The Maine Workforce: An Employer’s Perspective

The concept of a “workforce” with a set of characteristics centering around a statistical mean can be a useful tool when making site-selection decisions, but as a business management tool it is much less effective. We believe that attracting, training, and retaining excellent employees involves a series of daily successes which combine to create an alluring workplace for our employees. In the implementation of these practices our management and supervision remain mindful that no single employee fits neatly into the profile of the statistical “ideal workforce,” but that taken as a whole our employees constitute our most important asset.

Certainly, we rely heavily upon the demographic and employment statistical data available to us through the state of Maine’s economic development resources. When our company considered locations for a second site, Brunswick appealed to us as a hub of the state’s second largest labor market, having some 60% of Maine’s available workers within a 30-minute commuting radius. Today we draw employees from Portland, Lewiston-Auburn, Augusta, and well beyond. Once established in Brunswick, the Human Resources Division studied available statistics on approaches to staffing. Data from respected institutions, such as the University of Southern Maine, influenced our decision to utilize an employment agency both for recruiting entry-level positions as well as selecting advertising media and an employee-incentive program design. Having made informed decisions relying on macro analysis, however, the organization’s leaders then had to remain alert to the fact that, although workforces were analyzed, individuals were led.

While acknowledging the limitations of workforce statistics, we do believe that the Maine workforce has certain characteristics that aid in developing thoughtful practices in the workplace, such as demonstrated loyalty to an employer and pride in craftsmanship. In turn, these practices can be nurtured to create a workforce for the new knowledge-based economy. As expertise in information technology (the Internet, telecommunications, computers, and the like) has become the currency of Maine’s new business growth, employers must accelerate the opportunities for employee training and skill acquisition.

Before we proceed, we should furnish some background about our business. EnvisioNet provides technical and e-commerce support to the customers of our clients. Those clients include nationwide Internet access providers (Prodigy and Microsoft), Internet retailers (eToys and K-Mart), and local and regional Internet companies (Commtel Internet, Prime, and MixNet in Maine). Our client’s customers contact our employees through the telephone and e-mail. EnvisioNet’s success with these customers is founded on two qualities with which Mainers appear especially endowed — loyalty and pride in craft.

Loyalty begets high retention of employees. Low turnover reduces costs for recruiting, training, quality, and the learning curve. Recently a client company with its own call center in a distant metropolitan area bemoaned the low sense of loyalty from its employees. “How does EnvisioNet retain its employees?” Well, Maine is blessed with citizens having community allegiance and Yankee persistence. Once they decide to belong to a community, they tend to stay. The overwhelming majority of our employees who leave employment do so within the first three months. When they do leave EnvisioNet, the decision reflects early recognition of poor fit with the nature of the work. In our four-year history we know of but one employee who left for a position with another call center. Because our employees continue to provide great support to the customers, our clients stay. To our knowledge we have never lost a client to another call center.

Loyalty of course must be reciprocated. Open communications, promotion from within, avoidance of layoffs, attention to individual needs, delegation of authority, and the willingness of management to be held accountable — all foster a sense of belonging to a workplace community. Employees can be directed without their consent. They must give their consent if we are to lead.

As the Maine economy evolves toward new industries, the virtue of loyalty can become the vice of resistance to change. Our state economists have clearly demonstrated the trend from manufacturing- to service-sector jobs. To sustain its rapid growth, EnvisioNet relies on the decision by hundreds of individuals to take a risk and move to an information-age career. The individual’s decision to make this transition often depends upon the availability of education and retraining. Employers can play a very important role in reinforcing the acquisition of new skills. State government teams up with the individual by providing retraining programs through quasi-governmental programs such as Workforce Development and Women, Work, and Community. One such program, funded by the Maine Quality Center and delivered by Kennebec Valley Technical College, has facilitated 70 Mainers to shift careers to our business. We have initiated a new Maine Quality Center program to provide retraining for up to 360 more people to prepare them for our needs in information technology.

When was the last time you happened upon a product which proclaimed “Made in Indiana” or “Crafted in Texas”? Maine is a state of artisans. Whether building wooden boats or steel warships, sewing shoes or tanning leather, it has traditions rooted in geographic remoteness, short summers, and self-reliance. “Made in Maine,” a label attached to many of our products, means value, endurance, and quality. Given that legacy, Maine employers need to be very cautious when they choose to compete on price rather than performance. EnvisioNet does not compete on cost. We pay our employees more than many of our out-of-state competitors. Our technicians in turn consistently outperform their peers. As testament, their performance has fueled our growth to employ more than 400 staff today.

Can people whose families crafted products by their hands take the same pride in delivering a service by their wits? Simply, yes. However, some steps must be taken to encourage this pride in performance. Not only must the employer measure quality, but the employee must receive frequent feedback on both individual successes and team victories. Remember that at the end of the shift our service employee cannot view a well-sewn shirt, a prize vegetable, or a roll of newsprint. The service company must develop a set of performance metrics, which denote quality to the employee and are communicated to the employee frequently.

At EnvisioNet, that translates to the “P’s and Q’s” — the Productivity and Quality delivered to the customer. Productivity is measured as the amount of time given to a customer interaction (call length), and Quality is measured by the reaction of the customer to the interaction (customer satisfaction). Our employees understand the arithmetic. Nevertheless, they also have their own standard of craftsmanship that must be satisfied. The employee is in the best position to balance the callers’ needs, EnvisioNet’s priorities, and the client’s goals. Therefore, we let the employee do so. As a result, barring an unusual circumstance, the workforce delivers the results for which we strive everyday. For EnvisioNet, this blend of individual customer care and team-goal achievement represents pride in craft.

Pride in craft is another strong motivator for training and education, of which Maine businesses should take advantage while growing into the knowledge economy. EnvisioNet’s entry-level workers have achieved educational attainment ranging from a general equivalency diploma, to specialized military training, to master’s degrees in business administration — and they all start with the same job description at EnvisioNet. By means of internal training programs, leveraged through state economic development initiatives such as the Governor’s Training Initiative, as well as through external training programs such as the Maine Quality Center and the technical college and university systems, Maine businesses can inexpensively retool to meet the challenges of competing in the future. Maine workers have demonstrated to our company that they are individually willing to meet that challenge.

In summary, EnvisioNet’s experience relies upon statistical analysis of Maine’s workforce in site planning and human resources decision making. In daily leadership, however, we nurture employee loyalty and pride in craftsmanship to increase their skill acquisition and performance. Management in turn rewards the employees with recognition and advancement. We happily invest our time in getting to know and support each other. The fact that it is so easy to exert control from a distance can lure leadership away from daily contact with what is after all not a homogeneous workforce, but rather a diverse mix of hardworking Mainers. Our employees span the range in age, gender, educational attainment, and socioeconomic background, and no single employee can be defined by a statistical mean. Attracting, growing, and retaining excellent employees involves a series of daily actions by people who together create a workplace culture that holds employee development and corporate growth as entirely interdependent.