Employee retention
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by: RokerSmith
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Word Count: 482
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 Time: 10:57 PM
With work this tough, employee retention is important. Many employees have been with NEPCCO for more than 20 years, some moving between the three company brands. “We recognize employees as our most important asset,” says Poplawski.
“One of our people, Tom Hampp, has just entered his 40th year with the company. He started as a laborer and is now a project supervisor. We try to keep morale up and offer a challenging environment. If we get into lateral work, for example, that not only represents a new direction for the company, but a new career path for workers and offers more room for advancement.”
The company uses a range of approaches to generate sales leads, including its website, a trade show presence, targeted advertising in trade journals, and educational seminars. In the past, sales were handled by a number of NEPCCO employees.
“Most of the staff is cross-trained and wears nine different hats,” says Poplawski. “We can handle a project from A to Z, from the bid right down to collecting receivables, and we just fit in sales along the way.”Today, NEPCCO fields more than 10 customized trucks fully devoted to grouting. The units are either custom-built by NEPCCO or standard inspection vans offered by CUES or Aries Industries, which are then modified in-house.
NEPCCO bids for the MDC contracts either as general contractor or as a subcontractor providing specialized services. The company has worked with a slate of lining contractors that includes Insituform, Reynolds Inliner, and Allstate Power-Vac, who acted as prime contractors.NEPCCO assistant operations director. “Their packer systems are durable and made of stainless steel. You never blow one of the packer sleeves when you try to seal a cracked pipe in the mainlines. They also have an isolated pressure sensor instead of having it incorporated into the line. That reduces the chance of over-pumping or gelling a transducer.”
NEPCCO broke its own record for a lateral grouting contract in 2008 with an MDC project that involved sealing more than 2,000 laterals in West Hartford and Newington. On that job, the firm worked as a subcontractor to Insituform, which was lining more than 200,000 feet of sewer. The contract, from January 2009 through July 2010, employed as many as three full-time crews.
This year, Heitkamp has established a dedicated sales team that promotes all company products and services across the divisions. While concentrating on sales, NEPCCO has tried to counterbalance the economic downturn by enlarging its range of operation, expanding to the entire state of New York and across most of Pennsylvania. Frequently, NEPCCO joins with TRB to support projects that in the past have ranged as far away as Puerto Rico, Ohio and New Mexico.
Poplawski observes, “As communities experience budget shortfalls, we’re seizing every opportunity to expand the territory or product line to help generate work for ourselves.” C
About the Author
A New England contractor has turned an early adoption of grouting technology into a successful core business that continues to perform as the company expands.For more details on Jetter and Drain and Sewer Cleaning than please visit our website.
