Good employees can make a decent company great. Bad employees can ruin one. Just ask Terry Jeske, the owner of Supreme Vac in Edmonton, Alberta, a company that suffered greatly in its early years due to poor employee performance. 

As such, the firm, which cleans municipal and industrial pipelines and also performs oilfield services work, was especially motivated to develop ways to increase the odds of finding not only qualified, but quality employees. Part of the solution came from his twin sons, Braydon and Bryce, who joined the company in 2009 and 2010, and recruited friends to come and work with them. They also obtained word-of-mouth referrals about reputable workers from their friends. 

“You need good people working for you,” Braydon says. “You can have all the best equipment in the world, but having competent employees to operate the equipment is the most important thing. And they’re hard to find. 

“We try to hire guys we know or have known,” he continues. “We’re not looking for guys who just want to get a paycheck. We want guys who really want to make a difference — want to do a job right and generate repeat business.” 

To attract that kind of employee, Supreme Vac pays competitive salaries and offers annual performance-based financial bonuses. The company also tries to create a family-like atmosphere where employees feel valued and respected. For example, when employees work unusually long shifts — say, 12 hours — the company will buy them meals. The company also periodically takes employees out for team-building dinners, Braydon says. 

“We’ve even sent employees on vacations as a reward for great performance,” he notes. “We try to maintain a small-company feel. We don’t want to treat our guys like numbers. If you have employees who respect you, they’ll also respect the equipment and your customers. So you have to treat them with dignity and respect.” 

In instances where the company interviews prospective employees without a word-of-mouth reference, it requires a drug test. The company also obtains a driver’s abstract that shows traffic violations, accidents and such. “We also ask them point blank if they do drugs, drink or smoke,” Bryce says. “And if they say, ‘No,’ I blatantly ask them, ‘Why not?’ You get the vibe. … You can tell if they’re telling the truth or not.”

Read more about Supreme Vac and how the company has successfully branched into new services to build a bigger, more stable customer base in the January 2016 issue of Cleaner.