Linking People Care and Client Care
Founded in 1949, Chicago-based SmithBucklin Corporation is the world's largest association management and professional services company. In fact, Chairman and CEO Henry S. Givray – who worked for the organization from 1983 to 1996 and returned again in 2002 as chief executive – says that their nearest competitor is only one-fifth their size. However, Givray notes, "I don't believe size necessarily translates to greatness in a company. But if you do things right, in our type of service, size really yields tremendous benefits to client organizations."
SmithBucklin, with a staff of nearly 700, serves over 200 associations, professional societies, technology user groups, government agencies and other entities. For more than 80 of them, the company fully manages their core, day-to-day operations. In this role, the outside entity's staff is employed by SmithBucklin, including a chief staff officer who answers to the entity's board of directors. The company provides its other client organizations with function- or project-specific services, such as conference and event management services, marketing and communications, government relations and technology and web management.
In addition to having a fairly large staff for a midsize business, SmithBucklin has multiple locations: A majority of its employees work in its Chicago and Washington, DC offices. The company also has a staff of 15 in St. Louis that assists a single client, and another staff of four in Durham, NC that also assists a single client. Yet, while it is geographically diverse, SmithBucklin stays connected through large and small group meetings, e-mail, and several internal publications. "It's not about a corporate office and having satellite offices," Givray says. "We're one company – we just happen to live in different places."
The organization's "one company" philosophy is underpinned by a set of 10 core values that serve dual purposes as employee motivators and client pledges. They are:
- Client Stewardship
- Customer Care
- People Care
- Trust and Trustworthiness
- Communication
- Growth
- Cohesiveness and Alignment
- Passion
- Individual Responsibility and Accountability
- Learning
Givray says SmithBucklin works so hard to communicate its values that one could ask any employee in any location about any value and receive virtually the same response. And indeed, Givray's thoughts on Client Stewardship closely mirror the comments of Megan Clark, an association senior coordinator and 10-year veteran of the company, on the topic. Client Stewardship is, in fact, the value that most resonates with Clark; she works on the client side with the International Carwash Association, serving as its director of operations. "I would recommend SmithBucklin to anybody that has an association and is looking for a home," she says. "It's a very honest company."
Pat Dwyer, another 10-year employee who is senior manager of convention and trade show services, points to integrity as an underlying, unwritten value that marries well with Client Stewardship and many of the other values/client pledges. "It's really easy to be supportive of one another when you have the bases of ethics, morality and integrity covered," Dwyer says. "It makes my relationship here stronger that I'm not second-guessing anybody." Givray adds that while Individual Responsibility and Accountability means that employees are empowered to act expediently when dictated by the client, if they make a mistake, they need to own up to it and learn from it.
The values of People Care, Trust and Trustworthiness, Passion and Learning, among others, are evident in a tangible way via SmithBucklin's innovative KnowledgeNet, an online repository launched in 2003 that enables employees to share best practices gained from client work. These practices are peer-reviewed, recycled and adapted, forming a continually expanding, employee-driven base of information that helps them tackle virtually any project or issue that may arise from a client. For example, Dwyer wanted to assess the approaches in communicating responsibilities to a single client committee of 10 people versus another client that has 80 people serving on 12 different committees. "I went on to KnowledgeNet and someone else had already figured out the communication line and the roles and responsibilities. It made my job so much easier," she says.
It's evident how committed SmithBucklin's staff is to doing good work on behalf of the clients. It seems they would be in any case, but for those on staff starting last summer, the company provided even more incentive to perform well. Starting in June 2005, Givray orchestrated a transition of the organization from being more than 80 percent owned by outside financial investors to being 100 percent employee owned through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The CEO's reason for spearheading this complex transition is simple: "It's our people, through their efforts and contributions, that are creating value for our clients and for our company. Therefore, they're the ones who should have the opportunity to reap the rewards of ownership."
The ESOP was structured in such a way as to encourage buy-in using funds from an employee's 401(k) account or from another qualified plan. Givray reports that 67 percent of employees initially participated in the buy-in; those employees used an average of 60 percent of their 401(k) funds. Clark and Dwyer, who both participated in the buy-in, remember the experience fondly, as they say Givray went out of his way to keep workers informed of the ESOP transaction every step of the way. "Before the ESOP and certainly after," says Clark, "there's been a buzz to the company. It's an exciting time to be here."
Company: SmithBucklin Corporation
Web site: www.smithbucklin.com
Industry: Association management
Location: Chicago, IL
Number of employees: 650
Sales: $80 million
