In 1960, Robert Tracey and his wife embarked on what would become the biggest success story in the food service industry.
Robert, who had worked for Prairie Farms for 11 years, had a dream of giving people affordable access to food and helping food industry suppliers increase their sales.
With only enough money to do business from the back of their family’s station wagon, Robert and Dorothy went ahead with their dream, starting what would become Dot Foods, the nation’s largest food service distributor.
And they did it without using traditional workplace models and introducing flexible and asynchronous operational models that were decades ahead of their time and prioritized their employees along with their customers.
What can companies learn from the Dot Foods organization model?
Asynchronicity and Productivity
CEO Joe Tracy attributes much of the company’s success to adapting to work schedules to give employees more flexibility. They also embrace technology, automating tasks that employees find tedious, and dedicating more time to training the employees to use these tools to perform more meaningful work.
Recent research has suggested that employees work better when they spend 30–40%
of their time in the office. These findings have led many to believe that the hybrid work model is the most effective way to maintain and improve productivity. Meanwhile, plenty of evidence and case studies have demonstrated several benefits of a fully asynchronous work model.
These are some best practices for business leaders who want to reap the benefits of a flexible work model.
Prioritize employee well-being.
In the workplace, well-being doesn’t just describe how employees feel emotionally; an employee’s well-being affects their amount of sick days, performance, burnout levels, and desire to stay at the company.
To demonstrate the importance of employee well-being, Gallup shared that employee burnout caused $322 billion in turnover costs globally. Meanwhile, when employees are not engaged, it costs their company the equivalent of 18% of their salary.
One of the most effective ways to improve employee well-being (and therefore increase productivity) is to promote flexibility. In a 2022 survey, McKinsey & Company asked job seekers for their most common rationale for a job hunt. After a desire for more pay and better career opportunities was a desire for a flexible working arrangement.
Flexibility is something the leaders at Dot Foods prioritized. When deciding how to attract quality employees, they reshaped their schedule to give employees more flexibility and opportunities to take time off. Because of the positive effect of flexibility on employee well-being, Dot Foods has retained its best workers and used its resources to grow its business.
Understand the role of the manager.
Sid Sijbrandij, the CEO of the famously all-remote software company GitLab, attributes much of the company’s success to the company’s emphasis on good management. Gallup found that remote workers’ productivity depends on the manager. So what exactly can managers do to increase productivity on remote teams?
Sijbrandij notes that many of the same management principles apply to in-person and remote work, one of the most important being to encourage self-management (GitLab calls this “being a manager of one”). They intentionally hire self-starters who demonstrate an ability to work independently.
Meanwhile, managers and executives ho