The Welsh Wire: Stacy Paul on Winning the War for Talent with Culture

One of Michigan’s top small business engineering firms has built its company recruitment efforts around culture—a culture that encourages engineers to grow and develop personally and professionally as well as connect with their community.

Stacy Paul, CEO of Array of Engineers, a certified women-owned small business in Grand Rapids, Mich., and a member of the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch, says they recruit talent to fit the firm’s core values. She talked recently with Sheri Welsh for The Welsh Wire podcast.

“[We support] promotion of innovation and creativity, not ever wanting to put somebody in a box, allowing them to expand and be super creative, no matter what the task is,” Paul says. “And that goes along with helping each employee reach their highest potential.”

Other core values include having a good relationship and open communication with their customers, and engaging with the West Michigan community to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

Array of Engineers creates embedded systems for aerospace, defense, medical devices, and “Internet of Things” customers. Paul believes the company’s culture and core values make it attractive to potential employees.

“In every decision that you might have to make, you have to [ask] if this is really following our core values,” Paul said. “We have a fabulous core team that we work with and we talk about our goals as a company.

“We have our three-month goals, six-month goals, one-year goals, and then our super far-out goals, because it’s important to have big dreams. And then always looking back at our core values and thinking, if these are the right goals for us at the time, and they change. It’s okay to change what your goals are going to be.”

Hear more of Paul’s discussion about winning the war for talent with culture on this week’s The Welsh Wire podcast. Listen to the full interview with Stacy Paul.

Subscribe to The Welsh Wire podcast on iTunes for additional informative, entertaining interviews with West Michigan business leaders.