Great Workplaces Do Exist

Edgewater Home Improvement* is the best place to work in the entire remodeling industry, hands down. Team members are excited to be there and take ownership of their work. When positions become vacant, they are quickly filled, often with a candidate referred by a current employee. Everyone at Edgewater understands their role, and all work together to meet company goals.

So where is this standout company located? Who is the CEO?

The truth is that Edgewater Home Improvement doesn’t exist*. Well, not quite anyway. Edgewater is a fictional firm that embodies many of the workplace best practices shared during interviews with home improvement industry leaders.

These executives run remodeling companies that are nationally recognized as great places to work. Some appeared on Fortune’s 2024 list of Best Workplaces in Construction, while others are known industry-wide as top-tier employers.

What they all have in common are programs, processes, and policies that empower employees and set them up for success.

Why does that matter?

According to Fortune’s workplace survey data, 90% of employees at companies recognized as best places to work say they willingly put in extra time and effort, and 88% rate their satisfaction so high that they’re planning to stay with the organization long-term.

“Nearly 100% of every single person in a home improvement company is interacting with a customer, whether it’s over the telephone, face to face, at a festival, or at a home show,” says Brian Gottlieb, founder of several large home improvement companies known for outstanding workplace culture.

“You have to give employees a great work journey. If you don’t, how can you possibly expect them to deliver a great customer journey?” Gottlieb, who is also the author of the business leadership book Beyond the Hammer, adds that your business can’t reach its potential if your people don’t. That’s because, “in order for a company to be successful, every team member needs to be successful.”

Here’s what Chase Henry, CEO of Edgewater Home Improvement, does to make employees feel heard, valued, and part of something bigger than themselves. All of these are actual ideas from leading home improvement firms that you can incorporate into your business.

An aligned team

Culture building and creating an aligned team are critical to a company’s success. Henry united everyone around the company’s mission statement: “Always chase excellence.” He, and his leadership team, make an ongoing effort to keep that mission top of mind for everyone in the company.

Team members are introduced to the mission from day one—alignment begins at onboarding with an open-ended discussion with new hires about what the word “excellence” means to them, and different ways to chase it. The mission and purpose are woven into daily conversations, feedback from managers, formal reviews, the company’s internal award program, and praising an individual’s performance during team meetings.

Henry also instituted a 360-degree review process, which involves collecting confidential, anonymous feedback from multiple people in the company, including an individual’s peers, direct reports, and supervisors. He hired someone from outside the firm to handle the collection of information.

Henry says the 360-degree process helps build company culture because it lets everyone, including him, understand what’s happening around them, the contributions of others, where blind spots exist, and what strengths and weaknesses are recognized by peers. The advantages of this type of review are twofold, he explains. Underperforming employees are met with an approach to support their path to success, and the feedback has enabled him to improve his own leadership skills and assess Edgewater’s direction and culture.

Engagement

Henry created a charitable program, Edgewater Cares, in which a percentage of profits from each project are used to sponsor a quarterly volunteer program and large annual donation. Potential charities are identified by a committee that any team member can join. The committee makes recommendations, which are then voted on by the entire company.

Last year, Edgewater’s big donation came to several hundred thousand dollars but paid back millions in goodwill. These acts of giving—both time and money—provide added purpose to the teams’ hard work. They see that they’re part of something larger than themselves and that they work for a company that tries to do good while doing well. The added benefit to the company’s community outreach is that it garners media attention, which in turn drives business and growth, which leads to more opportunities for current and future employees to share the wealth.

Work-Life Balance

The company instituted flexible PTO so employees can take responsibility for their own work-life balance. Home improvement isn’t always a nine-to-five job—people sometimes work at night, and their cell phones are always with them—so if team members need time off, they can take it. Leaders know that their teams can’t show up for work and be productive, thoughtful professionals if they’re not taking care of themselves or their families. Interestingly, employees are using less of their time off—so Henry has been encouraging them to take advantage of the program.

Transparency and Trust

Henry believes in open and honest communication, and to that end, conducts all-staff calls on an as-needed basis, usually monthly. He’s transparent about what’s going on with the company and its performance and takes pride in the fact that he doesn’t BS and provides answers that employees probably wouldn’t get from other CEOs.

He also gives shout-outs for jobs well done, telling others he thinks appreciation is often undervalued as a leadership tool.

On one recent all-staff call, Henry recounted a situation that cost the company a few thousand dollars—and explained why that was actually a good thing!

A project manager had noticed an incorrect underlayment install and had it removed and redone. The manager could easily have ignored it—the homeowner wouldn’t have known, and the faulty install probably wouldn’t have caused an issue for years—but the manager did the right thing when nobody was watching. That’s the type of mindset Henry encourages, and he noted during the call that this extra expense might have gotten the manager a slap on the wrist at another company.

Henry notes an added benefit to recognizing good work: a good reputation as a company. That positivity is passed down to customers and bolsters your reputation as an employer. Good reviews on Glassdoor are important.

Professional Development

When someone is hired at Edgewater Home Improvement, they work with leadership to develop a formal path to success, one that is documented, not just talked about. This helps every team member understand what’s required of them to earn merit-based pay increases and recognition.

Everyone at the company is given equal access to resources, opportunities, and the tools they need to succeed—but they are responsible for their own success. Henry says there’s no sense of entitlement for anybody in the organization—even he has to earn the right to work there. When the mission is chasing excellence, everyone needs to bring their best.

Leadership revisits these formal paths during their quarterly reviews so they know if they’re on track.

Edgewater’s HR director also conducts twice yearly anonymous surveys (separate from reviews) to gauge how employees feel about leadership, company direction, culture, inclusiveness, and whether they feel valued.

The surveys allow leadership to address any weak spots and make changes accordingly. Equally important, the surveys identify great performers within the company because they ask team members to identify the people they trust and believe in. When the same employees are named over and over again, those individuals are invited to participate in leadership development programs.

While Edgewater may not exist as its own entity, the company was based on a compilation of the industry’s best home improvement companies. These firms consistently outperform the market in revenue, retention, and customer reviews. And that’s no accident.

*Any resemblance to successful home improvement companies is not a coincidence.