Pallet Enterprise: What is the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
Vrugteveen: Listen and learn, and let your people do their job. The more you do, the more talents you realize you have inside your company.
Pallet Enterprise: What is one thing you do at your company that is different from other pallet companies?
Vrugteveen: One thing we did put in place five years ago was a human resources manager and a health and safety person. I was just doing everything, and I didn’t even like coming into work. Then we added this person. It really changed things around for us. They put structures in place and reward programs, and they concentrate on people. It’s worked out very well. We’re able to keep our employee turnover very low to a rate of 5%, which is very good in the general labor industry. That has a lot to do with pay structures, company functions, reward programs, health benefits and caring about your people. You need people to get the product out. You need to care about your people.
Pallet Enterprise: How/why did you first get involved in the industry?
Vrugteveen: I worked as a forklift operator during my high school years at the food terminal in Toronto, and I learned the pallet industry there. And I was a forklift operator for Wolfert’s Farm; they are an onion and carrot producer. It was 5-6 years later that I started going around with a pickup truck picking up pallets and fixing them, and 18 years later we have 60 employees. I just saw an opportunity and ran with it.
Pallet Enterprise: How do you go about your work day to stay productive and stay on target?
Vrugteveen: Once a week we hold a production meeting with the management team, and each morning I have a chat with each one of my supervisors. You can never walk a floor too much or too many times in a day. You need to speak to each employee at least once a day. Even a quick hello or how’s it going. Be part of the team. Make your employees feel important. Respect them. A lot of general laborers come from hard backgrounds; sometimes they have a tough go at home, and the workplace is the safe haven. Show you care.
Pallet Enterprise: What is the most important thing you do each day?
Vrugteveen: The beginning of the day I begin with God. I study his word, time of prayer, and Michelle and I were blessed with four daughters and so another important thing each day is to be home at 5 o’clock for dinner because work will always be there. She does a lot of volunteering and we’re youth group leaders at our church so we’re busy with that.
Pallet Enterprise: What advice would you give someone entering the industry for the first time?
Vrugteveen: It’s a very labor-intensive business. There are many opportunities to have spin-off business. We started off with used pallets, and now we do new pallets, special packaging, crating, cardboard and plastic recycling, and we do lot of mulch products – biofuel and animal bedding.
