At Vertical Turbine Specialists in Lubbock, Texas, they make turbine parts and happy employees.
The 50-year-old family-owned manufacturer provides chiropractic services, Zone meals and CrossFit to its workers—all free—and is rewarded with increased production, quality and attention spans, as well as decreased accidents.
Six months after the company created the Zone Room, a light bulb went on, says Cody Allen, vice president of operations, whose father started the company.
“My uncle, who is the safety manager, came to my dad and said, ‘Do you know since we started this we’ve had zero accidents?’ Zero accidents. In a manufacturing facility, when you’ve got safety hazards like we do, that’s unheard of,” Allen says.
The company began offering CrossFit in 2008.
“The functional movement is the biggest deal,” Allen says. “The guys that are out there, pushing, pulling, doing this and doing that, it’ll strengthen them in those areas so they’re not getting hurt.”
CrossFit, Allen says, is where employees saw the total impact.
“When we did that, it was phenomenal,” he says. “I mean it was absolutely phenomenal.”
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Additional reading: My Tribe by Jeremy Striffler, published Feb. 16, 2012.