In many organizations, especially larger ones with clearly defined hierarchies, you can observe some workers that literally watch the clock close to the end of the work day, or near the end of their shift. They count down the minutes until they don't have to be around co-workers that run the gamut from those they get along with only so-so, to those they outright despise.
Joe Smallwood, a five-year seasonal employee of Alaska Wildland Adventures (AWA), a 30-year-old Alaska-based small group nature safari provider, represents perhaps the greatest departure from this persisting image from Corporate America. When we spoke to him, he was in his car with his girlfriend en route from Alaska to California, where he is moving for the off season. He is excited at the notion of visiting fellow co-workers – good friends – from his time at AWA this summer and from past summers.
As a fishing guide for the company, which employs 75 other seasonal staff and only 11 year-round employees, for the past four summers – and a rafting guide his first summer with AWA – Smallwood happily recounts times at the end of a full-day fishing trip with guests where his fellow seasonal employees have taken the boat out to do even more fishing, and just hang out. They have also done this on their days off.
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You get the same sense of camaraderie speaking with Kyle Kelley, a 10-year veteran of the company who started out as a safari driver and who has assumed roles of increasing responsibility, most recently becoming general manager. "We just celebrated our 30th anniversary, and hundreds of old and current staffers returned to celebrate," Kelley says. "Some people who only worked a summer or two showed up. We found that something like 19 couples have met and gotten married because of their time working together at AWA."
There are several components that make up the "secret sauce," if you will, behind the great retention and teamwork that AWA, a 2007 Winning Workplaces/Wall Street Journal Top Small Workplace, has displayed over the years. One is the aforementioned family-like atmosphere that Owner and President Kirk Hoessle has worked hard to cultivate. Another is the symmetry between the love of the outdoors and preserving Alaska's natural beauty that easily connects year-round and seasonal staff members and the company's guests, who stay at the two lodges the firm operates from one to seven nights.
Several years ago Hoessle, along with a few other state-based tourism operators, formed the Alaska Wilderness Tourism and Recreation Association. Serving as a coalition of several hundred small businesses working toward similar eco-tourism goals, Hoessle is proud that it has become a voice at the table where much larger, national mass-tourism providers also sit, such as cruise lines. "I think we've really become a respected voice in the state in speaking up for taking care of the land," he says.
Outside of the association, AWA is taking its time in financing and designing its third lodge, which promises to be more eco-friendly than its current two lodges. "We're going to use the appropriate technologies to minimize impact on the site," Hoessle says, adding that he hopes it will be ready for its first use in early 2009.
Day to day, employees who lead guests on the company's various small-group safaris stress the importance of protecting the state's natural resources, knowing it's not only important in terms of maintaining the company's product, but the right thing to do from an ethical standpoint. "Even in fishing, the whole reason people are up here is because of the salmon and what they provide for the whole ecosystem and the watershed," says Smallwood, who after guiding guests on rafts along the Kenai River during his first summer with AWA has helped them fish on the same stretch of the river. "Not only am I a fishing guide, I think of myself as a natural history guide as well," he says.
Other components that have been vital to the company's success include its emphasis on tailoring roles to suit the individual as much as possible and promoting an ownership mentality. The former goal has resulted in an average tenure of seven and a half years among year-round employees and many seasonal workers who, like Smallwood, keep coming back year after year, excited to see where their talents can be best utilized. And Hoessle says a stock appreciation rights program he implemented a few years ago, along with continuing to open the books to employees, has kept the ownership mentality perennially strong.
When speaking with any of AWA's employees you get the sense that they're very satisfied in their work and are treated well. Yet perhaps the greatest testament to this is the feedback forms that guests send in when they return from their Alaska excursions. "It's amazing how many people recognize how happy our workers are – they say that," Hoessle says. "Those comments are nice to get in June, when it's early in the season. But when you get them in August and September, then you know you're doing something right."
A commitment to helping employees grow personally and professionally, a mission and values that foster a sense of doing right by the community and the world, devoting resources to empower employees in their day-to-day decisions and activities – is it all worth the investment?
"All the naysayers say it's too expensive to treat employees right. That's a bunch of bunk," Hoessle says. "It comes down to a better experience for the customer and a better situation for your business."
Company: Alaska Wildland Adventures
Website: www.alaskawildland.com
Industry: Wilderness adventure vacations
Location: Girdwood, AK
Number of employees: 11 year-round, 76 seasonal
Sales: $4.2 million
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