By Angela Elsey, president, PCS Company

In 2017, PCS Company surveyed its employees and found that only 56% were engaged in their jobs.

If a company does not have engaged team members – if they’re not willing to look out for each other, if they’re not willing to be part of the solution vs. part of the problem – a company can’t expect its workforce to support customers the way it is expected of them.

Fast forward to today, and PCS Company has earned recognition as a top Michigan workplace two years in a row by following a framework of consistent, measurable employee engagement. It’s performed a ton of culture-building work over the past several years – and earned an 82% engagement score in 2024.

PCS Company celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, and it remains a unique organization. With 120 employees at its headquarters in Fraser, Michigan, PCS functions very much like a family business, yet is part of a publicly traded company (Misumi).

Attaining a high level of trust and communication between employees and leadership requires a lot more than just paying lip service to building a thriving workplace. Creating and following a clear roadmap for attaining and measuring engagement is the foundation of a culture that ultimately drives satisfaction among employees and customers.

Employees deserve to enjoy work. PCS Company is a passionate group of people – driven to do right by its employees and customers. If, as a company, there are engagement issues, it’s time to look for the root causes. If it’s been a while or the company isn’t seeing the results it would like, here’s how to set a new standard in the organization – starting with some quick wins.

Building Respect and Trust
First, understand that there is no way to drive engagement if team members don’t feel that they have trust and respect at every level of the business and don’t feel encouraged to take accountability.

One of the first big things PCS did to improve engagement was to make sure it always closed the loop. PCS asked employees for ideas with its “What’s Your Idea?” portal. When employees submitted ideas, the company made sure to respond. Sometimes it was a statement of: “You might not like what I have to say, but you’re going to get a response.”

To be clear, it’s not always about catering to everybody and giving everybody what they want. It’s about hearing employees and responding – and that earns respect. If employees trust leadership and management enough to share their thoughts, respect them enough to respond. That’s the way PCS leads, and the message is driven hard through its leadership team.

For example, a company has a department that’s struggling. It’s not enough to say, “I’ve got an open-door policy, come to me with issues.” It is key to go to those employees and ask, “What are your pain points? How can I help you?” Show employees that leadership and management are listening, and the company will start seeing immediate improvements. Constantly closing the feedback loop is the foundation for organization-wide change.

Connecting Individually
Leading with transparency and empathy is key to transforming the workplace culture – and companies cannot do this unless leadership and management know every
team member.

If a leader does not get to know team members, there will never be an opportunity to forge mutual trust and respect, and it will be difficult to truly work together to drive the business forward. 

PCS leaders do an amazing job of getting to know their team members. If someone is underperforming, leadership holds conversations to understand why. If employees need training or another department’s support, it is important to make sure that happens. If an employee has something going on at home, it is key to offer whatever flexibility can be given. As a company, PCS works together to ensure that work and life thrive. Team members tend to work through issues in a more collaborative way when there is trust and respect for one another – and especially when they have empathy for each other. 

It’s particularly important to keep people motivated when the industry is struggling and sales are down. PCS, alongside many other companies, is experiencing one of the most difficult and challenging times in the plastics industry – but it succeeds because it leads with transparency. It is important not to wait and see what the market is going to do and hope employees won’t notice; companies must analyze trends and forecasts and let their team know things might get harder before they get easier. For example, a company may tell employees there won’t be a large amount of overtime, so be careful about spending money at home. If a company knows customers are closing their doors, it is important to communicate that to employees so they understand the company knows what is going on in the market and is responding proactively.

Engagement Surveys
Engagement surveys are the bread and butter of building engagement. They provide strong, high-level feedback so a company can understand which teams are most
under-engaged.

One year, when PCS conducted an engagement survey, it learned that its people didn’t have confidence in senior managers. As PCS started thinking through the root cause, it defined that it was not clearly communicating all the work being done. PCS started putting the leadership team and senior managers in front of team members more and more so they could understand the different things being worked on, the challenges encountered and how the company is tackling and addressing issues. The next year, when employees were asked about their confidence in PCS’s leadership team – transparency became one of its strengths. The PCS human resources manager works with each department leader to identify areas needing improvement. Those leaders, in turn, meet with their teams and report back to human resources as they work together and
monitor progress.

One of the company’s KPIs every year is to improve engagement by a certain percentage. That’s communicated to every department to ensure everyone is addressing areas identified in their engagement survey and continuing to build engagement.

Monthly Committee Meetings
Many of PCS Company’s engagement tactics emerged from its culture committee. If an organization doesn’t have a volunteer committee coming together once a month, consider forming one.

There are so many things leaders juggle; they can’t possibly think of everything. The secret sauce at PCS is its volunteer committee. For about an hour a month, representatives
from every department talk about challenges that people have observed and recommendations on how to overcome them. A meeting with five to 15 representatives is ideal. Early on, a moderator might be designated until the committee becomes familiar with the format and the meetings run themselves.

The volunteer culture committee drives change. For example, a PCS employee on the committee suggested a “Bring Your Kids to Work Day,” and it was voted on and approved to happen. From there, PCS added more awards and events, such as naming a team member of the month and planning summer picnics and holiday parties. Through this committee, the company has supported quarterly volunteer events and pays participating employees for up to eight hours of involvement a year.

Also, it is important to leverage cross-functional interview teams to hire employees who are the best fit for the culture that has been built. Because of how strongly employees have embraced this new culture, PCS has been able to promote more of its workforce. In fiscal year 2024, the company hired 20 new employees and promoted six from within PCS; in fiscal year 2025, it hired six new employees and promoted five from within.

Culture Drives Customer Satisfaction
Ultimately, an engaged workforce improves the customer experience. Team members who have empathy for their internal customers work much more successfully at supporting external customer needs.

Leading by example promotes collaboration across the entire organization. When engaged, cross-functional teams come together to resolve a customer concern, enhance a process or root-cause an issue – amazing things can happen.

If companies are not holding people accountable, they’re going to discourage their high performers. Engagement isn’t just about giving everybody everything they want – it’s honing in on how teams actually work together to hold each other accountable without that becoming a disciplinary action. Employees should be comfortable asking, “You said you were going to do this – were you able to get that done so I can do my part?”

As PCS Company’s engagement rises, it gets more and more great ideas through its idea portal – ideas that really enhance the customer experience by improving lead times or continuous improvement on the shop floor.

The bottom line? Team members aren’t going to be invested in finding ways to enhance the customer experience if they’re not even willing to look out for each other or the business as a whole.

Angela Elsey has been president of the PCS Company since 2022. She has shared her leadership insights at numerous plastics industry events, including MAPP’s Benchmarking and Best Practices Conference.

More information: www.pcs-company.com