The Right People with the Right Training

energy retrofits with paybacks from savings garnered by the customer – a good idea but one that didn’t work, at least in this instance, because of an unsuccessful partnership and an ineffective business model. Jeff wanted a second shot at the business he knew well, and he was looking for a new partner. I saw a great opportunity here and we joined forces in 2009. What started as a small company with just Jeff has already grown into a successful business with about 20 employees.

Viridian established itself as a onestop company for building automation requirements, such as CCTV, security, and other new technologies. Since there was a fair bit of overlap with Naylor’s cabling and communication division, we decided that Viridian should absorb that part of Naylor. The two businesses are perfectly complementary in the smart building industry. A big side benefit for Naylor is that it can perform much of the electrical and mechanical work for the projects that evolve out of the controls and security piece.

The Right People with the Right Training

To grow a business like ours, you need dynamic leadership that is always changing and learning, and that is inspirational and strategic. It also requires people who can rise to the challenges of a quickly growing business, because a person who can successfully manage a small company is not necessarily equipped to run a large one. For this reason, continued education is paramount in our business.

We cannot remain relevant to our customers if we are outdated. Naylor employees are often sent to supplier sponsored training or other educational courses. We also have a unique focus on soft skills training because we are a customer-centric business, and proper communication skills are necessary. We want to create lasting relationships with our customers, which is why our official name includes our focus on our customer relationship, “Building Partnerships”. When we gain a customer in one area, our goal is to build on that and to continuously provide our customer with more of our services.

The employee who is closest to the customer is responsible for our dealings with that customer, for representing us, and for making decisions on behalf of the company. Our employees, therefore, receive ongoing training that provides them with the tools to deal with customers, suppliers, and coworkers effectively. I believe that this provides

our employees with a double advantage, because their spouses and families also benefit from their improved communication skills.

To manage our training more effectively, we created a formal human relations department in 2005. Today, we are taking this one step further, and developing the Naylor Institute of Training. We have created official job descriptions for every position in the company, and are pairing each position with an ideal skill set. This enables us to create training paths that allow our people to reach their maximum potential; if an employee wishes to change job functions, then we will develop an individualized training program that will provide the skills required to reach those career objectives.

Centralizing Operations and Maximizing Efficiency

Over the years, we have changed the structure of our company to centralize operations as much as possible. We have four geographic offices out of which our mechanics, operations managers, and service managers work, while our sales people are located in the communities they service. Having offices that span from Cambridge to Richmond Hill allows us to provide comprehensive service coverage all the way from London to Oshawa, and north to Peterborough and Barrie.

Naylor has a long history of maximizing efficiency, which is why we were one of the first businesses in our field to become ISO certified – which we did in 1997. ISO guidelines ensure consistency, and encourage us to constantly examine our procedures and search for ways to improve the delivery of our services. We thank the ISO process for giving us the disciplines we needed to constantly look at how we were doing things. By 2013 .. we felt we had good

Roy Janssen, winter 1987.

enough systems and processes in place that we no longer needed ISO regulation so we dropped out of that program and concentrate now on our own methodologies. It is very important for us to constantly look at how we can do things better so we can stay relevant for our customers. We are more focused on this approach now than we have ever been.

We have also invested heavily in our accounting and project management systems. In 2011, we moved to a web-based mobile application that has been very well received by customers and employees alike.

We are on the cutting edge in this area, and have developed our own software systems. While we are not yet a fully paperless company, we are doing much of our work electronically. Our transition into more modern business practices will happen more rapidly in the coming years, because the next generation of business leaders has been fully immersed in technology since a young age. The next groups of people who will run this company are fully connected and computer literate, and will help to transition the company to a mainly digital format.

Just like today’s technologies, the needs of our customers are constantly changing, and therefore, so too are our market offerings. It is no longer sufficient to just maintain and repair equipment; our customers want to know what work we have performed, what else we recommend to be done, and they want this information to be readily available and easily accessible by them without having to deal with our staff. For this reason, we continue to invest in our information technology systems, especially those that provide data to our customers. The cost of this could be quite prohibitive for smaller contractors, but the alternative to remaining technologically state-of-the-art is becoming marginalized, and many of our new customers join the Naylor team because of the accessibility of our information systems.

I am certain that the future holds many exciting things for Naylor. We are currently still a mid-sized company, but I am confident that we will see our numbers exceed 500 employees, and that will be an incredible accomplishment. Evolving technologies will also impact the business, both in terms of the new directions that we will take and how they will change our operational procedures. My tenure at Naylor will end before much of this comes to pass, and those achievements will be left for the next generation.

The People Behind Our Company’s Story

Naylor has been very fortunate over the years to have so many incredible people involved with the company who have worked so hard to bring our dreams and goals to fruition. I am going to highlight the two senior operators who were guiding lights of the development of our business. They were fortunate in having a long list of good people backing them up as we went into growth mode.

George O’Hearn and the Service Sector

George O’Hearn began his career as a motor rewinder before he became licensed in HVAC and gas fitting. He had only been working in the trade for a few years and was promoted to service manager, which is where he was when I arrived in 1984. At that time, there were about 10 people working in service, and about half of the department’s $800,000 in revenue came from one client, the Halton District School Board.

One of the first challenges I wanted to tackle was to bring on new customers, to reduce our dependency on only a few people for survival. We needed a proper sales force— people equipped with an understanding of our message and the proper materials—so George hired some salespeople to spread the word about Naylor. We had some interesting characters in the early days, but they always did their best with what we could provide. Over time, we learned from our victories and our mistakes whilst constantly improving our approach, and eventually we won some new accounts, with George always cheering on everyone’s efforts.

We also knew that it would be wise to examine how other contractors were succeeding, so George participated in several industryrelated forums. He also took an 18-monthlong management training course offered by the American Management Association that educated him in the key areas required to run an expanding operation: human resources, finance, accounting, marketing, and sales.

George O’Hearn addressing Oakville staff at our semiannual meetings with all employees, 1998.

As our customer base grew, so too did our field forces. George always had a knack for selecting the young mechanics with the greatest potential, many of whom moved on to become service supervisors and managers within the company. Under George’s careful stewardship, our service business grew to over $20 million annually by 2010. He is now our senior health and safety officer, and in charge of our human relations department. The industry experience he has gained over his years is invaluable, and we are privileged to have him as our senior trainer for the next group of young employees.

Colin Harkness and Electrical

Another key operator in our first 25 years was Colin Harkness.

He arrived at Naylor when he was 3 ..6, as an electrician who also had experience as a foreman on small projects, inside estimating, and with sales. Colin was around long enough to see Naylor’s electrical outfit grow from his one-man operation into a $25 million business in 2012. The size of our field force peaked in the summer of 2011 when we had over 80 people, plus a group of engineers and field people who worked on inside sales, estimating, supervising, and project management.

Like George, Colin took the AMA management training course, and participated in many industry groups over the years that helped us to expand. He had a great work ethic that encouraged determination and productivity in others. Labour slowdowns and changes in the economic environment only prompted him to work harder to find projects for our electricians.

In the early ‘90s, we came across an opportunity at a large industrial firm, Ford Electronics, which manufactured electronic components for the automotive industry. In the summer of 1990 an impending labour disruption in the form of a strike from their IBEW unionized contractor threatened the viability of that summer’s shutdown program. Colin and I agreed to meet with the plant manager, where in it was discovered that within a three-week period, he wanted to move, change, and upgrade about half of the assembly line operations in this 250,000 square foot plant that housed millions of dollars in equipment. Taking this job would have required every electrician, millwright, HVAC and sheet metal mechanic in our employ to work around the clock the for duration of the project.

Casey Boers, ( Senior Vice President, Service 2013) on the tools as an HVAC mechanic, 1992. I believed that this project was interesting, but beyond our skills and capability. I assumed Colin’s answer would be the same as mine, but his take was slightly different: he felt we absolutely had the skills to do the job but we didn’t have was enough people to get it done in time. We talked about it further, and decided to put out some calls to our competitors to see if we could put together a workforce large enough to do the shutdown while still having enough people to service our regular customers.

We managed to put together a large enough crew, over 50 people in total, and not only did we get that shutdown done, but we also continued to get projects from Ford Electronics until the plant was sold 10 years later. From this endeavour we learned two very valuable lessons. First, we had become incredibly competent as a multitrade contractor; secondly, we had been around long enough and worked hard enough to have gained the respect of our competitors. Just as importantly, we also discovered that competitors were not always opponents, and at times they could even be allies. It was possible to be better together than we were alone, and this knowledge was gained thanks to Colin’s confidence.

Colin retired in 2012, but his final task at Naylor was to help us develop a mechanical project group to complement a similar group on the electrical side of the business. Forever the humble character, Colin would often say that “I am just an estimator.” In reality, he was a strong leader and a corporate builder who left Naylor with a lasting legacy. He had a permanent impact on the lives of the people he trained.

Providing Employees with Opportunity

Every one of the senior operators in Naylor’s service division got to those positions by starting at an entry level position and moving up through the ranks. The typical

progression is this: you start out as an apprentice, become a service technician, and eventually become a supervisor. The next promotion is to service manager, and in rare cases, like that of Casey Boers, the next step is becoming senior vice president of an entire division.

Casey was just a 17-year-old sheet metal apprentice when I arrived at Naylor, but he soon moved over to HVAC and finished his apprenticeship there. He went through the usual stages, moving his way up from field technician to a supervisor in Cambridge, then back to Oakville as a service manager around 2003 ... He wanted a more formal education, so he completed the University of Toronto’s MBA program, from which he graduated in 2009. In a class of 50 people, he was one of only three who did not have an

Jim Breedon at Woodbridge Foam in 1998. undergraduate degree, and he still graduated in the top half of the class.

Bill Moore is another employee who worked his way up from the field, and once there he helped build our Toronto office from the ground up. When Bill became the service manager in Toronto in the late ‘80s, only a few people worked in that office, meanwhile today it is among our biggest service units. He is now responsible for our project business in Toronto, designing and supervising the installation of mechanical and electrical systems.

If Naylor had a medal to give for the most versatile employee, it would certainly be awarded to Gord Petrie. He was responsible for opening our Brampton service office back in the ‘90s, he filled in for Colin in the electrical department during an extended sick leave, and he served as the senior operator in our compressed air business. He recently passed off the reins of that division to a new operations manager, Daryl Spain, and Gord has become head of mechanical projects in the Cambridge and Milton area.

Many of Naylor’s long-standing service or operations managers had full histories with the company before moving into one of the offices, and this includes people such as Roy Janssen, Paul Breedon, Paul McFadden, and

Greg Geim. There are also some newer arrivals in the senior positions, people who recently moved into management or supervisory roles after stellar field careers, and that would be people like Bill Cronin, Adam Davies, Piero Quaglia, and James Moreau.

Naylor also offers great lasting career opportunities for our field mechanics and electricians. Carl Hughes, for one, started as a motor rewinder and ended up as an HVAC mechanic with a specialization in boilers. Carl was instrumental in introducing our apprentice mentoring program, was part of the group that created The Association, and served as its president for many years.

The projects group contains a mix of field people and engineers. This group is currently headed up by Brian Brower, whose dad,

Carl Hughes rewinding a motor in our shop, 1984. Gary worked for us throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s as a superintendent. Brian joined us as a young HVAC apprentice, and had a fine career in the field before becoming an operations manager in service, and then a service manager in Oakville. Brian spent several years part time attending McMaster University’s management program which he graduated from in 2013 ... He is supported by many of our long term people like Gord Petrie and Bill Moore plus several young engineers.

To thank these many long-serving employees, we started having 20-year-club dinners every five years. When I started at Naylor in 1984, there were 19 employees; when we held our first dinner 20 years later, there were 10 attendees, meaning that half of the original employees were still with the company. In 2009, the second dinner had 19 attendees. These dinners highlight the dedication of our people, and hosting them makes me proud that we have managed to create such a friendly and open atmosphere that encourages lasting commitments.

Most Naylor employees come to us for a lifelong career, but on occasion we do have people find outside opportunities. It has always been our philosophy to encourage them and wish them the best on their new

paths. Almost invariably, when people leave Naylor they end up working in a related industry, and become permanent customers of ours. We have had several successful partnerships begin from such circumstances.

Making Way for the Next Generation

Many of our mechanics have had long and successful careers with us, and we are now fortunate to have some of their children joining our ranks. Several new employees are following in the footsteps of a parent, and double generation families now include the Roszell’s, the Boers’, the Cronin’s, the Russell’s, and the Barnes’. We always encourage our employees’ children to work for us in the summer, and three of my four children worked at Naylor in some capacity during their school years.

Along with recruiting from within Naylor’s extended family, we have also started enlisting engineering graduates to fill important positions in project management and estimating. Each new graduate is immediately given practical experience, and starts out working alongside our electricians and mechanical tradespeople in the field. Our motto is simple: there’s no better way to learn something new than by doing it yourself.

We have hired engineers from various universities, but the majority of them are from McMaster in Hamilton.

We eventually developed a formal program that brings in three or four engineering graduates every year. They are put on a oneyear rotational program that provides them with a well-rounded understanding of our entire operation. At the end of that time, we assign them to a group fulltime, based on their own interests and skills, and the recommendations of our managers. Once or twice, however, we have had to stop a rotation early, because the managers in a particular division wanted the graduate placed with them immediately.

Given everything I have experienced over the years, it strikes me as odd how often I hear baby boomers complain that the younger generations do not share our same work ethic. I have found time and time again that this simply is not true. They see life a little differently, but overall they want the same things as the generation before them: a good education, fair opportunities, and a stimulating and progressive work environment. And in Naylor’s case at least,

I also do not see evidence of people today switching jobs more than they did in the past, as most of our employees come to us looking for permanent careers.

I am optimistic that the young people of today are every bit as loyal and dedicated as the generations of employees that have come before. They are better educated, more technologically aware, have newer and faster ways of communicating, are better adapted to our quickly changing world, and will be more efficient than we ever were. It is a wonderful time to be starting a career, and companies like ours will benefit greatly from the modernization that will occur as the next generation takes over.

Safety is a Priority

We operate in many environments – from condos and seniors’ apartments to heavy industrial manufacturing. Each one has its own needs, both in how we deal with our customers and also in what the workplace looks like. We are very aware of the dangers involved and we have always had a major emphasis on safety. We want all our people to go home each night with the same good health they started out with the beginning of the day. Our Health and Safety policies are leading edge in our industry. Our training is always at or above provincial requirements. It is only through training that we can truly have the proper respect of the dangers of the environments we work in. We have had a few accidents over the years, and yes some were serious; however, we have always had our employees ‘go home’. We are rated at the Workers’ Compensation Board of Ontario and our norms are to be in the top quartile with lost time injuries and we have attained this mark more often than not. Where we are extra cautious is with new employees – especially the young apprentices where this might be one of their first jobs. With proper mentoring from their journeymen supervisors they will learn the right way to approach a project, one that is both effective and safe. When we are on customers’ jobsites and the equipment we work on or the site where it is located has an unsafe component to it we request that the customer remedy the problem or we do not do our work. In a very few cases we have had to ‘disconnect’ from a customer and turn them into a noncustomer. This obviously is a very dramatic outcome and almost never happens but it has occurred in my career. We will never knowingly put any of our people at risk!