Business Examiner Thompson/Okanagan - October 2015 by Business Examiner Media Group

OCTOBER 2015

SK FORM AND FINISH IS ALL ABOUT PEOPLE AND RELATIONSHIPS SPOTLIGHT

Company promotes leadership for its staff with a focus on values

ELOWNA - SK Form and Finish Inc. in Kelowna is not your ordinary concrete company – not by a long shot. Certainly the company does excellent work as the testimonials on its website attest to, but SK Form & Finish is, first and foremost, about the relationships it has built with its employees, suppliers and staff. It has a set of values that are enviable and that are leading it to continued growth. A testament to how well it is doing in all areas is its recent status as finalist for the Mid-Size Business Excellence Award through the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. SK Form and Finish has been involved in residential, commercial and industrial projects in the Okanagan since 1992. Steve Kraushar, who owns the company with his wife Angie Kraushar, grew up in the business, working with his father who owned a ready mix company. “Even before he could drive, he was batching concrete into the trucks and washing the trucks and loading the hopper with sand and gravel and cement,” Angie Kraushar said. “If his dad wasn’t around and a truck would break down, he would ride his bicycle to where it was, fix it and ride back. He got a really hands-on start in concrete.” She added that over the years he honed his natural mechanical abilities and learned everything he could about concrete. He also had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and decided to fill a need in the valley by starting a concrete forming and finishing company. One of the biggest challenges early on in the business was to find skilled tradesmen who would show up for work. The Kraushars hit upon an idea that encouraged their employees to take their jobs seriously.

SK Form and Finish does big industrial and commercial jobs as well as simple ones For two years, they offered a motorbike promotion: whoever showed up for work consistently, on time, would receive a new dirt bike at the end of the year. But something even more important happened during those two years. “We were able to lay down some values,” K raushar said. “We wanted the people in our team to really understand our values – and that was a real shift for us.” She added that the three core values the company upholds have developed a strong foundation for the business and its people. “We’re really about our people – and that focus on our people sets us apart from the rest.” SK Form & Finish’s first value

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is honesty and integrity in every relationship. “This is huge,” Kraushar said. “We do things with integrity and we stand behind our work – and we really mean it. If that driveway was compromised in a way that it needed to come out, we would take it out and re-do it.” She added that honesty goes hand-in-hand with integrity. When customers have questions, they can rest assured they will get honest answers. “That’s what we’re known for,” Kraushar said. “We are a very authentic company. We strive to have honesty and integrity in every relationship, whether it’s with our suppliers or customers or with each other.”

The second value is healthy families. “We believe that healthy families and relationships matter,” Kraushar said, noting that if something comes up in an employee’s family that demands their time and attention, then that is a priority. The employee can be assured that the company will support them without being penalized. Kraushar said that the value of healthy families affects each employee’s daily life and so it makes sense to get involved and support them at the workplace. The third value is recognizing that each staff member is a leader. For instance, Kraushar said that the company’s full-time mechanic

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strives to stay educated and up-todate on the latest technology in his field. When people come to him with issues, he can problem solve. She noted that many of the SK staff attend leadership conferences each year to hone their ability to lead. “It’s amazing to watch our staff take something and run with it. As owners, it’s our job to empower them. That’s why conferences and courses are a must” Because the company values its employees, it provides a full hot breakfast for the staff each day. It’s a time for staff to sit and talk – to discuss the day and often, to find ways to assist or advise each SEE SK FORM AND FINISH | PAGE 21

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