How Craighead Electric Prioritized Employee Engagement Through Change and Succession Management Using Leadr

 

“Even good change comes with challenges - it’s how you respond to those that help encourage growth.” 

Craighead Electric, a company with a legacy of 86 years of service to its community and its customers, has experienced sustained and exciting growth since its inception. A member-owned, not-for-profit electric company incorporated in 1937, operates offices in Jonesboro, Walnut Ridge, and Paragould, Arkansas. 

When they first began following the Rural Electrification Act instituted by President Roosevelt, membership dues were just $5, with many members trading goods, produce, and animals in exchange for membership. Since then they’ve come a long way: the cooperative now serves more than 32,000 members with a team of 150 working on initiatives like expanding fiber internet to rural communities and generally taking care of the people in the area with a vital product. In addition to their own team, they also have a subsidiary internet company, Empower Broadband, that adds a layer of service to what they offer to customers. 

In addition to natural growth over the years, Craighead also welcomed a new CEO to lead the company in 2022 when their previous CEO retired after 44 years. This drastic change fueled an exciting vision for the next century of business, but even in seasons of high growth, change can be challenging. 

“Even when people say they’re enthusiastic about change when it comes down to it, no one really likes change, especially when it comes to day-to-day processes. We knew we’d need a special focus on employee engagement and morale during this culture shift. That’s what led us to find a people-focused solution like Leadr,” said Brittney McNamee, Vice President of Human Resources at Craighead Electric. 

Craighead Electric needed a simple solution to ensure their values remained consistent despite the recent changes. Their goal in seeking a software solution was to reflect the same commitment to service and people internally as they do for their customers. 

Leadr’s software, especially the Insights feature, was the right next step to building unity in this season. Craighead Electric found it simple to onboard, easy to engage with, and appreciated that it answered questions like:

• How do I focus on my people’s unique needs in a one-on-one meeting?
• How can we build enough trust to encourage open feedback from our staff?
• What changes, vision, or goals are the best fit for the company after hearing honest and open feedback from the team themselves?

Leadr aided Craighead Electric in navigating change and succession management.

“The best way to make people feel comfortable, especially when it comes to succession management, is communication,” Brittney said. 

Although the leaders of Criaghead Electric did their best with internal communication, new fears and questions sprouted about how operations would continue smoothly when a staple employee leaves or retires. Leadr elevated their ability to communicate internally with their team by providing a hub for information and, most importantly, communication and encouragement from the incoming CEO, Jeremiah Sloan. 

“It was important to us that it was not just our team hearing from us, but us hearing from them too,” Brittney said. “Leadr has allowed our employees to feel like they have a voice that is heard.” 

Throughout the process, Brittney emphasized her appreciation that Leadr was with them every step of the way. 

“I’m a question asker. I always have questions and I meet with our Leadr representative regularly,” Brittney said. “They never made me feel like I had too many questions, and they were so responsive and great about finding an answer for us or making sure that they elevated questions to someone who could help promptly, and checked in along the way. They made us feel like we strive to make our customers feel - and we knew it was a great match.” 

Leadr meetings support employee engagement and foster company culture. 

After deciding to adopt Leadr, Craighead began to roll out the software gradually to make the software more digestible for their team. They started by implementing one-on-one meetings inside Leadr, beginning with their executive team. 

Once all Craighead leaders were on board with the process, they had a one-on-one meeting process to implement throughout the org chart.

Using Leadr, Craighead Electric was able to successfully roll out a company-wide one-on-one meeting structure with focused and guided expectations to create stronger organizational alignment.

Leadr’s hands-on training and simple interface allowed them to roll out their meeting structure without overwhelming the team with new processes. 

“We didn’t have a way to track goals. We were just going with a gut feeling,” Brittney said. “Our supervisors are in the daily grind. They are meeting with direct report employees regularly, but without a way to track conversations, it was hard to know if it was a passing interaction or a tangible plan to take back to your desk and reflect on and implement.” 

Craighead found that the one-on-one meeting is a tool to build honest, open-door relationships between a supervisor and a direct report, but it’s also a way to build intentional space for alignment, clarity, feedback both ways and questions, reducing the chance that scattered emails or in-passing conversations mean information slips through the cracks. 

After the adjustment period, they realized that different team members had different meeting needs - some needed weekly meetings and others thrived with biweekly or monthly meetings. Leadr’s software added versatility and flexibility to the process but still encouraged engagement company-wide. 

At first, supervisors led all one-on-one meetings and managed the agenda inside of Leadr. Once one-on-ones became a regular rhythm, the next step was having employees add agenda topics - an unfamiliar initiative for some. 

But the awkwardness soon subsided as team members began “leading up”  and adding more than one agenda topic, bringing ideas and feedback to the table at meetings. 

Leadr’s one-on-one software allows Craighead’s supervisory team to document weekly meetings. Seeing that history over time meant more intentional conversations and an opportunity to highlight individual growth and professional development needs throught the year.

When it came time for annual reviews, there weren’t any questions: it was easy to look back at previous meetings and say, “look how much you’ve improved and grown,” and celebrate “the happies” along with the areas for improvement. 

Employees should not be surprised by the feedback they receive in their annual reviews, but they should have clarity on how they need to grow, and be able to celebrate all the ways they contribute in valuable ways only they can do. Having our goals, projects, and growth areas documented throughout the year made the evaluation process much more valuable, Brittney said. 

That engagement signaled that Craighead was ready for the next step with Leadr.

Leadr Insights marks the next steps for growth for Craighead Electric. 

Once comfortable with one-on-one meetings company-wide, Craighead Electric began implementing Leadr Insights Surveys, knowing that two-way communication and employee feedback was invaluable insight to accurately measure and track. 

“The nice thing about Insights is that it’s valuable feedback that encourages openness and honesty and it doesn’t necessarily require a meeting. The one-on-ones are powerful relationship builders, but it’s also valuable for us to see what our team is thinking in a more broad sense,” Brittney said. 

The Leadr Insights feature does exactly that: reveals the return on investment of employee development across teams, departments, and employee groups. It’s also an easy, quick, and anonymous process. The surveys ask similar questions over time to see how engagement changes through different seasons. 

Insights has helped the Craighead leadership team make more informed decisions with their employees front-of-mind as they create strategic business plans such as their 2024 goals. The Insights Surveys, though anonymous, built a stronger sense of teamwork among their employees. 

Brittney also raved about Leadr Goals. Craighead hopes to demonstrate the power that goal setting has for each team member as they better understand how they contribute to the company's big-picture goals. 

Long-term success using Leadr. 

Leadr’s software helped Craighead Electric streamline its processes and find the right feedback for optimal growth over the long term - hopefully for another 86 years and more! 

Their decades of experience have brought about many changes, but these challenges have been confidently navigated by Craighead Electric. They have approached the process with intentionality and care, taking one step at a time to build a strong foundation and culture of feedback. 

Their goal, amidst producing and managing a critical product in their industry, is to care more about people than anything else - whether that is internal or external. That vision helped them zero in on the how - how do you measure that? How do you implement that? 

Implementing Leadr’s many features one step at a time has served as a tangible tool that’s helped them clarify the “why” and move forward with the “how to,” translating to long-term success in development, sustainable growth, and employees who look forward to growing alongside the company. 

Leadr will help you clarify and take action by focusing on people first so you can grow confidently, even in seasons of change. Our people development software provides you with the roadmap and tools that you need to raise up the next generation of leaders. Request a demo to see Leadr in action.