Washington Business Summer 2017 | Washington Business | Page 35

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recruiting: education, compensation and
flexible schedule
The good news for the Budvarsons is that their business is
growing. So much so, they’ll be looking to hire as many as six
employees over the next year.
The bad news is the outdated perception of manu-
facturing makes the industry less attractive to today’s
up-and-coming workforce.
To help show students the high-tech manufacturing jobs
today, the Budvarsons open their doors each year on national
Manufacturing Day, which is the first Friday of October, to
welcome students, teachers and parents and show off the clean
shop floor and talk about the good-paying jobs they offer.
“There aren’t a lot of educational platforms to go into our
field,” Allison said. “I’ve been very active the past few years
in national Manufacturing Day to encourage students to
consider manufacturing as a career choice.”
Another way she gets the word out is by sitting on the
boards for Clover Park Technical College’s operations
management bachelor’s program and Bates Technical
College’s engineering technician program.
“My goal is to make educators and students aware of what
we do,” Allison said.
But, when they find the right employee for their company,
the Budvarsons are keenly aware that competitive pay and
benefits are critical, but they also offer workers another
attractive benefit — a flexible schedule.
“We have small children and a lot of our employees
have small children, so one of the things we stress when
recruiting is the flexible nature of our company,” Allison
said. “We built our business on being flexible to meet the
needs of our customers and we’ve extended that idea to
our employees.”
They also encourage employees to work four, 10-hour
days to allow for a third day off in the week without dipping
into vacation days.
the leap of faith
There’s a reason small-business owners are called risk takers.
“It’s a big step to jump off that ledge, to quit your day job
and jump in feet first and say, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ and you
know your pay is not going to be what it was before,” Chad
said. “You’re really taking that leap of faith that it’s going to
work and know there will be a lot of hours and sweat equity
invested in the business.”
The risk yielded the reward. The couple has gone from
their starting base operation in their garage to 17,000
square-feet today.
“What I wish the average person knew is how deeply
engrained your business becomes in you,” Allison said. “You
live it. There have been a lot of times I’ve laid awake at night
thinking about our employees.”
Their bottom line: It takes dedication and the willingness
to make tough decisions to be a small-business owner.
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