A Billboard’s Back-story

Jan 19 2007

Anyone who’s been around me very much knows that as the CEO of Doba, I have a passion for treating our employees right. That passion is nothing I can take credit for. It just happens. It happens because Doba is staffed with talented, creative, and dedicated individuals who inspire passion and drive Doba’s vision.

We have a billboard along the I-15 freeway here in Utah. We use it for recruiting and for branding our company here locally. Currently, our billboard looks like this:

Recently, we named Ben Reece Doba Employee of the year. As a small (or not so small) token of our appreciation for Ben’s outstanding performance throughout 2006, we leased a Ford Mustang for him to drive for the year. Ben is a member of our engineering team and has worked with us for two and a half years, consistently going above and beyond his duties to redefine, in my mind, what being a stellar employee really means. Although I’m Doba’s CEO and one of its founders, at the end of the day, I’m still an employee working for this entity I helped create, and as a fellow employee, I look up to Ben. His dedication, effort, and focus are both remarkable and invigorating.

I’ve posted on the topic of valuing employees before when I added some thoughts to a Guy Kawasaki post back in April and said to Focus on Thy Employees! At Doba, our employees are so outstanding we can’t help but focus on them. We have three value statements at Doba relating to employees, customers, and community, and our employees come first. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to focus on our customers, and we certainly would not have achieved the strong sense of community we now enjoy.

The fact is that no business and no individual is really an isolated entity. Employees are not simply cogs that fit into the machinery of a business. I see Doba more as an organic organization whose health relies on the well being of everyone involved. We feed off of one another’s passions. We collaborate on ideas and projects. We toil side by side. And we celebrate both individual and collective achievements.

When we choose to celebrate the achievements of an outstanding employee, we provide a token of appreciation not as a reward but simply as a way of saying thanks for a job well done and thanks for inspiring us all to strive for higher levels of achievement in both our professional and personal lives.

I know that our passionate focus on employees ultimately will help us arrive at our goals to be the best place to work, to deliver our maximum value to our customers, and to positively impact the communities in which we live. I want Doba employees to feel as though working at Doba is the best job they’ve ever had… and the best job they ever will have. Our employees are certainly the best I’ve ever had the opportunity to work alongside.

My only concern is that Doba has so many employees at or approaching Ben’s caliber that we may end up with a fleet of bright yellow Mustang’s next year. ;)

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8 Comments; Filed under Employees
  • http://www.shmula.com/ Pete Abilla

    A lean manufacturing mantra is customer obsession and respect your employees. You and the Doba team are doing this. Great job.

  • http://www.shmula.com Pete Abilla

    A lean manufacturing mantra is customer obsession and respect your employees. You and the Doba team are doing this. Great job.

  • http://stuthewise.blogspot.com Stuart

    I’m a bit embarassed to admit this, but I spoke with another company about a job recently. They told me the pay range was between, umm… let’s just say it was between $7 and $10. On this scale, I can say that my pay at Doba was $8.

    When I was asked how much I would need in compensation were the job offered to me, I said $12, purposely choosing a number outside the range offered. The only way another company is going to take me away is by “buying” my traitorship to Doba with incredibly large amounts of money. I stay with Doba not because of the money (although I will say I’m compensated very fairly, and it certainly doesn’t hurt to have that) but because it’s the AWESOMEST place to work ever. Period.

    Somebody bankrolling me to become a professional gambler might be enticing as well. A guy can dream can’t he? ;)

  • http://www.searchtrends.org/ Dave

    I admire your creativity with the billboard, but even more I admire the way you treat your employees at Doba. It obviously pays off as demonstrated by that last comment. As a business owner I am inspired by this attitude of treating employees right. I believe that you do it because it’s the right thing to do, but you get a lot of other benefits from it as well…loyalty, hard work, happy employees…

  • http://www.searchtrends.org Dave

    I admire your creativity with the billboard, but even more I admire the way you treat your employees at Doba. It obviously pays off as demonstrated by that last comment. As a business owner I am inspired by this attitude of treating employees right. I believe that you do it because it’s the right thing to do, but you get a lot of other benefits from it as well…loyalty, hard work, happy employees…

  • http://www.benreece.org/ Ben

    The Mustang is a lot of fun. I drive it every chance I get. When it was awarded at the company holiday party I was floored.

    I love working at Doba — I’ve said before that it’s a dream job. I put my all into helping us realize your vision for the company because I love my work.

    The interesting thing about having been recognized as the employee of the year is that I have begun to look around at my peers and see how many of them feel the same way about Doba that I do, and work toward the same end. So many are very dedicated and loyal to Doba.

    Thanks again for everything.

  • http://www.benreece.org/ Ben

    The Mustang is a lot of fun. I drive it every chance I get. When it was awarded at the company holiday party I was floored.

    I love working at Doba — I’ve said before that it’s a dream job. I put my all into helping us realize your vision for the company because I love my work.

    The interesting thing about having been recognized as the employee of the year is that I have begun to look around at my peers and see how many of them feel the same way about Doba that I do, and work toward the same end. So many are very dedicated and loyal to Doba.

    Thanks again for everything.

  • http://stuthewise.blogspot.com/ Stuart

    I'm a bit embarassed to admit this, but I spoke with another company about a job recently. They told me the pay range was between, umm… let's just say it was between $7 and $10. On this scale, I can say that my pay at Doba was $8.

    When I was asked how much I would need in compensation were the job offered to me, I said $12, purposely choosing a number outside the range offered. The only way another company is going to take me away is by “buying” my traitorship to Doba with incredibly large amounts of money. I stay with Doba not because of the money (although I will say I'm compensated very fairly, and it certainly doesn't hurt to have that) but because it's the AWESOMEST place to work ever. Period.

    Somebody bankrolling me to become a professional gambler might be enticing as well. A guy can dream can't he? ;)

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