Best Places to Work: Quality people drive H.B. Chemical

TWINSBURG, Ohio—H.B. Chemical started with a desk, secretary and a few products to sell, but now stocks more than 600 products in multiple warehouses through North America.

Hill Browning started the company in 1986 and sold it to longtime employee Jeffrey Rand in 2008. Rand credits employees taking ownership of their job duties as a key to the company's success.

"As a company, the last thing that Hill wanted or I wanted was to micromanage people's daily tasks," Rand said.

"Hill's philosophy going way back was basically to empower anyone who worked here to do the job that was needed. He didn't offer a whole lot of advice; he didn't offer a whole lot of direction."

Creating a positive work environment that pays its employees well with additional training and benefits is the main reason H.B. Chemical has been named one of Rubber & Plastics News' Best Places to Work for 2019 as determined by its employees through a survey conducted by Best Companies Group.

While some of this may have been strategic, Rand said, Browning also always figured things out on his own. But as the company continued to grow, leadership added more resources to assist workers with their roles.

"We still rally people to basically run their own jobs, but we offer advice, training … that philosophy really continues today," Rand said.

H.B. Chemical currently has 30 U.S. employees and five others in both Mexico and China. Ravago Holdings America Inc. acquired H.B. Chemical in May, but Rand stayed on as president and maintains the company's office in Twinsburg.

When it comes to creating a company culture, Rand focuses on hiring kind people and has found he has very little turnover because he works to treat his team well.

"We don't hire anybody that's not a good person, a nice person," he said.

"I'd rather have someone who's not the top of the field if they are a genuinely good human being than going out and trying to find a super star who doesn't fit."

Most employees have been at the company for a long time. When Rand does need to bring someone on board, he said he will reach out to his employees' networks or post to a job board.

"It starts with personality and the attitude, then it goes to experience and skill set and then it will go further down the line to specific job histories," Rand said in ranking of attributes for hiring.

"We're probably most proud of our ability through the years to find people with special needs to work," he said.

All employees have PTO time, a good 401k match contribution, the option for tuition reimbursement and competitive wages.

"We realize we don't really want turnover so we try to make sure we're paying more than our competitors, our industry … any industry," Rand said.

"We never want you to leave because there's more money next door or anywhere, so we're trying to pay above the scales on all of our jobs."

Yet Rand recognizes that there are times when an employee might need to seek out an opportunity outside of the company. For instance, if there is no higher position in any given department to grow into, the management team at H.B. Chemical will work with the individual to get placed elsewhere. And in turn, those employees show appreciation by helping to find their replacement.

"We strongly believe that anybody who works here, we want to make sure their resumes are strong enough that should they want to leave … even if we ask them to leave, to help place them in another job," Rand said.

This may include outside training, such as ISO or lean manufacturing certifications. Typically, Rand said any seminar or education that could improve someone's functionality or something that could benefit the business down the road, the company pays for and supports the training.