Workforce Focus – Category 5

The Workforce Focus category examines how a company engages, manages and develops its workforce’s full potential in alignment with its overall mission, strategy and action plans. The category also examines a company’s ability to assess workforce capability and capacity needs and to build a workforce environment conducive to high performance.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the team! Regardless of an E & P company’s reserve base and field operations, its people that make them work.

Simmons is a small company with fewer than 20 full-time employees. No single manager has more than five direct reports. This low ratio affords managers the opportunity to spend an abundance of one-on-one time with each direct report – helping the management team as a whole stay in close touch with those factors affecting workforce engagement and satisfaction. The company also embraces an "open-door" and "open-book" policy.

Recent steps in building an even sharper workforce focus include hiring a human resource manager to begin the process of systematizing aspects of employee engagement including more rigorous performance appraisal management systems and benefits. Simmons also maintains a sharp focus on safe operations and spends a significant amount of resources on safety training and planning.

Employee engagement is further fostered by the fact that a significant component of employees’ overall compensation is tied to profit-sharing goals. Employees understand that as Simmons thrives, so do they – making for an increased level of engagement and team cooperation.