Passion...

I was out of the office last week enjoying some vacation time, or as we refer to it at Pinnacol, PTO (Paid Time Off). Pinnacol is generous in the PTO allowed employees because it understands that the best employees are the ones that maintain a healthy work/life balance. New employees begin with 20 days (4 weeks) of PTO during their first full year of service to use however they like and long-term employees with 10 plus years with the company enjoy 6 weeks. One of the really nice things about Pinnacol's PTO is that new employees don't need to wait some determined amount of time before they are eligible to use their time off. We recognize that even new employees have family obligations, doctor's appointments, and the like that can't be postponed simply because one has started a new job.

This last week I had the opportunity to participate in the Tour De Wyoming bicycle ride. Starting in Green River the 350 riders on this year's tour covered 370 miles with stops in Idaho, Utah, as well as Wyoming. Each night the tour provided some form of entertainment for us. One of the nights a gentleman performed for us that I had never heard of, though apparently he's developing quite a following in the Cowboy State as well as on YouTube. His name is Jalan Crossland and as I watched him perform his magic I was thinking that not only does he have a gift for what he does, he's also very passionate about his craft.  Here's a short clip of him in action:

At Pinnacol we get a lot of resumes from candidates looking for a job, especially with what's going on in the economy. There's no doubt these candidates really do need a job - we all have to support ourselves and our families. When I first started with Pinnacol (it was called the Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority back then) if you could do the technical aspects of the job that was about all that was required. I clearly remember some employees who were technical experts at what they did (claims adjusting, underwriting, auditing, etc.) but they weren't passionate about what they were doing and it showed. Other employees noticed, and sadly, I'm sure that our customers were aware as well. In today's world, and given the tight job market, employers can be very selective about who they bring on board. Increasingly they are looking for people who not only can do the job, but take the way they do it to a whole new level. Jalan Crossland doesn't just play the guitar, he takes the way he plays it to where few others can go. Call it passion, call it enthusiasm, call it focus, its the spark that sets these folks apart from their peers.

I sometimes tell candidates I meet with that no one at Pinnacol, when asked in the fifth grade what they wanted to do when they grew up, raised their hand and said they wanted to work in workers' compensation insurance. Yet as I look around the organization today I see people who have passion for what they do and the service they provide to our customers. Pinnacol aspires to become the best workers' compensation insurance company in the nation. That's a very lofty goal (at last count there were more than 500 other workers' compensation insurance companies operating in the U.S.). Unless we can continue to attract employees who can demonstrate a passion for what they do, much like Jalan does in the clip above, we won't get there. That's why we truly believe that great companies keep company with great people.