Saving a Team Member

I run a local security company in Middle Tennessee with a business partner and we have a team of 5 people working with us.  We have 2 great ladies working in our office that handle all phone calls, service schedules, billing, and day to day activity that I just don't have the patience for.  They allow us to provide an extremely high level of service and keep in touch with our customers.

Our other 3 team members are Technicians that we rely heavily upon in order to deliver the items we provide, whether that is a new security system, camera system, fire system, or service on any of these items.  At the beginning of the year we were fortunate enough to win a bid on the largest project ever taken on by the business.  We purchased an existing company with a 25 year history and we inherited 2 of these technicians when we did that.  So this project we took on was a learning experience for everyone involved, but especially so for our lead technician.  He did a great job and I'm proud to say we completed the project without any major failures or hiccups just a couple of weeks ago.

I tell you all of that to explain our recent experience with this lead technician and important team member.  While on this project, he made connections in our industry that he had never made before.  In fact, he ended up with a job offer from a competing company and decided to put in his 2 weeks notice with us.  Our first reaction was surprise and hurt, because we had poured so much time and energy into the business and each team member over the past 12 months and we felt betrayed.  It was a major struggle for a number of reasons-

1. We depend heavily on this technician for service.
2. The technicians wife works in our office.
3. The technician has some faults, that we aren't 100% sure we can help him overcome.

So our dilemma was a question of whether we wanted to convince him to stay (which we know would cost us more money) or allow him to move on (which would put us in a major bind short term, but allow us to bring on new team members based on the qualities we look for).  Plus, with him working for a competitor, we did not feel like it would be a smart decision to employ his wife in our office, with access to all of our client information. So for us we would be losing 2 team members at once.

I could write all day about the various issues we worked through in order to make our decision, but I'll skip to the point.  We decided we did want him to stay and we would do what we could AFFORD to do in order to make that happen.

We look for 3 things with new team members and believe we can teach and train on the skills necessary for our industry.  The are Desire, Commitment, and Integrity.  We knew at this point that this team member has all 3 of those qualities and that was our decision.  The problem was that we could not afford to match his other offer.  But I believed we had something much bigger and better going for us- CULTURE.  We are big believers in the type of culture a company has and serving our team members.  While we are limited financially we do everything we can in order to create a fun, enjoyable culture.

I also believed the move for this technician would only be a temporary gain.  The company did not have our culture, would not have the room for advancement that we will have, and had many other unknowns.  We already have a proven track record giving him the opportunity to grow and develop and investing in him.

We sat down with him and laid out our entire case.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  And parts of the conversation were very ugly because he hadn't considered the conflict of interest with his wife.  Fortunately, we worked through all of the issues and laid out a game plan for the future that everyone was excited about.  While we could not afford to match the offer, we knew he could prosper with us long term.  He decided to stay.  Only time will tell how intelligent that decision was for him and us.

I learned a great deal from the entire experience and because of past experiences, I feel like we handled the situation better than most would have.  I believe in always working to develop yourself, and you should surround yourself with people who have your same desires, ethics, and values.  It's exciting to lead our organization and help other people grow and develop.