Tough love
by Jim Martyka
You walk past the lobby stuffed with plaques, trophies and letters of commendation. You maneuver through the twisting and turning hallways lined with funny pictures of employees and their hobbies and art from little kids. You go past the conference room where people were just playing a form of techie Jeopardy, then a dart board in the hallway, then a living room with leather couches and a full entertainment center, then a little store that also offers full concierge services.
Then it hits you: “Gee whiz, this place is better than home!”
This place is the modest Minnetonka headquarters of Help/Systems Inc., a manufacturer of automated operations software. The headquarters shows that the company is built on comfort and fun. The awards, along with letters of thanks from customers, show that it is also built on excellence and professionalism.
You wonder how a company can balance these two so well. And then you meet Janet Dryer, Help/Systems’ 42-year-old president who started in sales shortly after the company began 20 years ago.
“We have a simple workplace philosophy and that is to have fun here,” says Dryer with her signature giggle and strong Fargo accent. “We work in a very intense industry and we’ve found that productivity goes right up if people are relaxed and eager to come in to work. We have fun and sometimes we do things that are slightly out of the ordinary.”
Then her eyes harden and she’s all business. “But don’t get the wrong idea. We take this industry and our position as a leader very seriously. We are a team of highly motivated and hard-working people and we work together. That’s why we’re the best. We just have fun doing it.”
The philosophy has pushed Help/Systems to be a leader in the automated software industry. Working exclusively with the iSeries automated operations system, the company develops and manufactures software under its own Robot brand. The products automate everything from alert systems to reporting and archiving services to scheduling to managing clients. The basic idea is to automate these services so people hours can be used elsewhere.
Dryer was hired as one the first employees, when the company was trying to develop its automated software, primarily an automatic job scheduler. For a while, Dryer was trying to sell a product the company didn’t have yet.
Then Robot was born and the company tried applying it to any system that customers brought in. In the late 1980s, the company focused and has expanded ever since.
Much of the company’s progress, including building a niche, hiring the best staff and changing up the company’s advertising strategy, is attributed to Dryer.
“When it comes to this company, I was the brains, but she was and is definitely the heart,” says Richard Jacobsen, the company’s founder. “She’s had a lot to do with motivation and helping this firm grow. I don’t know where this company would be without her. I could see right away that she would be an asset and we were lucky to get her.”
A Fargo native, Dryer got her business degree from the College of St. Benedict. After working a year with Wagner Spray Tech, she joined her roommate at Help/Systems. She’s taken a few different positions over the years, finally becoming president in the mid-1990s after company owners asked her to invest in a good chunk of stock, which she reluctantly did. Now she says it was the best move she ever made.
“It made me more interested in the company’s growth,” Dryer says, “and with that growth comes constant challenges and new opportunities that are too exciting to miss.”
From modest beginnings, Help/Systems is up to around $50 million in revenue, with about 90 employees and more than 12,000 customers around the world. That list includes such prominent local names as 3M, Target and Cargill, as well as national and international firms such as American Express, Coca-Cola, Disney, IBM, Volvo, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Paramount Pictures and JP Morgan Chase.
“When a tech company works in a mid-range market, the industry can get very crowded,” says Robert Kauffman, a technology professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. “To grow that much in this field is impressive.”
Dryer says the key was building the niche.
“For a while, we were like the Kmart of the automated software world,” Dryer says. “We would pick up all the packages and try and work with every system. The bottom line is that it was just too much and we weren’t growing.”
So, after much research and discussion, company executives decided to focus on operations and since then business has boomed. Dryer cites two reasons.
Because the company is so devoted to working with the iSeries, all research and development has gone only into products that can help that system. That has also kept competition away. While there are other companies that will compete with certain Robot products, Dryer says, there are few, if any, that can offer the same overall package that Help/Systems provides.
Plus, the focus has helped Help/Systems be more understanding of customer needs, Dryer says. Since there is only one system the company works with, employees from sales to service know it inside and out.
“Everything about their customer service is impressive,” says Steve Tesch, a systems specialist for IBM Global Services, which is using the Robot package for its AT&T account. Tesch said the company used to have six dedicated operators who performed about 9,000 jobs on the system a month. With Robot, the number of jobs has been cut to zero and the employees are used elsewhere.
“They answer the phone within minutes,” Tesch says about Help/Systems. “They help right away. They know exactly what they’re talking about. They will bring us in for feedback. And Janet will often call directly just to check in. You can tell that this type of customer services is stressed over there.”
The other main reason for the boom in business, executives say, has been repeated changes and upgrades in marketing and advertising strategies, an area where a lot of tech firms fail. Over the past decade, the advertising and marketing has evolved many times, with the exception of one thing: Robot.
Looking like a friendlier version of the creatures from the movie “Metropolis,” Robot has long been the company’s icon, bringing familiarity to its products. Today, Robot appears in just about every piece of Help/Systems marketing. And there is a lot of it, including direct mailings, magazine ads, Internet ads and trade shows. Publicity and winning awards doesn’t hurt either.
“We really started heavy advertising in the early 1990s and that was a turning point for us,” Dryer says. “We’ve focused on growing it ever since. And that includes doing some rather off-the-wall stuff.” Unlike most other tech firms, Help/Systems produces all the advertising in-house. They’ve mailed out objects that will grab the attention of customers, including everything from buttons to cowboy hats.
Perhaps the area in which Dryer has made the biggest impression is in hiring and retention. A self-described strict manager, Dryer says she sets a high bar for new employees, constantly motivates current employees and has no problem firing those employees who aren’t doing their part.
“We will get rid of people if we have to, and we have, because we simply will not tolerate poor performance,” she says. “We won’t waste the time or resources giving multiple chances. Instead, we’ll bring in somebody who can do it.
“We want highly motivated people, people that will come up with solutions to problems, rather than just problems. I know that sounds harsh, but we haven’t had many problems, mainly because we have such a tough screening process and because everybody here does feel like they’re part of a team.”
That screening process includes interviews with HR, managers and team members to see if that person will fit in. From there, the person goes through psychological examinations and then several rounds of testing. And it gets even tougher for managers.
Dryer is stalwart in only working with the best. When she became president five years ago, she inherited a management team that she didn’t click with. Rather than spending time finding common ground, Dryer started over, building her own team.
“I did not and will not settle,” she says. “That’s how you become the best.”
Executives couldn’t think of any employee who’s left the company unhappy, and the company’s retention rate is high. Employees attribute at least part of that to Dryer.
“She’s really a blast to work with because she’s an idea person who’s extremely creative,” says Carole Reycraft, a marketing manager at Help/Systems. “She comes up with these ideas that most people would think she was out of her mind, but they work and they’re fun.”
A recent example was a 20th anniversary celebration. Employees participated in a variety show with a “back to high school” theme. Dryer also came up with the idea to hire a full-time concierge to take care of employee needs and to run a small gift shop right in the headquarters.
There is also a video and book library, places for employee art on the walls, cozy break rooms, a number of community charity programs for employees to be involved with, fun events for employees and customers, health rewards and programs designed to further employee education — and not just in the technology fields. Help/Systems will pay for employees who want to study extracurricular activities, from scuba diving to photography.
“We work in an intense industry and we want our employees to be balanced on every level,” Dryer says. “We don’t believe in overtime or cubicles or stale working environments. We want people to have fun at work and be relaxed enough to focus on getting work done. That’s my responsibility.”
Dryer herself balances her life by spending time with her husband and three kids. She is also an active jogger, cook and book nut. One of the other Help/Systems programs is a book club. And when she needs to get away, Dryer spends some time at her lake cabin in Brainerd.
Still, her main focus is Help/Systems and she has no plans to leave anytime soon. For the future, her goal can be summed up in two words: continuous growth. Well, and also finding new ways to keep things lively around the office.
“There’s always a lot to do,” she says with a serious look on her face. “And we do have a lot of goals for the future of this company.”
Then her face softens again. “But it’s comforting to know that we have the best staff around to meet these goals and build this business. And we’ll have fun doing it.”
