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The mandate of one of Hawaii's largest relocation companies includes caring for people including clients and staff. For 40 years, M. Dyer & Sons have moved all sorts of products from gliders, to fine china or even an antique telephone booth; but more importantly, the Pearl City-based company has moved lives.
According to President and Chief Executive Officer, Rebecca Parker, changing the company's structure and focusing their energy on people instead of products or household goods have been instrumental in employee retention and customer satisfaction. The company has trained its employees, especially the frontline workers, to empathize with clients. The restructuring has also helped increase productivity.
"Moving is a stressful adventure," said Rebecca. "Usually it comes about because you have had a change of life experience, a birth, death, promotion, retirement, marriage or divorce."
"It's training each employee from front desk, customer service to packers, to 'put yourself in their shoes'," she added. "That's really what we changed - our outlook on how we were doing business."
"It wasn't how much tonnage we had, or how many trucks we were running today, or how many moves we're going to complete this year; it was how pleased the client is going to be with the move."
Meanwhile, as the employees own 100% of the company stock through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), M. Dyer shares its success with employees, which Rebecca believes has driven up quality and performance within the workforce since its implementation. The ESOP concept of employee ownership and therefore pride in ownership and a job well done took time to educate employees to improve the client experience and expanding the employee outlook beyond their weekly paycheck.
"It took two to three years really to convince some of what we call the old-timers but I'm so proud of them and it's saying that to them every single day," Rebecca said. "We have an incredible wealth of employees that have been with us 20 to 35 years."
"That says a lot about our success in retaining employees and the level of happiness, and if they're happy, they're gonna serve the client well."
As a way to drive up workforce spirit, Rebecca and M. Dyer empower employees to join community-veered initiatives.
"If you give back to the community, it comes back so many different ways," Rebecca claimed.
One of the company's recent social participation has been the corporate drive to raise funds for Families of SMA. M. Dyer and its employees have donated thousands of dollars into the cause. An M. Dyer moving consultant, Tate Matthews, has joined the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon on June 24 under Skylar's Fight team to generate awareness and raise funds to find a cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). Named after Tate's six-year old nephew, Skylar Bahrenburg, Skylar's Fight team was formed in 2003 as a family-organized fund raising initiative.
M. Dyer and its employees have also been actively engaged with the Hawaii Foodbank where they provide transportation, gather food at the drive, feed and assist in organizing volunteers, provide boxes, and recruit employees to fishnet at various sites island-wide.
This past month M. Dyer assisted in raising funds for Kapiolani Women's & Childrens Hospital as well as a Pearl City clean up project. "Caring for the community, our clients and our employees takes some of the stress out of the moving experience and improves the quality of everyones life" states Rebecca Parker.
For more information about M. Dyer, please visit www.mdyerandsons.com.
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