Effective leadership begins with providing employees with clear expectations. “People are very proud of their work and what they do. If you tell them what to do, they will go and get it done,” said Account Manager Olga Cabe. “They want to do a good job. Teach them how to do it the right way.”
Cabe was tasked with improving customer relations with an automotive company’s Greer, South Carolina location by enhancing the appearance and operation of the plant’s paint department. She is a former MPW employee who was convinced to rejoin MPW to work on this particular project.
“There was a little bit of arm-twisting, but not much,” Cabe said. She remembers receiving a call from Jim Neville out of the blue. He told her that the former account manager was moving on, and he asked if she’d be interested in returning to MPW to fill the position.
“I’ve known Olga for years and years,” Neville said. “She’s the type of person who always gives 150%.” He said Cabe was a “cornerstone” employee while MPW was contracting with an auto manufacturer because of her natural skills with the customer and her people, as well as her understanding of systems and processes. She decided to stay with the manufacturer when the MPW contract ended—a decision she would later question.
“I’ll always have a heart for MPW,” Cabe said. While still working elsewhere, she volunteered to observe operations at the facility on the weekends. Cabe became certain she could secure the contract if MPW re-hired her full-time. Her wish was quickly granted.
As the new account manager, the first thing Cabe noticed was a serious lack of employee training. “The turnover here was horrible. People didn’t know what they needed to be doing,” she said. Cabe created very specific schedules for all MPW employees–including estimating how long each job should take—and trained employees to be organized and adopt 5S strategies.
Cabe worked for months with Business Development Manager Sean Walp to bring in extra employees to do a deep cleaning of the entire paint line and bring it up to MPW standards. The automotive company’s management noticed the paint department’s steady improvement and began to invite MPW employees to regular corporate meetings, which the company wasn’t doing before.
But it wasn’t just management who noticed the progress. Some of the other automotive company teams on the floor watched MPW employees and began copying their methods. “People see MPW is doing a strong job, so they want to do a strong job as well. It’s infectious,” said Painting Process Engineer John Penrose, who acts as a liaison between the automotive company and MPW.
Penrose, a former automotive plant manager, said he’d worked with Walp at various locations for almost 40 years before Penrose joined the South Carolina company about a year ago. “Sean’s very good at what he does, and he hires good people. The team here has been exceptional,” he said.
The MPW team’s main advantage is consistency and reliability. “I call them ‘Household Maintenance,’” Penrose said, adding that the MPW team keeps him completely informed about what they will be doing every week. “If Olga sees an issue, she fixes it and brings me the results,” he said. “I will say the MPW team members have been nothing but gracious to me.”
Regional Manager Tyler Keathley said since Cabe was brought onboard, the collaboration between the customer and MPW has exceeded expectations on both sides of the fence. “We were able to pick up more business and ultimately have better results,” he said. Cabe’s department improvement initiative took about six months to reach its organizational goal and deliver consistent results.
“At the end of the day, I never worry about MPW,” Penrose said. “When you have to worry about one less thing, it’s huge!”