Exceeding Expectations

was considered a key to the company’s future success, the solutionwas found in a renewed emphasis on both training and safety. To dealwith the hiring increase, WBI opened an office on West Avenue indowntown Kannapolis, North Carolina. Although it still retained themain company offices on Ervin Woods Drive, the downtown officeincluded space for the recruiting, human resources, accounting, safety,and business development teams.Isaiah WayneProject ExecutiveIsaiah began his career withWBI in 1996. He has held severalpositions ranging from EquipmentOperator, Project Manager andcurrently Project Executive. Isaiahearned an Associate Degree in CivilEngineering Technology at CentralPiedmont Community College. Heenjoys working in construction andthe challenges he gets to tackleeach day.In order to assist newly-hired employees to achieve their goals,the WBI benefits package included an opportunity for each employeeto take part in continuing training opportunities after he or she had acompleted an initial 90-day employment period. All employees couldthen take part in a knowledge and skills assessment to determinetheir classification. Employees who scored eighty or higher on theassessment would be placed in their work group classification. Thosewho scored lower than eighty would be part of the fundamentalsgroup. The assessments allowed trainers to place the employees in thecorrect training sessions; all WBI employees are eligible for the trainingsessions and are encouraged to attend. The fundamentals courses weredesigned to prepare workers for transfer to Level 1, and then in turn tobe promoted to increasingly responsible positions in the company.In addition to the classroom instruction, workers are also evaluatedin the field as they apply their technical knowledge as well as theirknowledge of the proper safety methods and techniques. Trainerscomplete a written assessment for each employee following theirperformance assessment, giving the employee the opportunity toidentify areas in which additional work is needed and also allowingproficient employees to be credentialed with several organizations.Even as company executives worked to improve the recruitmentand training experience for new employees, WBI continued tocompete for challenging opportunities in the industrial constructionarea. The company was awarded a large contract for work on a tiremanufacturing facility in Sumter, South Carolina, as well as a chemicalplant expansion in Blacksburg, South Carolina. Successful work on78 EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS