Employees recently sent in questions they would like to see addressed by the management team. Due to the volume of questions that were sent in, we have sorted them into five posts related to the following categories: general business, technology, BPLP operations, growth and human resources.
What can be done to get everyone to abide by the dress code?
Janice Serpico, chief human resources officer: We have left the enforcement of the dress code policy up to managers because they are closely aligned with their employees. We continue to review and clarify the dress code policy to ensure it is less ambiguous and provides for greater consistency. If you are concerned about how a person is dressing, you may bring it to human resources, and the issue will be reviewed.
What are the chances of MFA Oil adopting a yearly cost of living adjustment?
Janice Serpico: Every year we review merit increases that companies around the Midwest, as well as the United States, are providing to their employees. We try to stay competitive with those averages based upon employee performance. We have also tried to keep insurance costs at a 70% company paid and 30% employee paid split. This is actually better than a lot of companies.
Outside of merit increases, we do market reviews to ensure that our pay aligns with specific positions in specific geographic areas. While we do not review every position every year, we do attempt to do reviews of our major positions in our market areas. If you feel that you are under market, you may bring this to your manager or district manager, and they can request a market review.
Why are most of the members of the upper management team men?
Janice Serpico: MFA Oil Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We try to ensure that we have a diversified pool of candidates for positions when they become available. We will always try to choose individuals who are best qualified for the position based upon their experience and education.
Why are some of our benefits in the field (like flex time or work from home) not the same as home office?
Janice Serpico: Depending on your job or assignment, it may require you to be in the office in order to fulfill your responsibilities. For example, human resources is responsible for helping employees and managers, so the majority of their work requires that they are in the office and readily available. Similarly, customer service representatives also need to be in the office to support customers. For other positions, it may be easier to work from home and, in some cases, it may help individuals focus. This determination is left up to manager’s discretion and is very situational.
Is it possible to increase the rate of PTO earned to be at a better rate of accumulation?
Janice Serpico: A couple of years ago we reviewed and increased our PTO accrual rates, including adding additional tiers based upon years of service. We do not anticipate additional changes in the near future.
Is it possible to have a four-day work week with 10 hours per day?
Janice Serpico: This is very dependent upon the position and work load. We do not have this as a standard option, however there is flexibility allowed at the business unit level depending on position, hours of operation and work efforts.
With all the job responsibilities CSRs have now, is there any way we could obtain a pay raise and more recognition?
Janice Serpico: CSR’s play a vital role in the success of our field operations. They are our front-line of communications with our customers and we value the contributions and responsibilities that go along with that. In the last few years, we have increased the minimum starting wage of our BPLP field positions, including CSRs. We continue to look at the market to ensure our compensation is competitive based upon individual performance, position and geographic area.
There are service awards presented to employees based on nominations by other employees, but have you considered similar awards for those who deal directly with customers?
Janice Serpico: When the company receives communications from customers about our employees, we like to provide that recognition in The Bottom Line. We do not have a specific award for customer service as it is difficult to manage that across all of our lines of business, including BPLP, Break Time, Jiffy Lube and Big O Tires. However, we will continue to look at options in the future as we have better access to data and information. We appreciate everything that our employees do to provide strong customer service and ensure a positive work environment.
Why are we not competitive in the pay range for our retail automotive management team? And why are assistant managers paid on an hourly basis rather than salaried?
Ed Harper, vice president of retail automotive: We try to maintain balance in the compensation and benefits we pay compared to the overall profitability of our stores. The U.S. Department of Labor sets the guidelines pertaining to which employees can be considered hourly and which can be considered salaried. We follow those guidelines.
What is the plan to recruit and retain quality talent in our Break Time division?
Curtis Chaney, senior vice president of retail: We have different ways that we recruit employees. One of the most effective is to post our jobs on sites like Indeed. We have recently reviewed how these ads appear and we are working on changing the posting so that it highlights the positive aspects of working for Break Time.
Our turnover rate is high, which indicates that we need to work on retention as much as recruiting. We have several initiatives we are working on to help with retention. One is the development of job aids to not only help with initial training, but also trouble shooting and to serve as a reminder of how tasks are supposed to be performed. We are also working on what type and frequency of follow-up training is needed for all store employees. In addition, several times during the year we review our compensation, pay and benefits make sure we are staying competitive in our industry.