In early 2015, a young female engineer at Garver asked for advice on how to advance her career as a woman in an industry of mostly men.
Garver -- a North Little Rock company specializing in engineering, planning and environmental services -- has a male-to-female ratio that mirrors its industry: 4-to-1.
Laura Nick, a marketing and communications manager at the firm, heard about the young woman's question.
"I thought, 'Hey, there must be a need, and other people must be asking these questions. We want her to stay of course, so let's help make her career path more obvious," Nick recalled.
To support and guide its women, the company recently started its Connect program, a women's resource group modeled in part after J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.'s 2-year-old Growing and Retaining Outstanding Women program.
"This program didn't evolve because we have a problem hiring women or women aren't being promoted," Nick said. "The fact is women are a minority in a male-dominated industry, so we wanted to look at how are we really catching up with that?"
After attending an event featuring a discussion of the J.B. Hunt program's effects, Nick approached the Lowell-based trucking company for advice on how Garver could start its own version.
"They're doing this, and they're doing it very successfully. How do we turn around and apply that to us?" Nick said.
The companies both operate in industries traditionally staffed by men. Garver also does work in the transportation field, and both had to think strategically about bringing together people spread across offices.
In the end, Connect settled on two goals -- recruiting and retaining; and professional and personal development. It has taken about a year to develop the Connect infrastructure, and the company recently began a "buddy program" to address their first goal. Recently hired women can be matched with an experienced female employee to help with the details and "unofficial information" often left out of orientations.
The desired outcome, Nick said, is to provide someone new employees "can count on to really assimilate them, especially in our smaller offices where there's zero to one female." While it's not required, "we haven't had anyone say no yet," Nick said.
Julie Gentry, a recently hired HR specialist, said that thanks to her buddy, "I felt at home right away."
The second goal, inspired by Hunt's program, features events organized around specific topics, open to all at the company -- including men.
Suzanne Peyton, project manager at Garver and head of Connect, said inclusiveness was a big takeaway from their conversations with J.B. Hunt.
"We want this program to connect our company, not divide it," Peyton said.
J.B. Hunt emphasized to Garver the importance of involving top-level management from the beginning. J.B. Hunt's president and CEO John Roberts attended the first meeting of his company's program, and Garver's Director of Transportation Jerry Holder and Chief Financial Officer Dathan Gaskill are executive sponsors of the Garver group.
The first Connect event happened last week at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as part of Garver's annual companywide meeting. It featured a panel of speakers, including Tami Allensworth, vice president of customer experience and president of the women's program at J.B. Hunt.
"Our job is to show women as they're coming into these industries that they can be highly successful," Allensworth said.
She said her involvement with the group has affected her personally.
"At the beginning, I thought I was helping other women," Allensworth said. "But I didn't realize how much I would gain from it myself."
Allensworth said her program has received calls from several other companies asking for help as they start similar programs, and it has been so successful that J.B. Hunt now has two other resource groups -- for veterans and Hispanics.
"It's not necessarily a women's program," Nick said. "It's a place for us to learn to work together better in a place where females have traditionally been the minority."
Business on 10/20/2016