There’s an old joke that Matt O’Keefe once told me:
A visitor, getting a tour of a factory, asks, “How many people work here?"
The manager responds, “About half.”
That joke still makes me laugh today. I’m not sure why I find it so funny since I don’t feel that way about Seven Cycles at all. Pretty much everyone at Seven works their rear ends off. This past week was no exception. We had an important request from one of our distributors that required we increase production output by over 30% from our average production steady state this season. The production team rallied—and even folks in the office helped cover some extra bases. A 30% change in throughput in a 5-day period is really difficult—in most production settings it would be pretty near impossible; regardless, the team pulled together and we actually exceeded the goal!
So, a visitor asked me the other day about the average tenure at Seven—after asking me how many people work here. I didn’t respond with a joke—even though I was tempted; I am a fairly sarcastic guy.
The inquisitor also wanted to know if we have trouble retaining employees. Do we have high turnover? My answers were, ‘no’ and, ‘no’. He looked at me with doubt—it is a manufacturing business after all, and no one likes working in manufacturing anymore…
To support my double negative answers I told him what I remember to be the average tenure at Seven. He didn’t believe me; so, I ran the numbers in order to confirm my memory. Here’s what it looks like:
- 40% of the team has been with Seven for five years or longer.
- 25% of the team has been with Seven for ten years or longer.
- Six people on the Seven team have been working with me for
much longer than Seven has existed—the shortest
tenure is more than 15-years .
- Seven’s lead welder—Tim Delaney—and I have been working together
longest—more than 21-years. Ouch.
Now, this is not to say that Seven is a cush’ place to work. It’s not; ask anyone that works here. However, we’ve found that people either stay for a long time—because they find meaning in the work—or they get shelled off the back pretty quickly.
So, the next time someone asks me, “How many people work at Seven?” I’ll respond, “All of the best ones.” With a proud smile and no sarcasm.
Comments