In 1972, Ivan Garman built his first home and established the foundation of Garman Builders. His focus, even while keeping his own business in mind, was making sure his team was taken care of.
More than 50 years later, Garman Builders is co-owned by the late Ivan Garman’s sons, Jason and Shawn Garman, who are continuing their father’s commitment to cultivate an environment that consistently evolves to meet its employees’ needs.
For Jason Garman, who is also president of construction and land acquisition, there’s a sense of continuous improvement in the office. And that dedication to improvement is among the reasons the family-owned business was named to the Top Workplaces survey this year for the first time, placing 20th among employers with 125 or fewer employees.
“It’s a constant moving target,” Garman said. “We’re constantly chasing it. … It’s trying to stay on top of that by using HR’s contact with people, contact with other companies, and reaching out to different survey companies and getting information and constantly reaching out to our team to see what’s needed next.”
What’s needed varies day to day, something Garman said he witnessed from a young age, when his father would always find work for employees during slow construction periods.
“He always cared about his employees or team members,” Garman said. “He knew how important it was not to just have a good job, but to have a stable job.”
Director of Administration and Human Resources Rebecca Rupley said being named a Top Workplace speaks volumes to the efforts made by Garman Builders to put employees first.
“It says a lot about what we’ve been doing over the years to make this a great place for our team members,” Rupley said. “[To] make it a place people want to work and feel comfortable.”
Rupley said Garman Builders places heavy emphasis on conducting surveys to receive feedback and find ways to improve the overall experience for employees. In its most recent survey, one word was commonly used to describe the Garman culture: “caring.”
“That made us really happy because it’s our foundational core value,” Rupley said. “And I love that we care about our team as whole people, not just as employees. And I think that makes a really big difference.”
Core values are an integral part of Garman Builders’ success, she said. Recently the company went back to the drawing board to refresh them, a project that Rupley takes tremendous pride in.
“Last year, we sat down and went through an extensive process of figuring out how can we refresh these values to make them really practical, able to use in the everyday,” Rupley said, “and we did rollouts throughout the company in small groups. And what I loved about the rollout is we spent a lot of time for the team just to figure out their own personal core values, before we got to the company core values.”
The most significant change, she said, was better-defining values that were more substantive and equally shared between leadership and the team.
“For example, one of our former values was ‘Creativity — the enjoyment that results from innovative craftsmanship leading to unique features and distinctive design.’ While we still value creativity and innovations, our new value, ‘We are committed to excellence,’ speaks to each employee and the role they play in our collective success, regardless of their position within the company. We routinely ask employees to recognize colleagues who are living out these values day to day. This allows us to incorporate our shared values into our every day in a more meaningful way,” she said.
Jason Garman said this level of employee care is one of the key differences that sets Garman apart from its competitors. The employees, he said, give the company what he calls the “Garman edge.”
“I think if we had to give up our people, that’d be the hardest thing to recover from,” Garman said. “I mean, I think you can take your financial hit. I think you can take a product hit. But I think if you lose your key people, your good people, I think that’s going to be hard to recover from.”
Garman said the good people who are part of the company aren’t just the ones on their payroll, but also their “subcontractors, subs, vendors [and] professional relationships.”
In an ever-evolving workforce, there is no such thing as staying content at Garman Builders, he said.
“If we continue to do the exact same things we’re doing today, we will not be a top workplace tomorrow,” Garman said.
Figuring out what is important to the Garman Builders team comes from their open-door policy, something Rupley said is key for a better work life.
“A lot of places say they have an open-door policy, but we really mean it here,” Rupley said. “We want the feedback; we want to be a listening ear. And we want to be able to continue to improve that employee experience.”
Serving as a listening ear allows the company to improve the work-life balance, including personal time, flexible work schedule and holidays, Garman said. “If you’re not striving to be better right now, you’re already falling behind.”
“[When I] look at the evolution of the whole thing and see where we’re going, I think it’s great,” Garman said. “And it’s great to see what team members and employees are getting today compared to what they were in the ’70s … the ’80s and the ’90s.”
Joe Eckstein is a freelance writer.
Garman Builders
No. 20 small employer
Founded: 1972
Ownership: Private
Sector: Building construction
Employees: 97
Website: garmanbuilders.com
