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last update: April 2007

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Offer A Career Track With Good Pay and Benefits


Troy Scoughton, TMC Design, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Transcript for this Segment

HATTIE: TMC Design goes after bright students.

TROY: (Voiceover) We have an excellent co-op program with the university. Mechanical engineering students when they come over here--two gentlemen over here are mechanical engineer students. They work in the machine shop for the first couple years that they're here. That way, when they graduate and they design a part, they know where or not it can be machined.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Leroy Gomez, Chris Ham and Troy Scoughton are owners of TMC Design, a fast-growing company based in Las Cruces. They primarily design and build custom systems used by the military for electronic warfare. HAM: This is one of the modulator circuit cards that we design and build that goes into a signal generator box that we build for the Air Force.

TROY SCOUGHTON: This is a typical monopole antenna. It's just like you have on your car. This is a dish antenna. This is a horn antenna. That one in the corner over there up on the wall, that's a big log periodic antenna. Let's pick this up first.

(Voiceover) Without boring you with all the technical details about this, what it does is allows our customers to specify exactly what they want to do... So these are 5/16ths. (Voiceover) ...and exactly...

TROY: It's a total concept. We have 100 percent paid health insurance. We have 401(k). We have paid annual leave. We have 11 vacation days a year. Our benefits are excellent. Our salaries are very, very good

TROY: Everything is important--the marketing, making sure that you track everything, making sure that you treat your customers properly and making sure that financially you're doing smart things, and then, of course, taking care of your people. And if you don't take care of the business, you're not going to be able to take care of your people.

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WATCH TELEVISION THAT TEACHES

Key Idea #5 of this episode

1.		Hire Attitude Not Skill
2.		Hire People Who Can Read People
3.		Hire People Others May Overlook
4.		Hire Nice People With Energy
5.		Offer A Career Track With Good Pay and Benefits
6.		Create An Intern Program
7.		Promote From Within
8.		Put What You Want In Writing
9.		Interview and Audition
10.		Teach, Preach, Coach and Counsel
11.		Provide real Training
12.		Train Everyone, Not Just Sales
13.		Listen To All Ideas
14.		Offer A Job For Life

The Case Study Guide

Key Idea #5: Offer A Career Track With Good Pay and Benefits

Government layoffs near Las Cruces motivated Troy to create good work in his home town.

Topic for discussion:What tells us that TMC has a long-range human resource strategy?

Answer: Their intern program is designed to grow their business over the long haul. Anyone trying to make a quick buck wouldn't fool with college kids. The owners of TMC consider it a sacred trust to put a person on their payroll. They have never had to lay-off anyone even though it would have been the easy thing to do. The benefits package tells us TMC is committed to employees. It pays 100% of health care and has annual leave and good wages. Accomplishing this takes enormous will as Troy said, "Everything is important--the marketing, making sure that you track everything, making sure that you treat your customers properly and making sure that financially you're doing smart things, and then, of course, taking care of your people. And if you don't take care of the business, you're not going to be able to take care of your people." You think about it: Business owners are not driven by the same things that drive employees. This is the biggest lesson we all need to learn. Troy, Chris and Leroy have been in the government contracting arena for years and the greatest fear employees have is that they will be laid off if a contract is lost. By building carefully, TMC has taken the fear away for employees.

You think about it: What can you do to make your employees feel secure? Less fearful?

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