It Takes Time and Planning: How One Top Builder Developed His Corporate Culture

Building and maintaining our company culture has been a priority for me since I first joined our company full-time in 1987. One of the first things I felt when I came on board was that we didn’t have a culture. It was my dad, his partner, my brother and a handful of employees on construction and service. We had all these people, but there was no culture to tie them together. Everyone was an island.

When I was at university, I took political science and business courses — two disciplines that emphasize the importance of cohesiveness within an organization. For example, I studied the company UPS — its consistency in color, message and in the deliverables they offered. That was the sort of model that I looked to. Such companies as UPS led me to wonder, “Why couldn’t we be like that? Why couldn’t we have the uniform, the cohesive message, the logo, all of it?”

At the time, our branding was scattered. We had old logos mixed with newer ones. Old colors and then a different color scheme. Everything was a mismatch, which was symbolic of our lack of culture. Joining this organization, even at such a young age, I felt very strongly that there was this void at the heart of it.

Unified presence

Cohesiveness of the message and brand is what I felt most strongly was missing. I looked at implementing ways to attack three main areas. First was attitude, second was uniforms, and then education. As time passed, the importance of investing in new vehicles and equipment moved up the list of priorities.

I started by providing uniforms, each with the company tagline: “People who care.” As time went on, we made the vehicles cohesive and uniform, too. Before, we had all these different colored vehicles. We started painting them the same color and giving them the same vinyl lettering. We developed a numbering system to keep track of them. We got some newer vehicles. They were still used vehicles, but they were a step up from what we’d had. It was the start of visualizing our culture, of building and developing our brand.

The vehicles just popped. Our employees felt a sense of pride, which is an important part of culture and intangible to your organization.

In those days, everything was very blunt. Construction workers and construction environments were pretty raw compared with today, especially as far as safety is concerned. The important thing was to get the job done, and people weren’t always looking out for each other.

To me, safety is an important part of the organization because it means something to your employees. They want to know that you treat them in a certain way, that you respect their lives and their health. If you treat them a certain way, you show them that you value their safety, and it is of utmost priority to the firm. This kind of value resonates with the team.

We started looking at employee and workplace safety as a value statement, something that signaled from the top down that we were always looking out for our people.

Building our corporate culture involved changing how our employees looked at themselves. In 1998, we opened a retail store in Etobicoke, which is a district in the western part of Toronto. The idea was to have a small storefront in a strip plaza in a relatively high traffic area to generate awareness and service our “do-it-their-self clients.” We had previously had a fairly small retail section within our corporate office, but opening a store in a central location that was close for our clients would elevate this component of the business. The idea behind it was to change our dynamic, our culture, about how our team thought of itself. I wanted to be in every facet of the pool business — service, maintenance, renovation, installation, and now retail.

It had the effect of changing the way our employees looked at themselves. There was a different sense of pride. We were bigger and better, taking on new challenges, and going after new opportunities. When employees see that the company is developing in this positive, dynamic way, that can really change the overall culture. It helps your people see your vision of the future and trust that you are going to take them there. This is so important because the employees are the most important part of the organization.

Gib-San Pools was really growing at this point. By the end of the ’90s, we were starting to get into national and international work. We were doing projects across Canada, in the south of France, and in the Caribbean. The business had expanded to the point that it was no longer a seasonal business, which changed the relationship we had with our employees. Historically, it used to be that you worked a season, got laid off, and then came back for the next season. When the vast majority of our employees are full-time, year-round, we were able to develop a real sustaining culture for our organization.

Familial touches

With these major changes in place, we made some additions that helped foster a sense of team or family. We put a prayer garden in front of our office. It was built out of respect and love for my mom and dad, a symbol of the legacy that can endure through the generations. But it was also a statement about culture — how we value prayer, meditation, and personal space.

We also put a gym in our office basement. It was only a small room, but it showed that we value health and wellness. You can come here and exercise in a safe space and don’t have to pay for a gym membership. Everything from soap and shampoo to towels is provided and paid for.

We built a large kitchen right in the middle of our office. I started buying food for people to prepare — breakfast, lunch, and dinner for our team when they needed it. They don’t have to run out to McDonald’s to get their lunch. They can sit down, have a chat with each other, read a book, and enjoy some good, wholesome food. It’s about creating a space where the team can come together. You’re demonstrating that this organization cares about your health and well-being. It’s family, your family.

I believe that we have achieved incredible things in our organization from a cultural perspective, but this is still only the beginning of our journey, which is always evolving because we are constantly changing. What’s important now may not be important in the future. You can’t just do things the way they’ve always been done and expect it to keep working out.

There are some fundamental pillars that we work around, such as health and well-being, family values and faith. When everything else changes, these are the constants you can count on. When you have a culture grounded in these fundamentals, you have the tools to manage the tsunami. You can build the team that will lead you to a better future.