“I care deeply for my team members, because they are the ones ultimately serving our customers,” says R. Brandon Kiser, president, Fayette Electrical Service, Inc., Winchester, KY. “it’s really that simple. If you can connect with your team, and inspire them to be the best that they can be, then there’s no limit to what we can accomplish. I’m very proud of what we’re building, very proud of our team members, and hopefully this is a place where they have access to the resources to be the best they can be.”
It is this encouraging culture that has allowed Fayette to grow over the years. Brandon’s grandfather, Joe Kiser, opened company doors in 1977. Learning the electrical trade during his service in the U.S. Navy, he came home to Kentucky and worked for a local contractor before starting Fayette in 1977. Joe’s son Jeff took the lead when Joe was ready to retire and now his sons Brandon and Jason own the company. Jeff continues to contribute to Fayette today as an estimator for the company.
“I was really lucky to be exposed to the industry as a teenager, and the environment was very positive for me,” Brandon says. “I would join the social events hosted by the IEC chapter and I was impressed by the camaraderie among competitors. They were just very comfortable and supportive of each other. That was unique, and it enhanced my feeling that I wanted to be a part of this; I wanted to make this my career, too.”
Forming the Right Team
Brandon also identifies this encouraging culture as the fuel for Fayette’s top recruitment technique.
“Often, our best resource for finding employees is word of mouth,” Brandon shares. “If a current or former employee feels like this is a great place to work, they will recommend good folks to join our team. It’s a tremendous compliment when a current or former team member recommends us for a job. I believe the key to securing those recommendations is to treat employees really well.”
Other strategies include online services such as Indeed, social media marketing, and referrals from IEC of the Bluegrass. Brandon loves the interview process and focuses on listening to what the candidates have to say and less on him talking about Fayette.
“I’ve learned the hard way to talk less,” he says. “You do want to sell them on the company and make sure that they feel like this is a good place to work, but you also are asking them to sell themselves on whether they’d be a great fit for the company.”
One of his favorite questions to ask candidates is what they do in their spare time. Brandon says their answers offer him information about what’s important to them, as well as identifying other skillsets that would transfer well to electrical.
“Maybe you’ve got someone that’s really into woodworking, or they do mechanics work,” he says. “To me, that translates really well to the electrical industry. You also have to interview for soft skills — things like reliability, trustworthiness, quality workmanship.”
Another favorite question to candidates is to ask about a time where they may have let their supervisor down and how they responded. Brandon wants these to be honest conversations that reveal even more about the candidates.
“You can learn a lot by how someone responds to this one,” Brandson states. “Did they take ownership of it and try to help resolve it before moving on? It’s a red flag for me if someone says ‘I know everything and I can do everything you want to send my way.’ I would prefer honest answers like ‘I’ve not done much of this, so I’m not entirely comfortable with this situation. Could someone coach me a little bit more on this?’”
Brandon says it’s difficult to tell an applicant’s qualifications in an interview. They’ve found that it takes a deeper dive into an applicant’s history, experience, and talents. If they are unsure of an applicant’s stated abilities, they ask them to complete a skills interview consisting of typical tasks like bending conduit, terminating wiring devices and transformers, or reading blueprints.
“We need to make sure they can do what they say they can do, and we want to pay them accordingly,” he adds.
The Fayette Team
Fayette Electrical Service and its division, Fayette Technology, now has 115 employees. The company began in 1977 offering commercial electrical service and in the late 1980s, Joe had the foresight to take on telecommunications and security work to supplement the electrical business. Recently the company developed temperature controls and directional boring departments as well.
Fayette has a number of employees who have been with them 20-plus years and their office manager just celebrated her 30th work anniversary. Fayette’s Prefab Manager Bob Harris, who just celebrated his 80th birthday, was the company’s first employee. Brandon is grateful to his father and grandfather for establishing a workplace where people want to be.
“My grandfather and father each brought their own leadership style to the business and I sense myself modeling my own leadership style after each of theirs,” he says. “One constant they had was caring for our team members. You can’t stay in business for 48 years without caring for your team.”
Brandon believes one program they have in place is key to employee retention — its tool program. Fayette offers a $200 tool allowance each year to all employees in the field. That allowance is doubled to $400 if the employees have a state electrical license.
“There are so many tools out there that can help you work more productively and more safely, and it also makes it more likely that our team members have a long, safe, and healthy career in the trade,” he says. “What we do is hard work and having the right tools to do the job is a big deal.”
Brandon points out that when they’re on job sites and others see Fayette employees with good tools also goes a long way to elevate their company as a great place to have a career.
Another way the company establishes itself as a great place to build a career is to offer several social events outside of work each year where all employees, along with their spouses and children, are invited.
“We just took the team to Great Wolf Lodge, a fun indoor water park,” Brandon reports. “Every summer we do a Fayette Family Day, usually a fish fry, complete with tool giveaways and two grand prize trips. It’s great to get our employees out of the work environment to connect with other families. We have a good participation rate on this event each year.”
Happy employees also make recruitment easier.
“The best thing we can do to recruit great team members is to treat our current team members well,” Brandon says. “They are our best advocate.”
For the Good of the Industry
Every electrical contractor knows that ensuring an enthusiastic and trained pipeline of future electricians is a big job and one best done with support of others.
“Part of the challenge is helping younger folks embrace working in the trades,” Brandon acknowledges. “I believe the tides have turned dramatically, and it’s getting better. But I think there still are some high school counselors out there that just push college, and college is not for everybody.”
Brandon gets out to high schools, trade programs, and vocational schools himself to help students understand the quality of life available through a career in the trades and educating them on the amazing career opportunities.
“There are multiple career paths in this trade and you get to meet great people and see awesome sights!” he says.
He is energized by a recent project in Lexington, Ky., that contributes to this effort.
“We had a newspaper building in Lexington that was sold to the school district because newspapers are going extinct,” he states. “The district converted that building into a trade school for juniors and seniors who are now being introduced to electrical, mechanical, automotive, and medical during their high school years. Fayette is partnering with that school now and we make presentation there every semester about what a career in electrical looks like. It’s a fascinating project.”
He knows that there are companies across the United States doing similar outreach and, of course, he knows IEC chapters are driving much activity in this arena as well.
As president of IEC of the Bluegrass for the second time, Brandon points to a program their chapter is doing to promote electrical trade careers. The chapter began hosting open houses about two years ago and invited the general public to see their lab spaces and classroom settings where students are being taught in a controlled environment.
“These have been wildly successful and it’s funny because like most times when you try something new, you hesitate or are not sure how it will work,” he explains. “But, Rebecca (Barnes), our chapter executive director said, ‘we’re going for it and if we make mistakes, we’ll take note and do better the next time.’ Each year has been better than the prior year and it started to generate a lot of applications for the IEC of the Bluegrass Apprenticeship Program.”
In addition to Brandon being active in chapter leadership, he cites two others from Fayette — Adam Goodpaster and Brandon Slover — who also volunteer with the chapter.
“Brandon Slover is our service manager, and he is an instructor at IEC of the Bluegrass,” Brandon mentions. “Adam is one of my project managers and he’s also on the chapter board and A&T Committee. It’s been enlightening and fulfilling to serve in IEC, and it has absolutely enhanced my career as an electrical contractor.”
Brandon himself was an IEC Emerging Leader in 2016, and last year he enrolled Brandon Slover in the program. He believes that program has improved over the years where they meet regularly, attend a lot of great presentations to help them advance in their careers, and are tasked with developing and executing a class project to help the industry grow. He’s been really pleased with its effectiveness.
Brandon loves this industry and is happy to do his part to move it forward.
“Serving customers and seeing them pleased with our final product is an amazing feeling,” he says. “We have a tremendous amount of pride in giving our customers a quality product. I love being able to walk onto a job that’s just a flat piece of dirt and then watch it grow up out of the ground into an amazing system. We breathe life into these projects. I love that I can drive around the state of Kentucky and tell my sons, ‘We helped build that.’
“My grandfather always told me that he very intentionally put the word ‘Service’ in our company name. As long as we offer a great service for a fair price, he said we would never fail.”