Some people like social praise; some find it embarrassing. Some people are motivated by salary; others by camaraderie.
Brandon and Kasey Dutcher, owners of Platinum PRO Portables in Sun Valley, California, have been in business since 2016, offering portable sanitation, restroom trailers and fencing. They’ve grown to 20 employees and learned early on that when it comes to people there is no “one size fits all” on anything.
“We want them to be happy,” Brandon Dutcher says. “But everybody is different. So it’s learning who the employee is, what makes them tick, what makes them happy. And we also try to keep team values and a family feel.”
The company provides a good salary and benefits. But they also focus on having fun together. For example — a beginning-of-summer barbecue in 2024. “We got everybody back to the yard at a decent time on a Friday,” Dutcher says. “We set up tables and chairs and our operations manager barbecued a bunch of food. For our Christmas party, we took everybody and their families bowling. Two years back, we went to an indoor go-karting place and raffled off stuff, gave away prizes, and played trivia games. It gets everyone involved and gives them a treat.”
Sometimes it’s a spur-of-the-moment thing. After offloading equipment from a Fourth of July event, Dutcher grabbed burgers for everybody. “We couldn’t find a good place to pull into with all the trucks and trailers so we found a wide area on the shoulder of the freeway behind a sound wall,” Dutcher says. “We were laughing, having a good time, just making it work.”
As happy as the Dutchers hope everyone is, they have high-performance expectations for each employee, whatever the job. They acknowledge that as hard as everyone tries, there will always be occasional glitches.
“I’m not saying it’s all sunshine and rainbows,” Dutcher says. “We’ve definitely had our fair share of problem employees we’ve had to deal with. But we do put a lot of focus on happy employees.”
Read more about Platinum PRO Portables in this month’s issue of Portable Restroom Operator magazine.
