EPISODE #3:

It’s a Journey: Reinventing Your Work for Positive Social Impact with Scott Koloms

Or listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

So you want to make a positive impact on your world through your work? Great! However, let’s face it. Our passion for doing good isn’t always enough to make it happen. My guest this week, Scott Koloms, shows you how to start out with a simple commitment and make it real through mindful and intentional actions. 

Scott is president of B Corps, Facility Management Services, (FMS). In this episode, he shares his fascinating story of how he transformed his dream of making a difference in reality. He did it by transforming his company into a certified B Corps that has landed a coveted spot twice on the Real Leaders Impact Award list of 100 best companies growing by doing good. 

Scott always wanted to be a writer. He was in the third year of a Ph.D. program in literacy and rhetoric when his father died unexpectedly and returned home to Kentucky to take over the family business.  

He didn’t really know what he was walking into. The company was heavily in debt and losing money every year. He says he started out by thinking if he just treated people well, with kindness and integrity, things might work out. And guess what? They did! But it didn’t happen overnight. 

Scott shares what he has learned from his journey and provides tips you can apply no matter where you are. You might be leading a company, starting a new one, or looking for a way to make your current job and work more meaningful. Scott’s story is relevant to all of us. 

Scott says you need more than a values statement. You must go that extra step and figure out what your values look like in action. And he shows you how to do it. 

Here is a snapshot of a few topics we cover in this podcast…

• Pivotal moments that made a huge difference in Scott’s journey.
• The significance of how you pick the challenges to address. Hint: zero in and don’t try to be all things to everybody. 
• The roles of intuition, intention, and mindfulness in finding your way as you strive to make a difference.  
• The importance of viewing the challenges that you will inevitably meet as fun! 

If you are interested in more information, here are some additional links related to this episode: 

• Learn more about the Real Leaders Awards.
• Want to learn more about Scott’s company? FMS
• And I have written an article in Forbes.com about Scott and his B Corps. Read it here.

EPISODE #3 TRANSCRIPT

Kathy Miller Perkins: Welcome to the conscious culture cafe podcast that explores how you can lean into your purpose, live your values, and enhance your social impact through your work. I’m your host, Kathy Miller, Perkins

Kathy Miller Perkins: Have you ever wondered what it would take to transform your well-established small or medium sized business into a purpose driven company? Are you wondering where to start and what to expect along the way? Our guest today will provide some ideas. You’re in for a treat today as Scott Koloms, president of Facilities Management Services (FMS), is with us, and Scott tells me that his company is the first janitorial company in the world to become a certified B Corp. He’s the first B Corp certified in Louisville, Kentucky, and the second in the state of Kentucky. So let’s get started with Scott and have him tell you a little bit about the history of how all this came about. Scott, give us some ideas about how you became the president of FMS, what you did before, little bit about your journey over the last several years.

Scott Koloms: It has been 18 years. So my background was in academia way back in 2001, I was in my third year of coursework on a PhD in literacy and rhetoric at Kent state university. And you know, my intention was to become a writer and that’s always what I had hoped to do. I was pretty young. And, my dad had bought a small janitorial service in Shelbyville, Kentucky in ’99 and uh, passed away unexpectedly, um, shortly after he bought the business in May of 2001. So back then it was the height of the Clinton era. Basically, if you walked into the bank and tried to get an SBA loan and they checked your pulse and you had it and you could get alone a so different than these days. So he was able to secure a pretty hefty loan to buy that business.

Scott Koloms: And you know, as I always loved the idea that I came in and in a shining armor on a white horse to save the family, uh, I wish I could say that that was the entire eight. The motivation, the truth is, as I somewhat become disenchanted with academia and I was kind of ready to get out anyway. But that said, there’s certainly a, were some drivers, uh, in the circumstance when dad passed. So, um, you know, I walked into a company that had $780,000, almost $800,000 in long term debt, a company that was doing $600,000 to 700,000 revenue and losing $100,000 and had no operation, very much of a, had no operating capital using credit cards for that. So it was fortuitous that I was studying literacy and rhetoric and didn’t know what I was walking into.

Kathy Miller Perkins: So when you became president, did you immediately come up with the idea of becoming a mission driven company or did that gradually evolve? How did that come about?

Scott Koloms: Yeah, that definitely happened over time. I use the language of moving from this space of intuitively doing good towards intentionality. And you know, for the first many years it was just about this sense of if I treat people well, the profit and the financial stability will follow. And so those people being employees, vendors, customers, and even the people calling every month to make sure we were making that SBA painting. Right, exactly right. So the idea was, you know, hey, I feel like if I treat people well and I am myself and operate with, with kindness and integrity and openness that things will ultimately work out.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Yeah. And so 18 years later along the way, you, well we all have had bumps, you became certified as a B Corp. can you tell me what led you to that certification process or how you made that decision?

Scott Koloms: Yeah, you know, there’s a lot of markers along the way. I tell this story often in different spaces. One of the first ones, early ones was our first leadership retreat that we went to. And at that time I think we had about 200 employees and I took my leaders out to a state park here in Kentucky. And really the intention on the weekend was one just to do some team building. But we, we had a question, we wanted to understand how we went from the 30 employees we had when, when dad died. And I took over the business too at that point, the 200 so the question was how did we go, let’s see, that was there was eight, nine years, eight or nine years. So how did we do that was the question and really we didn’t realize it at the moment, but what we were coming up with was our core values.

Scott Koloms: And you know, the answer that just kept coming back was it’s because we care about each other, it’s because we care about each other. So that turned into care about the people you work with. It was a statement that we made and said, okay, this is, this is something we’re going to hold on to, which led into conversation around, okay, if that’s what has allowed us to succeed, how do we ensure that that is baked into the DNA of our company? How do we ensure that that is going to show up in policy and in practice and in the way we operate as we continue to grow? And that’s where made me, that was that first shift towards intentionality. Prior to that, it was just, Hey, let’s treat each other well, trust and everything will fall into place. And then suddenly, we had that aha moment. Are we treating each other well to really making this work and how do we make sure we continue doing that?

Kathy Miller Perkins: And you know, that intentionality is something that’s so unique to B corporations I think are mission driven businesses because many companies have value statements, but going that extra step and figuring out what that looks like when you put those values in operation is a big step to take.

Scott Koloms: Using those values as a filter by which to look at the decisions you make and how things show up within your organization. That’s key, but then of course moving into identifying a specific social or environmental mission. And of course that happened much further down the road. Uh, Oh yes, yes. So after that sort of identifying that it was about caring for each other, we moved to thinking about it, you know, look, we can’t pay our janitors $50,000 a year. The market won’t bear it. We did make the commitment to, to fight that fight over the long haul. And you know, we’re still doing that today. And that’s around raising consumer consciousness around changing a market. And we’ve been very successful at that, continuously raised wages and offered bonuses and different incentives. And um, so that’s worked. Um, but really the idea was, you know, if we can’t pay them $50,000 a year, what can we do?

Scott Koloms: And then that’s when the ideas started to come. Wow. Okay. So it began with things like, okay, well let’s have an annual picnic, or we invite all of our employees and what began as simply a picnic at the farm of one of our integral employees, Kathy Russell, who was with the company when dad bought it, I began, as, you know, karaoke and a cook out inviting all of our employees to show up and just have a good time. I has now evolved into something that can almost rival some of the Catholic church picnics in terms of a family festival with the games and the balances and all the sort of things. So we bus people in from all over the state, uh, hundreds and hundreds of people show up. So, uh, it’s turned into quite the ordeal. But, but things like that know what, what can we do to make the experience of working at FMS better? So that was a, that was a big shift. Okay. So how do we intentionally enact caring about each other? How do we intentionally in that caring about those frontline workers? And as you know, a lot of that’s culture too, in terms of just simply talking and being and demanding that other leaders behave in the way that we behave at the ISR.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Did you set behavioral standards? How did you, how did you make sure that all your leaders were behaving the way you expected them to early on?

Scott Koloms: You know, again, it was really intuitive. It was without consciously necessarily doing it. We were modeling behavior. We knew that we wanted to operate with empathy. And all of us, you know, at the top were empathetic people. So, you know, we would go into different HR situations or different difficulties, uh, with our team members with an eye of trying to understand as opposed to an eye, uh, around maybe punitive measurements or trying to find a way to write somebody up and put on their permanent record.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Right. Excellent, excellent shift. I would say. So it was gradual. It was like, it was, okay. So, so tell us about your mission now on how you ended up, where you are now with permission of the company.

Scott Koloms: So pivotal moments, you know, again, there’s so many markers along the road. Another one that’s very important is in around 2012, I went out to California and, uh, for a number of different things, but for personal reasons to look into meditation for the first time for myself and, and to do some, yoga and get exposed to those sorts of things. And while I was out there, I met a couple of folks that run larger companies and it’s very intentional, conscious way. They were much further along the path and that was really an inspiration and that I saw that a company could really scale and, and still hold onto these ideas. In fact, there was a whole movement around this that I really wasn’t awake to up until that point. So interestingly, I came back to Louisville sort of – I, I hesitate to use the words enlightened, but maybe a little bit more awake to things. And yeah, that was interesting because I had to had to make some moves at the leadership level.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Was that difficult?

Scott Koloms: Difficult, not for me. Oh, it’s always difficult. I say that just of course it was difficult when you’re talking to people, but because I, I was walking into it with confidence that what I was doing was the right thing. Yeah. There’s simply were some people that didn’t fit within our culture and that just simply didn’t get it. And it was time to own who we were and somewhat demand that people operate the way we’re going to operate. And so that happened. And then I made some other modifications and changed the way we did our meetings and shifted around how we think about things.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Language is important.

Scott Koloms: Oh, it was very important. And then, you know, I have the meditation pillow in my office. Anyway, so yeah. What happened shortly after that- About a month after that, my VP, and now she’s my VP of human relations, but back then she was a manager, comes into my office one day. She knocks on the door and says, “we need to talk” and I say, “okay.” She comes in and she closes the door and she says, “Scott, what’s going on?” And you know, she says to me “well, you know, you’re frightening everybody.” And I said, “Oh, okay.” And I went on in a half an hour and tried to explain myself, you know, this is what I think and you know, I really think we should move in this direction and trust me, this is, this is gonna work and all that. And, um, she left a half an hour later, not so convinced.

Scott Koloms: Then fortuitously, my phone dings and I forgot that I had an invitation. I’d made a reservation that year for the Festival of Faiths here in Louisville, and that year, there was a workshop, a presentation on compassion in the workplace. And I ran over to Jen’s office and I said, “Hey, what do you mean for the rest of the afternoon?” She happened to be open, jumped in the car and we drove to this. We go hear this wonderful talk that was moderated by Mayor Fisher, mayor of Louisville, and had a number of different high-level leaders in organizations that were really operating in this manner. And long story short is at the end of the road driving back and Jen turned to me and she says, she said, “I get it. I’m with you.” Yeah. So I had that sort of first follower right there. And that was the aha moment.

Kathy Miller Perkins: That story fits so well. Some of the research that I’ve done on, culture of purpose driven companies. What it shows is that one of the things that makes those companies distinct is the way they interact with externals. They are much more open to learning from externals. They seek out new ways of thinking about things beyond their own boundaries. And your story just absolutely validates that.

Scott Koloms: Yup. And if we want to move into the, to your question, the B Corp space, so yeah, you’re lucky. I’m really condensing it. So we’ll go to the next third pivotal moment. You know, when there’s about 15 of them, we’ll go to the one that, you know, a few years later after that I took eight of the leaders of the Case Western University to a conference called Flourish and Prosper and it was around “for-profit businesses” being the driver for the positive social change we need to see. And it was really an amazing conference. Uh, there was actually a Nobel peace prize winner there. A number of different corporations were represented. But really our pivotal moment in that space was that we met Jay Coen Gilbert, who was one of the founders of B Labs, who created the B Corp certification. And we had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with him. And then that was when it really dinged because what he was articulating was, of course, an assessment, a program to certify that you are operating. But what I was seeing was a roadmap. I was seeing a 200-point assessment that forced us to look at things we haven’t even thought of and really become truly intentional about operating our business in the right way.

Scott Koloms: And that, you know, within I think two years after that we became a B Corp.

Kathy Miller Perkins: As a B Corp, you have to measure impact. Correct? Do you have specific goals that you set as part of that certification process? And if so, what are they and how do you measure impact?

Scott Koloms: Right. So yes, it is an evolving process. So to give you an idea, in the early stages we had……let me start off by saying the first thing we needed to do was to create an overall social mission. And what we arrived at was that we wanted to provide access and opportunities to our frontline workers, janitors, and help the communities where they live thrive. So that was what we really came up with at that point.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Did it take a long time to get there? or was that just an easy step?

Scott Koloms: No, it took a long time to get there because the approach that we took because we were more of a conversion, meaning we, we maybe intuitively were operating as a good company, but we really sort of converted into becoming what you might call an impact driven or a socially conscious business that we really put our stake in the ground at a certain point in our history after we’d already been around for one. Um, so the way my mind went was it makes sense to me to think about your social mission and then….. let me back up….. to think about creating your social mission, to consider it in a, in a lens of what is a problem or a situation you’re dealing with in your organization that potentially the execution of the social mission would help address. So the idea, right, the idea being that, you know, it’s very much the B Corp model, is that the successful execution of the social mission should ultimately lead to the financial and overall wellbeing of the organization. So that was what made it, I don’t want to say tricky, it was so much fun, but that’s what made it, you know, maybe a bit more of a challenge. So the idea being for us, a janitorial service, turnovers are our biggest issue- it has been for the entire industry. So the idea being, okay, well let’s make our social mission help address that issue of turnover. So we began to consider a mission that involved… that specifically articulated helping our frontline workers our janitors. So, that’s how we came up with that.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Okay, good. And so that makes it easy to measure too if you’re focused on turnover.

Scott Koloms: Yeah. So the, so the turnover metric is what I would call sort of a, an internal company specific metric, right? So, you know, that is a result of … if we’re doing this right, we should see an impact there right? So, but, but what happened is, is that we started saying, okay, so we’re going to provide access and opportunity to our frontline workers and help the communities where they live, thrive. So what we learned after, let’s call it a year or two in that game, was that, that’s pretty broad. And, we started diving into a number of different programs. And so our programs were either stuff that we came up with on our own and executed, or we would partner with existing community groups that were already doing things well. Anyway, we got pulled in a lot of different directions. Long story short is that in that space what we learned is, is it’s not necessarily the wisest thing to go and tell people what you think they need to know that we learned and maybe we need to go out there and say how could we help you?

Scott Koloms: What would you like to see? So that was the birth of the employee survey that we had an employee survey prior to that, but it wasn’t asking questions about these sorts of things, you know, what would you like? How can we help you with what you would like access to? So then once we got that feedback, what we found out was, we want to live healthier lives. We want our kids to have the opportunity to experience things they may not otherwise experience. We would like a list of things. And ultimately what came from that is that we, we came up with two pillars that fall underneath that overarching social mission. We decided we’re going to focus on financial health for our people and physical health. And those became our two missions. And then the same ideas helping that out in the communities where we work. So then helping those things sort of occur.

Scott Koloms: So that helped us get a little bit more specific. Right. And then we were able to really zero in on programming. Right. So then let me give you an example of, of the metrics. So one of the things we did was we partnered with a local nonprofit that creates a sort of fresh stop marketplaces where folks can get fresh fruits and vegetables. And we set up a partnership to where our employees were able to get fresh fruits and vegetables, every other payday, every payday, every other week during the warm months, every year. And we have this experiential sort of farmer’s market type experience for them. And we heavily subsidize it. So for $5 they get enough fresh fruits and vegetables for a family of four for two weeks. And there’s folks teaching how, how to cook these things in it and talking about the nutritional value. So the idea there is that that’s fulfilling a want that they wanted.

Scott Koloms: And so what would the metric be around that? Now we don’t get too much into outcomes. We’re not that sophisticated, but our metrics are more like our first year we had 18 families participate and this year we have over 65 participants. So right. So in the metric are around that, participants, things like that. We’re getting more sophisticated around our measurement too, and that our tools no longer simply ask things like, did you like the program, would you participate again? Would you recommend a friend? Now we’re getting into things like did your participation in the program make you more likely to work harder and cleaning your building. Did it make you more likely to want to stay at FMS? Did it make you more likely to recommend FMS as a place of employment to a friend? And what we’re trying to do is find a more direct line from the successful execution of the social mission to the financial and, you know, the wellbeing of our company in different ways. So we’re getting into those sorts of metrics now.

Kathy Miller Perkins: So you kind of, you try something, you get better at it, you try something else. It sounds like it really is a journey. It’s not something that you just all of a sudden said, here’s how we’re going to measure it. Here’s how we know it is working.

Scott Koloms: It’s so much a journey. There’ve been a lot of misses.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Yeah. I think that’s good for our listeners to hear because it’s, uh, you have to take some risks. You have to start somewhere.

Scott Koloms: Yep. Keep it simple. That would be one piece of advice: keep it simple when you’re starting off. One, you don’t need to be all things to everyone. Zero in on a, on a specific mission that you, that you want to accomplish. And then as you develop your programming around that, uh, consider using partners that are already good at it. And if you’re going to create it on your own, keep it simple, uh, and, and make it to where you can easily measure some sort of simple metric. You know?

Kathy Miller Perkins: It sounds easy. I’m sure it wasn’t. Has it changed your business model?

Scott Koloms: Certainly has. It shows up in every space from how we’re bidding now with higher wages, we have decreased our margin and our bids with the belief that, you know, this is going to be, we’re going to have a longer term customers, that this is going to work over time, that the decreased turnover rate is going to allow us to be, uh, seen as much more competitive as a vendor of choice. So it’s changed, it’s changed how we present our bids, we’ve become transparent. So we sit in front of a customer and show them what all of our costs are, what we pay our people, what our margin is. And those are the conversations we have, that we believe in doing business that way. It’s changed everything from the moment somebody is referred to FMS and makes that phone call to be an employee. It begins showing up there in terms of who we are as an organization and what we believe in.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Yeah. That brings me to the issue of culture, which as you know, is one of my biggest interests. You and I had a conversation one day where you said, “yes, culture is important and our people aren’t all at the same physical facility.” So how do you maintain a culture when people are so spread out?

Scott Koloms: Well, if I, if I figured that out, you and I, we’ll write a second book.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Okay. That’s a deal.

Scott Koloms: Look, I know what we’re trying to do. Uh, so yes, you’re right. We have a big challenge in that we have 900 employees and they all show up at different buildings spread across a couple of hundred miles and they all work different shifts, different days in the week. So how do you, how do you have a culture in that sort of space, and it’s very much of a challenge. So you know, it comes to creativity. You know, obviously there’s some go-to newsletters, frequent communications through our time tracking system on the phone, freaking email, communications, leadership on out there in the field. Really living those values, getting those communications. And then events where people are invited to, like I mentioned, you know, if you’re going to have an event for people to participate in, but they are 110 miles away, you better overcome that barrier if you want them to participate. So yeah, we can go rent a bus and we go get them and bring them here so that they can participate in those sorts of events.

Kathy Miller Perkins: So you’re a believer in building culture face-to-face, it sounds like. I read that in your newsletter.

Scott Koloms: As much as possible. As much as possible. That’s it. You know, technologies are helping out in different ways and we’ll continue to evolve around that.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Yes. I wonder about….. so many small businesses are virtual these days and that makes the challenge similar to what you’re talking about in terms of how do you build a culture when people are not in the same physical space? And that’s going to continue to be a challenge, I think.

Scott Koloms: Right? Yeah. You know, how do you, how do you maintain? Look, if we agree that human relationships are a core piece to our success, that human relationships are valuable in an organizational setting, if we agree that the stronger those relationships are between humans, the stronger the organization is, then that necessarily follows that we have to ask ourselves, well, how do we, how do we create an environment that increases the likelihood of those strong bonds? And you know, yes, we’re entering into an age where oftentimes people are disconnected in terms of physical space. And are there ways to create those bonds and those settings? I think so. Do we need to have face-to-face contact? You know, I can’t…. I don’t know. You know, uh, I think about that a lot and I just wonder, is that me just holding onto the old, right?

Scott Koloms: You know, by saying, yeah, we got to have that face-to-face, but there’s part of me that really believes that to be true. And I don’t think that it’s impossible to develop strong bonds virtually. So, you know, it’s just how do we do that? Now my challenge is, I can’t have 900 tablets out there for us to, you know, do the video-conferencing every night when someone comes in. So that’s impossible. So how does that happen? So these are the things that we’re going to move towards and think about: how can we accommodate these in certain ways?

Kathy Miller Perkins: So the challenge has never stopped. So let me see if I can summarize a few of the takeaways and then you add to it. One is keep it simple. Partner with people who are already doing things that support the mission that you’re driving towards.

Scott Koloms: Yeah, it’s a journey. It’s a trial and error. And the challenges have never stopped. That’s correct.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Is there anything else that you’d add to that that you’d like our listeners to learn from our conversation?

Scott Koloms: Yeah, just look at those challenges as fun. Try to try to adopt that mindset that the challenges are what make it worthwhile. And even though that’s not atypical for an entrepreneur, right? You know, we love to solve problems. We love to dive into the new and just to figure it out. But, um, just make sure you maintain that mindset as you move through this.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Yeah. And what it sounds like when I hear you talk is that it’s more about pursuing a vision than problem-solving. That your vision, your vision seems to guide what you do.

Scott Koloms: Completely. The vision and the values guide what you do and that is your comfort. As entrepreneurs, we often have so many balls in the air. There’s the stresses, there’s the dealing with balance and all those sorts of things. The thing that settles me the most is when I’m able to just remember what the vision is, what the values are, and rest in that. And then to know that it’s, as long as we’re living that, we will be okay. We often get overly caught up in concepts and chasing goals, when sometimes it’s nice to remember, that if we can just live in who we are and those values, that, you know, that’s a little bit more relaxing, you know, and it’s something to trust and to believe in that and ultimately things to work out. You know?

Kathy Miller Perkins: Thank you so much, Scott. This has been a wonderful conversation. I’ve already heard some of it, but I learned a lot today and I’m sure that our listeners are taking away some good ideas. Thank you.

Scott Koloms: Sure. My pleasure.

Kathy Miller Perkins: Thanks for listening to the conscious culture cafe. If you liked what you heard, connect with us at millerconsultants.com you can access the show notes and receive our free materials. See you next episode.