Questions & Answers—Thoughts and insights from distribution executives

By Industrial Distribution Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 12/7/2006

What essential trait do you look for when hiring?

“‘Trainability’ is among the first characteristics we look for when hiring,” says Harry Babb, vice president of operations & IT, for Waxie, Inc. “They can have all the experience in the world, but if they aren’t trainable and won’t adhere to your policies and procedures, they could cause you more grief than anything else.

“Take the time to hire the right person for a particular task. Not just hiring bodies, but making sure you have the talent that fits that need. When you do that, you usually have pretty good success. Sometimes it takes you a long time to find that person, but in many cases it’s well worth the time.”

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What do you most want to see in 2007 as far as industry developments and/or changes?

“I’d like to see pricing stabilize—the overall cost of materials,” says Steve Hackett, supervisor of store services, Wholesale Electric Supply, Texarkana, Texas. “Wire has leveled off for a while, for example, but I heard the other day that it will be going up again [in ‘07].

“We’ve also seen a little bit of leveling off in the housing [construction market]. So we’ve been going more into the industrial and commercial markets. But I think ’07 will continue to be strong. We’re in a growth stage where we’re located….”

Hackett was interviewed during the recent Intuit Eclipse Users’ Conference in Orlando.

“The lack of potential employees. There’s a shortage of workers in the workforce here [Canada] and that’s very much a problem,” says Mike Marthold, president of Wainbee Ltd.

“It’s almost a crisis for some people,” he says. “Hiring and keeping good people is my biggest concern at the moment... We try to empower our employees with responsibilities when we can. That ensures they feel part of the team.”

“The way we’re going to beat the bigger distributors is on service. We’ll just out-service them,” says Bob Hammersla, president, Carolina Belting, Taylors, S.C. “We have people in our customer service that are researching products that we’ve never even sold before.

“If a customer asks us to look for it, we’ll do that for them…. As small as we are, we can’t afford to make a lot of mistakes”