Carrie David - It is All About Culture - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Carrie David of SRS. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofer's Coffee Shop. This is Heidi Ellsworth and I am road tripping down south to Texas to talk to actually, I have to say someone who I just met and I am so amazingly impressed with what Carrie has done. I am here with Carrie David, the EVP Chief Human Resources Officer for SRS, Carrie, welcome to the show.

Carrie David:
Hi, thank you so much for having me today, Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I am really excited to hear what you have to say today, because I am huge on culture. I think it's the most important thing we can be doing in roofing and you've really taken it to a whole new level.

Carrie David:
Well, with the help of our leadership team here, I believe we have, we're pretty proud of what's going on at SRS.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is cool. It does, it takes a team, it takes a village.

Carrie David:
It sure does.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Before we get into that, do you mind, I'd love it if you would introduce yourself and tell us about what you did before SRS and coming into SRS.

Carrie David:
Oh great. Yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm the Chief HR Officer for SRS Distribution. I've spent the vast majority of my career in HR. Before this, I was with a large food service company down in Houston. One of the things quite honestly, that attracted me to SRS Distribution is the culture here because it is so incredibly amazing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes, yes. The culture of SRS is amazing. I have been so lucky to be a part of it, to be able to be at some of your events. So talk a little bit about you starting in this role with SRS, it's such an exciting time in their company, with everything that's happening.

Carrie David:
It is. I actually just celebrated my one year anniversary with SRS Distribution. The thing that attracted me here again is just the amazing special culture. And I can't take credit for it. It has been in existence since the company was started with Ron Ross and Dan Tinker, less than 15 years ago, but there was always a focus on building a special culture.

Carrie David:
Our purpose is to make money, have fun, and give back. And that's very broadly known by our associates. But there are a few things when I think about it, Heidi, that just make us really special. The first one is that leadership works for the field. Give that a moment to sink in. We know that it's our job to enable and empower our local leaders to tap into their talents so that they can create that personal and just fantastic experience for each of our customers. So when we make decisions, we often make it with the frontline top of mind because they touch the customers and interact all the time with our suppliers. And we know that those positions are so critical to our secret sauce that makes us so successful.

Carrie David:
Another thing you may or may not know about us is every employee can be an owner in our company, even though we're privately held.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I had heard a little bit about that. That's pretty cool.

Carrie David:
It is. So not only can you invest in our stock, but as part of your compensation, every single employee has a piece of their compensation tied to our stock price. So it really encourages employees to make their voices heard when they have ideas or if they see something that's wrong that we need to fix or just do better at.

Heidi Ellsworth:
See, and you don't hear about that too much to really explain to everyone who works for SRS, that they are a part of the greater, and they will see that financially too. That's awesome.

Carrie David:
That's right. Yeah. Everyone has skin in the game. Everyone should have that ownership mindset because what they do every day really makes a difference in terms of the stock price and our continued success and our ability to keep growing. So, we feel like we create these life changing experiences, both from a career perspective as we grow, because we have opportunities now that we couldn't have dreamed up 18 months ago because of our explosive growth, and just that opportunity for wealth accumulation from our stock price continuing to climb.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Well, and the expansion that you are seeing, I mean, both in roofing and in other verticals has been substantial.

Carrie David:
That's right. It's huge. We've had an amazing 2021. From a calendar year perspective, I think we did something like over 30 acquisitions. And our employee base grew more than 50% in 2021.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And you know what, I think that is really where it comes back to why it works is because of culture and how important that culture is. And so when I heard the culture pledge and I saw that it was signed by top leadership, I was inspired. I was inspired. In fact, we, Roofer's Coffee Shop, put a culture pledge together too, inspired by all of you. But-

Carrie David:
I love hearing that.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Those people out there who are listening to this might be like, "What's a culture pledge?" So can you tell us what that was and how it came about?

Carrie David:
Sure. Based on that explosive growth that we had through our greenfields and through those acquisitions, we had so many new employees coming in to the family. So we decided it was time as a leadership team to just hit pause, to make sure that we didn't lose those company attributes that made this culture so special from the beginning, and really hinging on integrity, courage, and commitment. We've always had rules around no jerks allowed and always act ethically, show respect, be stewards of the communities, stand up for yourself and others even if it means being uncomfortable in the moment. But we wanted to really formalize some of those in a culture pledge. That includes some of those things that I just mentioned along with our core values, because we want every employee to be proud of the company that he or she works for and be proud of this culture and come to work every day, just knowing that you'll be respected, you'll be included. And we're all responsible for maintaining that culture.

Carrie David:
But what you were alluding to, in our lobby, you actually see this huge culture pledge signed by our CEO. It's his personal culture pledge. And then the 50 top leaders of the organization signed all around that culture pledge in the margins. And it's kind of a cool story, how it came to be. We didn't want to just roll out a culture pledge via memo. I mean, what does that do? Culture is so important to us that when we decided to launch this culture pledge last December, our CEO, Dan Tinker brought in the top 50 leaders from across the country. And it was a crazy time, we were in full blown acquisition mode. But again, it was that important to us that we wanted all top leaders in the same room to have a face to face conversation about how we nurture the culture and raise the bar going forward because we've gotten to be a pretty substantial size. Right now, we've just crossed 9,000 employees.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Carrie David:
So setting that line in the sand about who we are, what we believe in and how we're going to treat each other and how we're going to ensure that everyone can bring their best self to work, be their whole self, was a really important part of the equation for us and the go forward success.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Oh, that's excellent. So what was some of the feedback from those 50 leaders who were there and when this was launched?

Carrie David:
We did it because it was the right thing to do and we just felt like it was time. So I actually was a little bit taken aback by how emotional it was for some of the leaders in terms of being so proud to work for this company. Others just felt like, "Okay, this is the time." Now we've leveled the playing field. We've given air cover to every single person in the field to ensure they're comfortable reporting about anything that they've experienced or giving their ideas about how we can become more inclusive. So it's really become part of our vernacular now, to the point, if you see behaviors happening, sometimes I'll hear things like, "Oh, well that's not aligned to our culture pledge," or "No, actually our new culture pledge says this." So it's wonderful to see it taking hold and really being driven through the organization.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And it really gives employees a voice. I love how you said that now a couple times, but having been in roofing for a long time, I know there was a lot of times that, especially women, minorities, people who maybe felt a little bit on the outside, didn't feel like they had a voice when they saw something that wasn't right. And you're enabling that.

Carrie David:
Yeah. It's difficult to talk about culture without bringing in the diversity and inclusion piece of it. And one of the things we did in that initial meeting of top 50 leaders, and we continue to cascade through the organization, is we have a courageous leader training. And it really is about coming as you are, bringing your whole self, but then as colleagues, whether you manage people or not, having that courage to stand up and point out when something is not right and doesn't adhere to our values in our culture pledge, or just making sure that you're going that extra mile to make everyone feel included. And to that end, we also launched our five employee resource groups last year. And they really help support the underrepresented and diverse employees and bring that awareness to leadership in areas where we probably need to put more focus.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay, what are those five groups?

Carrie David:
So we have a group that focuses on our Latinos, on our Blacks, on our women, on our pride group, and then lastly, our veterans. So it's really just the beginning. I would imagine that we will have more groups as time goes, but we've right now just started to kind of start with the basics and try to build out what those employee resource groups could do in terms of support, representation, bringing a voice and then helping with mentoring. And it's been interesting in ways that I couldn't have thought of before. For example, we added a diversity and inclusion floating holiday for 2022 off the recommendation of these ERGs, recognizing that we needed to celebrate differences. Hanukkah might be important to one person, Christmas Eve to another, MLK Day, Cesar Chavez day. So just giving employees the ability to be them and celebrating them for their uniqueness. So that's been a big thing for us.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is great. So they have a floating holiday. And then do they kind of share the holidays that they're going to take? Or is this kind of... Because I mean, I would be really interested in what people, what the employees were choosing.

Carrie David:
Yeah. Since we just put it in 2022, we really haven't looked closely at the analytics yet, but yeah, we'll be able to see what day they chose to take their floating diversity and inclusion holiday. So we'll have a sense of what that means. For example, Veterans Day is one that we expect to be very popular amongst our veteran group. And we want to step further in that. We really wanted to make sure that not only were we doing the part that makes you feel good, but we were also closing the loop on the back end.

Carrie David:
So we implemented an employee hotline as well. It's posters that are up in every single one of our branches where an employee can report a violation of the culture pledge, or just talk about things that make them uncomfortable. So we put it out there as, this is a place where you belong and place means we take the pledge, we listen, we act, we challenge and we engage. That's really how we've tried to demonstrate that we don't tolerate violations, period. In terms of, we are that serious about keeping this culture as special as it is. And it's all reinforcing what we believe in as a team.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Well, and the first step is having people feel comfortable in talking about it. Because that's always the hardest part, having that conversation. I also love the courageous training that you're talking about, courageous management, and really being able to have those kind of hard conversations because it's not always easy. And it's not always easy to look at yourself and say, I have work to do.

Carrie David:
That's right. And it's interesting to me in that the world has changed so much in even the last five years. So for someone who's been basically in the HR profession, her entire career, I can tell you what was acceptable 10 years ago is no longer acceptable today. So we're all learning and evolving and becoming more aware of differences and how we're respectful in that. And with the courageous leadership training, what I personally feel is so impactful is that we talk about you don't have to participate in something to be offensive or to be not part of the problem. Let me rephrase that, with courageous leadership training, what I find especially impactful is we really teach people that being silent is actually offensive and harmful to the organization. When you see something wrong, you need to speak up, you need to have that courage, even if it's super uncomfortable.

Carrie David:
We have a lot of really young managers who sometimes I think are afraid to take that step forward and point something out or afraid not to laugh at the off color joke with the more senior type of people around. And courageous leadership is stepping in and saying, "No, you know what, that's disrespectful." And I think that's how we push forward not only from a cultural perspective, but also on just the DNI journey as well. So that all groups feel included. And I think that's a really important part of our next journey for us.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. And I think you've hit it 100% nail on the head. Silence. When you put up with you let other people get disrespected, you let other people get bullied. You let the off color jokes that just really have no place continue to happen. And it's hard for all of us. It's hard to stand up and to say those kind of things. And so I think by empowering people, I love that, that is so important.

Carrie David:
Right. And now we have that common language as an organization to point to the culture pledge. So it's almost easier in terms of the leadership team has been so much out on the front foot about this is our culture pledge. This is what we believe in. This is what we adhere to, that people can very easily point to those posters in the branches with the hotline number that say, this is the place where you belong. They can point to the culture pledge. And it's something that all new hires coming into our organization sign as part of their new hire paperwork. So we set it up front. This is the expectation, we are this amazing company, if you want to be a part of our team, this is what you have to live by.

Heidi Ellsworth:
This is what you have to do. Yeah.

Carrie David:
You have to be beyond reproach.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. I love it. Okay. Let's talk about your customers because we obviously, in roofing, we have all generations. And so sometimes this kind of culture pledge, and also commitment to it is harder, hard for some, maybe I'm not going to say, but people maybe who've been around a little bit longer. So how is that working with the customers and the branches and overall?

Carrie David:
It's an area that made me take pause initially in terms of how impactful this could really be. I was also worried about taking out the fun factor in terms of people would perceive it as, "Ah, it's all HR, it's HR now, you can't be fun anymore." That's not what this is about. This is about respect. And this is about inclusivity and you know what, not everyone adheres to it all the time. And sometimes that makes us have to have uncomfortable conversations with our customers.

Carrie David:
What I love about working for SRS is our top operators, all the way up to Dan Tinker have given our branch managers permission that they don't have to accept any kind of negativity or discrimination or derogatory comments from our customers, us keeping a respectful and inclusive work environment is more important than the sale. And so I love that message because I think a lot of times, whether it be the inside salesperson working the desk, who's taking the harassment or the branch manager who might be afraid to say something because it's a really good customer. They've been empowered that no, this is our work environment and this is our pledge for how we're going to treat employees. And if it means losing that customer, that's okay.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And I think that sends a message. It sends a much wider message of how you're going to do business, the ethics around business and where... The roofing respect. I mean, we just call it roofing respect. And I agree with you what you said earlier, it's not always easy when you've always done something a certain way to make changes. Like you said, five, 10 years, everything, things that were acceptable 10 years ago are not acceptable today. How do people always know, only through conversation.

Carrie David:
Well, that's right. And you know what I am finding really rewarding as well is some of our suppliers and some of our customers who understand this culture that we're reinforcing now have actually called us where they've seen our employees in limited situations, not behaving in accordance with our culture pledge. We've gotten that call in terms of, "Hey, I know you guys believe this. This is what I witnessed. You need to go check out this individual, because I don't think he's or she's adhering to the culture pledge." And I think that's pretty awesome when you're that known for the kind of culture we believe in and reinforce.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And that they have that kind of trust. I mean, especially as a vendor, they think, "Oh, we can't say anything. We have to be silent when we see," but no, they have that trust and faith that it's all going to be fair and right. Yeah.

Carrie David:
And you know what, Heidi, it's a journey. I'm not going to tell you that we are perfect, every single 9,001 of our employees, there are things that happen. Of course, when you've got an employee population that big, but I can tell you that our senior leadership team really believes in what we're doing. And that's why we've tried to create all these different outlets so that we make sure we're holding each other accountable because I can't be at every branch, our senior leadership can't be at every branch. It's up to all employees to adhere to that no jerks allowed rule, and sure we sometimes call it organ rejection around here. If someone comes into the mix who won't adhere to our culture pledge, or just our core values. Really the masses reject them pretty quickly in terms of, "No, this is who we are and we're not going to let one bad actor ruin what we're trying to build here."

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Because you have everybody believes, you have belief in that. And so, as you're looking at this, what's next? How do you keep this going? Because I mean, it sounds like you've got everybody in. And so I know in those cases it's kind of like, okay, what can we do together?

Carrie David:
Now what? Yeah. So we started looking at a lot of our core processes to make sure that the beliefs that we have around culture really are ingrained and embedded across everything that we do. So one big area is, what constitutes top performance at SRS? In so many distribution businesses, you see if they make their numbers, they are seen as rock stars. Here, you've got to make your numbers and you've got to live by our culture and by our values. And if you don't, if you're not an A in both those areas, you can't be considered a top performer in our organization.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love that.

Carrie David:
Yeah. I think that's a really important element of really kind of putting our money where our mouth is in terms of reinforcing that belief. The other thing I see us doing next is just getting even more intentional about diversity and inclusion, seeking out more diversity in our candidates and then in the programs that support them and help them acclimate into our culture. And ensuring there aren't barriers to development for our current employees.

Carrie David:
For example, we have a pretty large Latino population here. What we realized is if we would offer Spanish to English classes for some of those high potential employees, we would remove that barrier and then let them reach career ambitions and aspirations that they couldn't get anywhere else. But us recognizing that's a need and meeting them where they are to help remove that barrier, we feel like that will be life changing as the next step in that true culture of meritocracy and giving everyone the opportunity for the American dream and to climb the career ladder at SRS.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Oh, I love that. And the thing is you have a lot of people who, or a lot of companies who, like we kind of mentioned earlier, who just talk, they just talk, they put things out there, but they don't have the do or the walk behind them. But SRS, I mean, first company with national women in roofing, major, major sponsor every single year, donated through Raise the Roof. And now what I am seeing with the Latinx, what you're doing in the Hispanic community with Julissa, it's not just about employees, it's about the customers. It's about the industry as a whole. So you're able to take that culture and put it out. I love that.

Carrie David:
Yeah. I often tell people when they ask about my job, I have the best HR job around, to get to work for a company that believes this much in culture and to get to work for a CEO like Dan Tinker, who lives it, breathes it, gets the importance of the frontline employee. And just really drives that culture of frontline first. I mean, it is a dream come true for me to get to work for SRS and get to help be a part of this journey.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Oh, I love it. And so one last question, because I love, obviously as you can tell, I love this, but you hit a little bit earlier on recruiting. I know that you do tons recruiting in the universities and colleges, this next generation coming in, what is some of their response and some of their feedback when you share this culture pledge and everything that SRS is doing around diversity and inclusion?

Carrie David:
I've found in the last several years, it has become increasingly important to this newer generation coming up into the ranks because starting with what's your purpose, what's your mission. I think younger people entering the workforce want to make sure they work for a company that they feel good about and they feel like their values are aligned to. And we often get that question now, what are you doing about diversity? And we are so proud to say, "Well, here's what we've started with, our five ERGs, with our culture pledge, with our commitment to be good stewards of our communities and of the planet."

Carrie David:
Because we feel like not only are these things good business and the right thing to do, but we do realize they're becoming increasingly table stakes for what people want in their careers, because they want something bigger than just to go to work and pick up your paycheck on Friday. They want to be part of something bigger. And we do believe that through our organization, I mean, we are changing lives, whether it be through some of the things I've talked about earlier, in terms of career opportunities, the ability to build wealth, also in what we do for our communities Raise the Roof, which you may have heard of.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

Carrie David:
Doing amazing things for the communities that we live and work in. And I think all these things are just critical in terms of what the ideal corporate citizen, what that ideal company looks like on the way forward, because we care not just about making this a really successful company, but we care deeply about our employees and the communities and the customers that we serve. And I think that's a game changer and part of what makes us so successful.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, I do too. 100%. And I agree with you so much on this next generation, this isn't just about impressing them. This is about them selecting you to work for, whether it's diversity, inclusion, culture, environment, all the things, sustainability, all the things, the cause is so important. And obviously you all have it in spades. It's pretty exciting.

Carrie David:
Thank you. Yeah. We definitely feel like we do, but it's one of those areas that we can never get stagnant. We've got to keep pushing forward and keep going on our journey, which is actually what we're really good at, at SRS. We tend not to get lazy. We tend to push forward, to believe in next, to always be looking for what next is. So on the employment front, it'll definitely be no different for us wanting to create just those really special work experiences that really fulfill heart and soul on all angles.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. I love it. I love it. Carrie, thank you. Thank you for your inspiration and for sharing this story. This is really, I'm sorry, I'm going to say it one more time, this is just incredibly inspirational.

Carrie David:
Oh, thank you, Heidi. My pleasure to be here. I love talking about SRS and our journey here. And hopefully in another six months, another 12 months, I'll have the next chapter and tell you how we're continuing to evolve in this space.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. And we'll come back here on this Roofing Road Trip and you can tell us all about it because this is the kind of stuff that's changing the industry, and we need to keep pushing it out there and letting everybody know, be aware. And so, okay. One last thing. As I said, you inspired us at Roofer's Coffee Shop to do our own culture pledge with our core values and publishing it and putting it out there. Are you seeing that happening with other people, with your customers, with contractors because roofing companies, roofing contractors who are listening right now, this is something you can do in your company.

Carrie David:
You absolutely can. I sense that it's probably happening more than what I have visibility into, but if anyone wants to talk about it or hear a little bit more about our journey, I'm happy to share.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's awesome. And if anybody, you can find all of this on Roofer's Coffee Shop, in the SRS directory, we've had some articles about this, we'll have the podcast, you just can't believe, Raise the Roof, all the different things that you can see online to show the great culture and what's happening at SRS. So Carrie, again, thank you so much for being here today.

Carrie David:
Thank you, Heidi. I've enjoyed it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And thank all of you for being here for listening to this podcast, for being a part of Roofer's Coffee Shop community, you can see here, all of our podcasts under the read, listen, watch section of rooferscoffeeshop.com or you can catch them on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and hit those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. And we will see you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.