If you’re not familiar, Lawrence Companies is a 100 percent employee-owned business headquartered in the Roanoke Region. The company provides regional logistics, transportation, equipment, moving, maintenance, and upfitting that can offer seamless support to any business with product management, storage, transportation, and more. After spending about ten minutes waiting in their warehouse for a meeting with a potential customer looking to relocate to the region, one thing was clear…these folks run a tight ship.
But what you might not realize without spending some time with their employees, is that they have done a ton of work to create a positive, supportive, and inclusive company culture worthy of celebrating. Get2KnowNoke’s director of talent attraction, Julia Boas, had the pleasure of talking in depth about this transformation with the Lawrence Companies director of HR, Aaron Kelly.
Aaron has to be one of the most positive and contagiously energetic people in Roanoke, and it became quickly apparent that his passion and dedication to the people of Lawrence is a reflection of the overall culture being developed there. Learn from their efforts from his first-hand account below.
Aaron Kelly – Director of Human Resources at Lawrence Companies First-Hand Narrative of their Cultural Transformation
Written by Director of Human Resources, Aaron Kelly–
Here at Lawrence Companies, we are currently in year two of a complete cultural overhaul. We found that prior administration advocated for a “head down, shut up” mentality.
I’m even willing to share that at the beginning of my career with Lawrence two and a half years ago, the work ethic here was less than desirable. Upon the exit of our prior administration, and after the acclimation of our new senior leadership team, our CEO Warren Groseclose recognized the need to take care of our workforce. We immediately got to work and started formulating what would work best for our business, and more importantly, our people.
Through meetings, phone calls, and field trips, we narrowed down our search to just one: Innerwill Leadership Institute. Innerwill is a sister company of Luck Stone, based out of Manakin Sabot, VA. In a similar case study, Charlie Luck, Owner of Luck Stone, recognized that the business of turning big rocks into little rocks was profitable, but the culture and workplace environment could be a challenge. As we exchanged information and coordinated these meetings with our senior leadership team, we wanted to ensure that this wasn’t just a flash in the pan or another flavor of the week. We have employees who have been with Lawrence Companies for 40-plus years, and we needed to honor their commitment.
We owe it to each and every one of them to provide positive, sustainable results in the world of workplace culture. Our very first session was not for the faint at heart. We were quickly told to look in the mirror, and as a company, atone for our sins. Simultaneously, we launched an employee engagement survey to get a pulse from our employees. Long story short, we stunk out loud. As Dr. Tom Epperson, our session leader explained, “That is OK! You have to start from somewhere!”.
From rock bottom, we painstakingly formed our list of inefficiencies or blind spots to the tune of about 30 action items. Over several weeks, we managed to revisit, revise, and combine some of these action items until we ended up with 5 major bullet points. These cornerstones are what make up the foundation of our servant-based leadership approach.
Lawrence Companies 2023 Revamped Approach to Leadership:
These tenants aid us in our day-to-day decisions, including (but not limited to):
- We Take the Time to Listen
- We Earn Trust
- We Play as a Team
- We Instill a Sense of Ownership
- We Help Others Grow
Encouraging thought-provoking intentional conversations. Playing as a team, not just as a formality, but truly as an extension of one another. Helping others grow. This leadership model takes out the “I” and celebrates the “Us”. This entails building on one another, encouraging a degree of stretching and exploring within your work experience, and questioning why and why not. Lastly, earning trust.
This one, among all, does not come overnight. We illustrate this by truly leading by example, doing what we say we are going to do AND following up. Equitable leadership requires you to be consistent AND fair across the board and accept responsibility for your own shortcomings. At the end of the day, we’re all human.
In my twelve years of human resources, this is the first company I have ever worked for that admits its shortcomings and realizes that perfect is impossible. Not only have we learned a lot about how to reconstruct our business to better serve our employees, we also looked at our active bench of next-generation leaders. Who was going to replace me when it was time for me to make a move or retire? This observation launched Lawrence Companies into phase two of our cultural rebranding.
Through identification and some very intentional conversation, we enlisted our Next Generation of Leaders. These individuals expressed interest or possessed characteristics that directly aligned with the business model and the servant leadership tenants. Without wasting any time, we got these individuals enrolled in the second round of our Innerwill training.
During this training, the training wheels were slowly removed and I’m so proud to announce, that we have people within our business who are hungry for growth, ready for more, and have flexibility in regards to stretching their capability. I guess what I’m trying to say is that times are different. The workforce is ever-changing.
To be successful, you have to be all in!
The aforementioned leadership redirection is just one story of many in our books of creating a sustainable and enjoyable workplace for our employees. Whether we are talking about our Next Generation of Leaders, our Annual Women’s Leadership Conference, our or Federally Accredited Apprenticeship program, Lawerence Companies continues to a career that recognizes, influences, and celebrates diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Lastly, I am grateful on a personal level. As an individual who was formally diagnosed on the Autism spectrum at age 18, it means everything to me that Lawrence Companies sees me for who I am, and my continued capabilities.
Connect with Aaron Kelly to ask questions about positive human resource pathways, getting buy-in from leadership, and their company culture. Or reach out to Lawrence Companies today for job opportunities. They are regularly hiring for drivers, technicians, and support team members.