MANAGEMENT CORNER
Supporting Career Growth
in Employees
Nurture workers with high potential by offering opportunities to explore
other areas of expertise and move up in the company.
BY LINDSAY COLE AND ANDREA BAERENWALD
ONE OF THE KEYS TO RETAINING MOTIVATED
EMPLOYEES is through thoughtful support of their career goals.
From Cape Associates’ inception, we have been a company
providing, encouraging and facilitating advancement of our
employees. Former owner and president Michael Cole started
here as a carpenter for his father-in-law and then moved into
the office to become a project manager, then vice president, then
president and owner.
He’s not an isolated case. More than 25 years ago, one of our
truck drivers started nurturing what is now our home property
watch division (in which we offer property checks for many
homes and commercial buildings). He also started running small
carpentry jobs and is now a vice president, running hundreds
of jobs for the services division each year, overseeing $1M-plus
in sales annually. Our director of property management started
as a part-time administrative assistant, moved into assisting the
Home Watch team, and now runs the department.
Then there is a carpenter-turned-executive vice
president. Once working in the field, he moved into project
management, running so many projects that he became, and
has remained, one of our top sales people as well as one of our
current executive vice presidents and now a co-owner.
Not every employee will possess this kind of motivation, and
that’s okay. But it’s crucial to nurture and support the talented
employees that do.
Retention and internal advancement are made possible
because a company realizes its employees as valuable assets.
Training opportunities must be frequent—whether it’s bringing
in instructors, paying for external classes, or constant on-thejob
training and support from co-workers. Regular meetings
with management must provide an important platform for each
employee to discuss their performance, growth and future goals.
Cape Associates is fortunate to be large enough to offer many
varied career paths, all under the construction industry umbrella.
Employees starting out in the industry, perhaps as a laborer for
example, have many options for change and advancement within
our company. Someone who wants to learn a different trade has the
opportunity to do so while on the job. Moving from carpentry to
plumbing or property inspection, for example, is possible.
Even within our team of project managers there are many
different areas of interest. We have people who love numbers, who
are able to focus and develop our use of spreadsheets, templates
and software and share their work with the team. Others have
engineering interests and are able to take on our most complicated
projects. One project manager is also a designer.
Sometimes it is because employees knew the path they wanted
to take upon being hired. Other times, these paths would not
likely have been discussed or even imagined during the interview
process. In the latter cases, one must nurture and value the talents
that individuals develop and see in themselves over time. The
skills and passion any given employee brings to the table can
dictate their success at Cape Associates, which, in turn, will help
encourage them to stay, because they’re doing something they
enjoy and have chosen for themselves.
The overall building industry is quite a diverse field, which
is why it’s unfortunate to currently have such a shortage of
talent nation-wide. It’s a stable industry with unlimited growth
potential: Even without a college degree, it’s possible to make a
solid career and good money. So nurture the talent you have; it
will pay off in the short- and long- term to the bottom line, by
building company morale and increasing your output.
Lindsay Cole is the Director of Human Resources at
Cape Associates and Andrea Baerenwald is the company’s
Director of Marketing.
AT HOME ON CAPE COD 68 • SPRING/SUMMER 2019