and perhaps learn about missed benefits that we should’ve included earlier. This is all good input, but we must be willing to pay attention. It can seem counterintuitive to invest internally when we’re trying to attract new employees from outside, and we still have to do traditional recruiting. However, we also have to recognize it’s more important to invest in people, whether they’re external or internal.”
