BWI recieve 2nd place in the Kent & Medway Megagrowth Awards 2009

An interview with Robert Lench, Managing Director of BWI

All of the team at BWI were delighted to collect the award as the second fastest growing company in Kent and Medway for 2009. This represented a great accolade for the small company that relocated from Stratford, East London to Sevenoaks, Kent in 2004.

I have been asked what secrets or special attributes that has allowed our business to achieve second place.

My answer is there is nothing special or magical – the key is our principal asset – our staff.

In saying this, it is the combination between management and staff to create the appropriate environment – one of a partnership together with the feeling of the employees succeeding when the company succeeds.

This is not merely about money and bonus. This is about appreciating the contribution each staff member makes and recognising their self worth and value. This manifests itself partly through providing employee development programmes, be they internal or external in terms of training or exposure to new and different areas of business that can assist in their personal development that will bring longer term benefit to their individual role and the Company as a whole.

There are the usual methods of incentivising employees that we incorporate; however, we try to look beyond these to provide a more personal approach to individuals. A reflection of this is the very low staff turnover we experience. This further enhances the close team feeling that runs throughout the Company. All of our employees are fully trained and many have completed training programmes during their time with BWI. They all feel a pride in what they do and the Company they work for. This ensures that all the employees strive to provide the best possible performance they can, hence our success.

Our next challenge is further growth and finding those new team members. We have a rigorous selection procedure, using external consultants for the very difficult area of interviewing and selection of new employees.

As we grow larger, then the constant issue faced by all growing commercial enterprises increasingly faces us – that of communications. The single most challenging conundrum in my opinion is maintaining the appropriate level of communication..........without holding interminable meetings that actually do not achieve anything other than take time away from the actual activities producing revenue.

So, no secrets to our success other than valuing our staff as our greatest asset.