It always seemed to me that it was more important to take better care of fewer relationships than to simply use them up and constantly be looking for more.
So when I got the opportunity to start my own technical services company, and provide individuals on a contract or interim basis, I considered my options. Many temporary services companies do very little in the way of creating relationships with their employees. Sure, clients, they’ll wine and dine every night of the week, but as far as the people who actually create the company’s existence, not so much. Token lip service is a lot of it.
Insight has never been, is not, and will neverl be a big company. Having an enormous empire of hundreds or thousands of people I could not get to know, has never appealed to me. Instead I felt and still feel that there’s a better way. That having some limitation of company size, while almost anti-American, might be a better course. And so from the start, I’ve always held that the number of employees would be no larger than I could call on a Friday afternoon and wish a good weekend. And it should be made up of people I like, people that I’d enjoy talking with even if I didn’t know them at all.
Further, the purpose of the company was not to see how many DIFFERENT people I could have working for me, but rather to see if I could keep the SAME people working for me. Why change your staff if they know what they’re doing? Further, in filling assignments with clients, I’ve always felt it was easier to brag on someone I know, than a total stranger.
For this reason, you’re probably not going to see Insight in the trade papers, with exponential growth. We’re not going to be the next Volt, Kelly, or Manpower. Not that there’s anything wrong with those companies. They probably have a lot going for them. But in a world where the process of filling a need is electronically handling a somehow appropriate number of matching jargon words, then flipping dozens of resumes to clients, then selecting and employing people like some Amazon order, I want something more human.
I do not believe in the currently popular phrase: Human Capital. I do not believe that the folks who get up and go to work every morning, who make incredibly skilled and thoughtful contributions to industry, are some sort of commodity slung from one wagon to another. Offloaded when another shipment comes in. It has always wondered me how folks who operate in that manner can possibly feel comfortable with themselves. We will never make the Fortune 500, but is that important?