Business View Magazine March 2023

189 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 3 Jarett Walters, President, and CEO explains, “Oftentimes janitorial and maintenance services are looked at as one being, ‘low skill’, generally replaceable and commoditized. Our mission and goal are to find a way to advocate, train, and promote from within. We want to build a culture, in an industry that’s often not focused on culture, so that we can improve the lives of our employees and add better value for our clients.” HBM reports better employee retention than the industry average, which is known for very high turnover. Building strong morale is part of this success and is done through team-building experiences like an annual basketball tournament, family potlucks, and a karaoke competition. For Walters, the idea for these events stemmed from spending time with the HBM employees and learning about the things they enjoyed. This employee culture attracts more than one member of the same family to HBM, which is a win for everyone. “We will have someone work for us and when their kid is looking for a job, they refer them over to us. We get some of the best and hardest working people from families all being part of the same team here. So that’s good for us because in this market, it’s hard to find people in general, but then people are referring good people which makes it a much more sticky and cohesive recruiting approach,” he relays. A strong management team is another strategy HBM applies, which is beneficial to both employees and customers. “Historically, in our industry, account managers, middle management, all that is seen as sort of superfluous tiers of leadership. Simply put, hiring more managers is direct overhead, and it impacts the bottom line,” Walters recounts. “We believe that having an impactful group of management helps us serve our clients, but also helps us provide better support to our employees.” He adds that when he first joined the company 17 years ago there were five HBM account managers supporting 600 employees, a number that has more than doubled. “Our ratio of manager to employee has gone up, and that has also allowed us better control, improved touch with our clients, and helped us find and promote from within, because we have better relationships with our team,” he adds. On the customer side, HBM is focused on a ‘one-stop shop’ approach, aiming to provide value that is not simply based on price. Walters elaborates, “Our philosophy is, if you’re only a value to your client because you are the cheapest, then that’s a pretty easily replaceable value. Our focus has been on creating long- lasting partnerships with our clients.” One approach the company takes is to match clients to high-quality personnel, who then become long-term partners to the property. “Let’s just say you’re a tenant in a commercial office building working late one night, and you see a janitor come in. There’s a good chance