BTS Facades and Fabrications managing director Phil Atkinson on how consulting with their employees is reaping rewards…
For the past two years we’ve been experimenting with the ‘Stakeholder Model’, which ultimately means nurturing and guiding our team closely to help achieve our overall business goals.
We have adapted our company’s policies, so that they reflect the wants and desires of our workforce, and we’ve noticed a huge difference.
A recent survey found that Team BTS are happier and are more confident in their roles; from a business perspective, we’ve seen an increase in productivity – it’s a win-win.
Transparency and engagement
The key to embracing the Stakeholder Model is keeping a workforce engaged and ‘in the loop’ with the direction in which the business is going.
Open to ideas
We have established a ‘BTS Forum’, a group of representatives from each department who come together to suggest and discuss ideas for improvement with our managers each month.
Work-life balance
As a result of the forum, we have adopted a four-day working week policy. We worked closely with all teams to discuss how it would work and made compromises along the way. Throughout the trial period, we kept our team informed with active work and if enough progress had been made – we worked together to make it a success.
Share success
When the business is thriving, so are our employees. When we make a profit, we share it with the team. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.
Essentially, we’ve found that since making our workforce paramount to all business decisions, we’ve seen increased productivity and efficiency.
Phil Atkinson
Managing director, BTS Facades & Fabrications
