All Together Now That corporate intimacy, along with some truth in the age-old adage that money talks, has resulted in many employees who have never known another employer. “I’ve been with the company since 1979 when I started riding my bike here at 15,” says Bob Brown, who recently became Beyers’ first outside sales rep and has clocked time as a Beyers delivery driver and fence installer, among other company jobs on his résumé. “I’ve done everything in the company, and no matter what the position is, they let you run with things, and they take care of you,” Brown says, adding that in the past year he has been looking at some management training courses with the expectation of continued growth in the company.
“They treat me right, in fact they treat everybody right,” agrees Dale Wolff, who started at Beyers in 1967 as a carpenter and has also run the gamut of positions at Beyers before settling into his current role as an inside/counter salesperson. “It’s true, we have fun, but we pull together to do what’s best for the company. I like that atmosphere, and I like [the longevity] of working with the same people and for our loyal customers. Helping them out gives me great satisfaction.”
That type of employee satisfaction led to Beyers being singled-out in 2002 by Chesterfield, Mo.–based business group Business Owners, International as the best place to work in St. Louis, recognizing the pro dealer out of more than 50 other companies nominated for the award.
Despite the recognition, Beyers is not content to rest on any of its HR laurels, and the company is always reinventing and keeping things fresh. Case in point: the Beyers “Happy Meals” program. Originally a way for a restaurant client to work off its account balance by providing lunches to stand-out Beyers employees, the Happy Meal program has evolved into a twice-annual drawing (at the summer race night and the Christmas party) for, what else, more cold, hard cash. The awards range from $10 to $50 and any employee can be nominated by another for excellent customer service or a good deed, which last year included an idea for remodeling the retail area and returning a lost wallet to its rightful owner.
If you think the Beyers team is going to keep the sense of humor in high gear as well, you’d be making an even smarter bet than $2 on “Win Sucker Win.” Company vice president Tom Dixon is doing his part this year at the Christmas party with an annual poem that points out everyone’s screwups over the past year. “It’s a way to show that everyone makes mistakes and that everyone can learn from them,” Dixon says of his yearly opus.
In the end, though, Beyers Lumber & Hardware is as much about business as it is belly laughs. “Some places have a 10-minute break once a day, and we might have a 10-minute break here twice an hour because something funny happened,” Dixon says. “But the time comes when the customers are here and people have work to do. There is a time and a place for the humor, and at Beyers everybody has a grip on reality and can say, ‘Well, time to get back to work.’”
