Alan Circo gives a thumb’s up to Jim sitting at the wheel of a forklift, busy hauling electrical products around the EGS Electrical Group/Appleton plant, and stops to chat with Phyllis, an award-winning pie baker in her free time, walking across the production floor.
Circo sets an easygoing tone while making his way across the plant floor, greeting many employees by their first names during his daily stroll.
It’s a friendly atmosphere the EGS plant manager has tried to create during his nearly four years at the helm of the company’s Columbus plant. He knows the mood fostered inside and outside the plant is a major factor in employee job satisfaction.
“I've tried to establish a rapport with employees ... I want to know who most of the players are (during daily walks through the plant),’’ said Circo while explaining his leadership style.
“They know me. They know they’re not the only ones pushing,” Circo said. The Omaha native, husband of Cindy, and the father of two daughters, Cheryl, 12, and Erin, 10, has been in Columbus since 1991.
The easy familiarity with his plant’s nearly 400 workers, about 310 permanent and 80 temporary, has been established by Circo’s “open-door policy” to his office.
“I want our workers to be able to talk to me about any issue,’’ said Circo, adding that the company works to foster a team attitude that empowers employees to step forward with ideas for solving plant problems. “We like to make team decisions.”
EGS Electrical Group is part of a business that was started 103 years ago by Albert Appleton in Chicago. Besides the local plant, there are six others in the U.S., one in Canada and one in Mexico.
A manufacturer of industrial electrical construction products for explosion-proof, hazardous and ordinary location environments, the company sells innovative new products and reliable performers that have led the industry for decades.
About 6,000 end products are produced in the 371,000-square-foot plant in Columbus, with the potential of thousands more specialty products. The company marked 20 years in Columbus in 2006.
Circo believes the employee-friendly spirit at EGS has paid dividends inside and outside the plant, loosening up work conditions and allowing employees and the company to be players in community activities.
The plant has flexible starting times during its 24-hour production schedule, four-hour part-time shifts and education assistance program to assist employees in furthering their educations.
“All you have to do is pass the class, and we’ll pay for it,’’ smiled Circo, who regularly joins his managers filtering through the plant handing out doughnuts to employees as a thank-you for working the facility’s seven-day-a-week schedule.
“People appreciate the acknowledgment,’’ Circo said. “The message gets across to employees ... it’s the right thing to do.”
One of the most popular perks employees receive is the opportunity to win tickets to Nebraska Cornhuskers football games in the fall. The tickets, which used to go exclusively to company managers, are doled out to workers in drawings.
“They’re good seats, too, on the 50-yard line,’’ said Circo, himself a rabid Cornhuskers fan. “Bo (Pelini, NU head coach) is no bull.”
Tickets to the Cornhuskers’ home games with Virginia Tech, Missouri and Kansas should be among the most coveted by EGS employees this fall.
Circo and the company also stress community involvement.
The plant manager donned an apron and picked up a spatula to flip burgers during last June’s Relay For Life cancer fund-raiser. EGS is also active in raising funds for the United Way, CanCare-A-Van and participates in the annual Duck Derby fund-raiser.
EGS products have brightened local landmarks, with lighting donated by the company for the Andrew Higgins Memorial, Pawnee Park Bell Tower, community archways and downtown mural celebrating Columbus’ 150th anniversary.
The company also donated the lighting for the Columbus YMCA’s recent gymnasium renovation, Circo said.
Meanwhile, the Columbus plant has been going gang-busters in recent months. Production has been running full tilt as workers try to keep up with orders to supply electrical products for industrial and commercial customers.
Basically, if an industry has explosion hazards, EGS has penetrated the market. The Columbus plant supplied the lighting for the expansion of the local Archer Daniels Midland ethanol plant, an industry that must safeguard against grain explosion hazards.
“We’ve been blowing the doors off this place,’’ Circo said.
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