Founders’ Day is like a holiday at Turner Construction Company where employees in its offices around the globe participate in community-giveback activities. Employees enjoy the day so much that some offices turn it into a weekly or even monthly activity.

“It provides an opportunity for people to get involved and feel like they’re part of the bigger picture,” said Pamyla Fountain Brown, director of Community and Citizenship for the Chicago-based construction company.

It’s a simple concept: Brown and other staffers research nonprofit organizations and community groups that want help. Then, on May 5, Turner Construction employees fan out and tackle jobs big and small. Sometimes, they might be painting a hallway. Sometimes, they are building a ramp outside of a senior citizen’s house.

But no matter what the project is, working together not only builds the community, it ends up building new friendships and communication between Turner Construction workers, Brown said.

“It’s a great way for us to connect with organization we work with in our personal lives or a way for us to connect with organizations near our jobs sites,” Brown said. “Sometimes, it’s an organization that someone tells us is doing great stuff and maybe we should help.”

For Brown, helping people in a variety of situations has been humbling, especially when Turner Construction has helped programs focused on people with disabilities or people who are struggling with the cycle of homelessness.

It also has been a way for Turner Construction to take what it does best – building dreams for people and businesses – and help others who are in need. For example, the Rebuilding Together program at the end of April typically kicked off Founders’ Day or Week activities. A community group helps Turner Construction find a family in need and asks them what projects need to be done around their home. Then, a swarm of Turner Construction employees make those projects happen.

“It could be something as simple as fixing a sink or landscaping. The bottom line is it is making people’s lives better,” Brown said.

These kinds of volunteer opportunities are helping Turner Construction find new hires and retain its current talented staff, Brown added. It is easier to find the time to volunteer when your employer supports it and makes time in the workday to do these good deeds, she noted.

“I keep up with human resources and the news, and you read about how millennials and Gen X are saving the workplace,” Brown said. “For companies with folks like me who are well into their careers and have obligations (to kids or aging parents), finding time to give back and volunteer is important.”

Plus, it shows the company’s softer side – that the men and women who work for a construction company truly care about their fellow humans and communities.

“It’s a way for folks to do good and take ownership when you’re working for a company that gives back,” she added.

Every project that comes on or around Founders’ Day is special. One example was when a local hospital asked the local Turner Construction team to come by and organize its clothing pantry, a collection of donated clothes. Staff have also has passed out hygiene kits donated by the American Red Cross.

Another popular one was creating “Boo Bags,” or treat bags filled with candy, for the local YMCA. Some staffers went out at lunch that day and bought even more candy because everyone wanted to participate, Brown said. The simplest things really add up, she noted.

“That’s the part of my job that I love – identifying stuff for us to do” on Founders’ Day and other volunteer days, Brown said. “One of my favorites was when one of the largest homeless shelters asked us to paint the women’s restroom and main corridor. It’s the little things that mean the most – like a brighter bathroom and hallway. That’s humbling.”

Want to retain your best employees and grow your company? The solution, according to business adviser Jim Biehl, is simple: Invest in your people.

Biehl, a CPA and shareholder with Clayton & McKervey in Southfield, has been advising business owner clients for more than 30 years. In that time, he’s noted several shared traits among companies that have made it to the 50-year mark and beyond.

“It’s fascinating to be engaged with more established companies that function as finely tuned machines yet are open to change – and even welcome it,” Biehl said. “That’s just one facet of a successful business, though. Regardless of industry, location or ownership model, I’ve noted commonalities among longstanding companies that continue to thrive and lead their industry peers.”

For Biehl, two things stand out when it comes to hiring and retaining the best of the best. By doing these two items—Cultivate Talent and Build a Culture of Trust—you will be able to grow your business naturally.

When it comes to cultivating talent, Biehl says the best organizations make a significant investment in recruiting and retaining the right talent, including a consistent investment in the professional education and advancement of the team.

“I was with a client that was looking at its management team, many who had grown up in the business, and they were wondering what they could do as far as further educating these executives and employees,” Biehl said. “What you have to do is invest in their education on an annual basis to take these people to the next level. They only know what they know within the business; they need more experience.”

For example, CPA firms have professional education requirements—forcing them to spend money on continually educating employees when it comes to new developments, Biehl said.

“I try to get that across on all of my closely held businesses,” Biehl said. “I tell them you’ve got to spend some money in this area and allow your employees to learn new skill sets. What classes are they attending? How are you helping them go to the next level?”

That includes the CEO and other executives, Biehl added. CEOs should be going to events that feature national speakers. Employees could attend webinars, take college-level classes, try an online course. Everything counts toward the bottom line.

“The owner could be in with 10 other CEOs, have members of their team attend these events and learn from these speakers,” Biehl said. “You have to make these investments to take people to the next level.”

As far as building a culture of trust, Biehl says companies need to understand and live the core values they are committed to—and even obsessed with—by only adding team members that fit their culture.

That entails understanding what makes the company tick, sitting down and coming up with a list of core values, then communicating those values to everyone. Every employee needs to be aware of these values because without that knowledge, they’ll feel like passengers on an airplane hitting turbulence, Biehl said. The pilot knows everyone is ok, but the passengers are likely to be upset or even panicked.

“You need to set up those core values for your intuition,” Biehl said. “How can someone be successful and fit into your organization? If you get the wrong fit, it can be a cancer inside the group, not because there’s something wrong with that person but the way they tick and the way they want to move forward is different than the rest of the team.”

In some ways, the bottom line to finding and retaining great talent is to be open and honest when it comes to those core values, he added.

“The more open they are the better off they are,” Biehl said.

It’s a phrase everyone knows and immediately understands: Life happens. But what do you do when you have a personal issue and also need to be at work that day?

If you work for Auburn Hills-based Cornerstone Community Financial Credit Union, you can use what the financial-services company calls a “Me Day,’ one of four days available annually where you can take care of your everyday activities in addition to paid time off.

When Andrea Cornell of Cornerstone highlighted how “Me Day” came to be established, she also referenced the credit union’s new volunteer policy: For every hour a CCFCU employee volunteers, they receive an hour of paid time off up to 16 hours annually.

Q: What is the purpose of “Me Days?”
A: All employees get regular paid time off. They have a bank. But in addition to that we wanted to offer some additional flexibility for whatever. So we tossed around the idea of calling it a “Whatever Day.” When it came to it, it came down to that it is about “me.” And you might need a day for whatever life’s throwing at you. For example, I have a manager whose taking it off to be their child’s event at school. They’re took the day to be with their children. They wanted to be a part of it and experience the joy with their children. Or if someone needed to get all of their doctor’s appointments done in one day, they could do that and just be done with it. It truly is about the employee.

Q: How does a “Me Day” work?
A: They can take one per quarter or up to four a year. They can do focus on whatever life is throwing. We do need a little bit of notice – not like you need to tell us a year ahead of time. But they do need to let us know. You cannot call in that day and say you need to take a “me” day. That’s what their paid time off is for. You just may need the day to get a massage and a facial. You may need the day to do some fun event somewhere. Or may you just want to sit at home and read a good book. You just need a day for you and that’s ok.

Q: How did you develop “Me Days?”
A: We are a smaller credit union. In the credit union world, we’re medium sized. But all in all, we only have on average about 74 or 75 employees. We all know one another – it’s very personal. The thing that’s interesting about that is when all is said and done, we need to get the work done and make sure we’re fulfilling our company mission of truly serving our membership in the communities where we live and work. That’s what fuels us as a credit union. When we listened to our employees, we heard loud and clear in surveys that we do on a yearly basis that they would like some more opportunity for flexibility. We were thinking about what are some options that we can provide our employees to give them additional flexibility in their life/work balance. So both of these programs came from that. Feedback is so valuable from our employees and we’re constantly looking at new ways to enhance the work environment.

Q: How does your new volunteer program work in conjunction with “Me Days?”
A: Coming from what our mission is as a credit union – making sure that we are providing the best service to our membership – but then also serving the communities where we live and work, we knew that part of that serving is volunteerism. We sponsor events in the community all the time – pretty much every community where we have a presence, we are giving back in various ways. Each employee is expected to do at least eight hours of volunteering per year. So that we have can that presence in those communities. We wanted to give back something for the employees to reward them for them giving up their time to do that volunteering. So we give them an hour for hour basis – we give them eight additional paid hours off for the future. They can earn … we have a lot of employees who love to volunteer and never miss an opportunity to be out in the community giving back. So they can earn up to 16 hours per calendar year. If they’re going out of their way to assist us in achieving that company mission and vision we find it very important to really give back to our employees in a way that can truly help them with that flexibility for life.