Success Stories: Providing Employees Stability in Unstable Times is a profile of ESOP Company and 2010 Top Small Company Workplace Van Meter Industrial. The article discusses the company's five core values of Place, People, Provider, Continuous Improvement, and Profit:

Giving back to the communities in which they and their employees reside is certainly not a novel concept for companies; many are motivated to do so for the positive PR it brings. But VMI has intentionally built this focus into its workplace culture and its core values, one of which is Place.

"We allow employees eight hours to volunteer on company time," Marketing & Communications Manager Erin Koester told us in VMI's award application. "Not only is this good for the community, it is also a reward for our people."

The company's other four core values, all of which except for one also start with the letter P, include:

• People: building and sustaining an engaged workforce is a key strategic goal
  
• Provider: get the right product to the right customer
  
• Continuous imProvement: continue to empower and to expect each of our employees to make the appropriate changes for improving process, services and other activities in our company, and to continue to have a workplace that is constantly reinventing itself
  
• Profit: continue to drive value in our stock price so our fellow employee-owners can reap the rewards of employee ownership
  

The article also explores their open book management program and their Quick Kaizen continuous program:

At VMI, it is called Quick Kaizen, and it uses technology (their intranet) to empower employees to make small changes in their work habits that collectively lead to large-scale process improvement.

"You can enter ideas and they go to whoever is in charge of that area, and then they interact with you by phone or email," says Delivery Driver Larry Botts. "They ask you about cost savings or a better way to do it. For example, I tried to get a new form for the customers so they don't have to sign multiple times for a delivery. Our competitors make people sign multiple times and another company even takes a picture of the person signing for the delivery. Now we work with the customer so they can either sign, or they don't have to stop what they're doing to sign. This helps us build trust with the customer."

The Quick Kaizen program is based on the Kaizen philosophy:

Continuous Improvement

The principles for continuous improvement include establishing a long-term vision, working on challenges, continual innovation, and going to the source of the issue or problem: