David Evans MBE, founder of £284m business Grass Roots, on why having a clear set of values is the secret to his staff retention success.
David Evans’ business services firm Grass Roots has featured in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work for list for the past three years running. Many of his directors started as fresh-faced, twenty-something postgraduates and he regularly dishes out awards for 10, 15, even 25 years’ service to members of his 1,000-strong team, which spans 20 countries.
It’s no secret that the ability to hold on to star players is one that many entrepreneurs covet. Staff retention saves money on recruitment and training, as well as helping to retain knowledge within the company, which in turn can improve customer service. Many recent studies have warned employers of a talent exodus as the recovery kicks in, as disenchanted staff who have sat tight through a slow labour market get the motivation to leave, meaning this issue could soon become even more pressing.
Evans is the first to admit that achieving this has required a lot of effort and hard work on his part. At 62, he still plays an active role in maintaining the company culture and is “still knocking out 70 hours a week”. He reckons that in typical working-hour terms, he’s packed 45 years’ worth of work in to 30.
But what makes Grass Roots one of the best companies to work for? Evans says the answer is surprisingly simple: “our success is the embodiment of our philosophy.”
The philosophy
Evans insists that his values and principles are – and always have been – equally as important as the business idea itself. Having a clear set of principles attracts like-minded people, keeps your team focused and motivated and can help to maintain service levels.
And, while making money has never been the sole driving force, it’s something that Grass Roots (which helps clients to deliver better sales and customer service) has become exceptionally good at. “I think one is the outcome of the other,” he says.
As well as his impressive staff retention record, staying true to his values earned him an MBE for services to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in 2008. However, has also created a business that’s turning over £284m a year. “The great Mahatma Gandhi said if you take care of the means, the end will take care of itself. In a sense, the means to my end is having wonderfully motivated people, whose talents are being self-explored, not exploited,” he says.
When he started Grass Roots 30 years ago, Evans’ working life had given him the impression that people were often being underrated by corporations. “They hired people, told them what to do and they expected no more. I felt that for better or for worse there was more in everybody,” he says.
“I didn’t believe that just bribing people makes a difference. I felt that you had to communicate properly, educate properly, measure what people were doing, and if they did well, reward and recognise them.”
Evans has been approached by very large organisations looking for help on how to introduce a set of values [see panel]. He says he always cautions them that they have to be enduring and cannot be changed regularly – either you value something or you don’t.
At Grass Roots, it was never something to pay lip service to. He saw a link between highly engaged and empowered staff and commercial triumph, and he believes his subsequent success is down to an organisation “which believes in itself and its values”.