Greg Hoyle, an Account Manager in the Professional Services
Division, said that “the team-oriented nature of Aerotek is the central basis
of our high-levels of productivity. Due to encouragement, aid, accountability,
and incentive-based competition, the usage of teams increases individual output
and efficiency on a daily basis.” Aerotek relies on teams heavily. Aerotek retains
160 field offices across the country, each having multiple divisions.
Essentially, Aerotek views it’s a whole company as a team, comprised of many
smaller teams. The entire country is divided into six regions. Next, the yield
of each office across the country is ranked on a weekly, monthly, and yearly
basis. Naturally, not all offices are occupied by the same amount of employees.
To combat this, the productivity is measured as an average percentage, in
conjunction with the population and previous results in each respective area.
Within each office, as previously mentioned, there are multiple divisions. Each
division is comprised of an account manager and recruiters. These divisions are
viewed as teams in their own right, as their production will be compared to
other divisions within the office, and across the region.
Rewards are distributed on each
level of the aforementioned teams. For example, if Aerotek as a whole has a
successful year, the entire company receives an additional off-day after New Year’s
Day in January. If an entire region bolsters its fecundity within a given time,
they could be dismissed from work at lunch on a Friday. Within each office,
there are many ways of allocating rewards if the office were to meet quotas or
“closing” a big contract. Be it office-wide lunches for the week, early
dismissals, or “happy hours,” they strive to positively recognize performance.
Lastly, each division may be rewarded with monetary bonuses or other
recompenses for meeting quotas or increasing output.
Aerotek is surely not blind to the
tendency of individuals to “socially loaf,” that is, slack off due to the
belief that somebody else in their team will compensate for them. Accordingly,
they offer rewards to the team and to individuals. Individuals with
high-personal yields can win paid trips to Cancun, stock options, and more. In
addition, each day starts and ends with “Red Zone.” During the morning Red
Zone, each employee has to verbally state his or her openings and plans for the
day. In the evening Red Zone, each employee has to announce any placements,
“starts,” or drops. Needless to say, it holds each individual accountable for
his or her actions.
A primary purpose of a work team is
to provide positive synergy, reassurance, and interaction amongst its members.
Aerotek hosts a bevy of events to hearten this team-based atmosphere. For
example, there are office-wide team builders each quarter. Every event is
different, but at the bare minimum, it involves a half day of work, food,
drinks, and some fun activity designed to promote interaction. In addition,
each division is allotted money for monthly team builders. Frequent choices
include professional sporting events or concerts. In asking Shana Bluestein
about her collaboration with her team members, she claimed that “they have
become my second family. I would not enjoy this job or stay nearly as motivated
without them.”
From an Organizational Behavior
standpoint, there a few types of teams employed by Aerotek. Most teams could
easily be considered a virtual team as computer technology is used to connect
employees from all over. In general, no team is totally self-managed. For the
most part, each team has to answer to someone. With that said, though, the
supervisors are trained to manage by objectives. Accordingly, the policy is
very “hands off.” They only get involved if the teams do not meet their goals.
In a sense, each team could be considered a problem-solving team as each member
is encouraged to share ideas for how to increase productivity. Finally, Aerotek
is epitome of a multi-team system. In such a system, “different teams
coordinate their efforts to produce a desired outcome.” The desired outcome, in
this case, would simply be the maximum amount of possible revenue generated for
Aerotek.
Lastly, Aerotek takes some
precautionary measures to ensure the functioning of the team. As is the case
with any company, Aerotek expends a significant amount of money to enable each
employee to have adequate resources. Be it office-space, high-speed internet, high-end
laptops or other work-related machinery, Aerotek puts each employee in a
position to succeed. Between the high climate of trust exhibited from top to
bottom, fitting size of teams, and the proper and realistic allocation of
roles, Aerotek teams have proved to be the solid foundation of the entire
organization.
