Exemplifying York Electric’s strong culture: YEC employees explain what that means to them

YEC employ­ees from across our coop­er­a­tive were recent­ly asked to share their insights on how they view YEC’s strong cul­ture mod­el. To give our mem­bers a glimpse at how we approach our jobs, uphold­ing our promise to look out for you, employ­ees shared their feel­ings on what makes your co-op stand out above the rest. They were all asked three ques­tions:

• What is your favorite pil­lar?
• How do you feel you make a pos­i­tive impact serv­ing our mem­bers?
• How do you see oth­er employ­ees rep­re­sent­ing our strong cul­ture mod­el?

Here are their respons­es.

Tara Crisp
Area: Billing
Years of Ser­vice: 3

“My favorite pil­lar would be humil­i­ty because every­one at YEC is focused on oth­ers instead of them­selves, which isn’t a com­mon theme in oth­er work­places.

I feel like I pro­vide a pos­i­tive impact to our mem­bers by review­ing bills before they are gen­er­at­ed. I am able to see if some­one has a spike in their usage before an entire month pass­es. Catch­ing a prob­lem ear­ly is key to com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the mem­ber so that they can fix the issue and plan for any unex­pect­ed expens­es.

It’s easy to see all four pil­lars exem­pli­fied through­out the co-op. Employ­ees are there for you if you have any hard­ships and every­one is will­ing to help mem­bers in need. We all check on each oth­er, offer­ing sup­port, guid­ance or some­times, just a lis­ten­ing ear.”

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Steve Grich
Area: Meter­ing
Years of Ser­vice: 14

“Humil­i­ty is my favorite pil­lar. Stay­ing hum­ble helps keep me ground­ed to help serve our mem­bers the best that I can.

I feel I per­son­al­ly pro­vide a pos­i­tive impact when serv­ing mem­bers by treat­ing every­one with sen­si­tiv­i­ty, patience and assess­ing sit­u­a­tions to offer help. I try to leave a pos­i­tive impact with every mem­ber that I meet. I believe you make your own choice every morn­ing on what kind of day you’re going to have and focus­ing on our four pil­lars keeps my focus strong and help­ful.

I see oth­er co-op employ­ees rep­re­sent our cul­ture mod­el through their work by approach­ing every­thing as a team. By help­ing each oth­er bal­ance work­load and share respon­si­bil­i­ty, we all help each oth­er do a bet­ter job serv­ing our mem­bers.”

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Erin Pow­ell
Area: Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment
Years of Ser­vice: 3

“My entire life, I have enjoyed learn­ing from people—how they inter­act with each oth­er, their inter­ests and how they sup­port each oth­er. The rela­tion­al wis­dom pil­lar of our cul­ture mod­el fur­thers my appre­ci­a­tion for human con­nec­tion, real­iz­ing that we all have some­thing good to offer if some­one takes the time to learn and lis­ten.

I stud­ied fine art in col­lege and have a love of visu­al sto­ry­telling. Help­ing share the coop­er­a­tive dif­fer­ence, his­to­ry and mem­bers-first men­tal­i­ty through pho­tog­ra­phy and graph­ic design is ful­fill­ing. With every cre­ation, my intent is to hon­or oth­ers and make infor­ma­tion easy to under­stand.

It’s more than just a job to YEC employ­ees. Most folks stay at YEC for their entire career. The aver­age 30-year stint is time well spent forg­ing last­ing rela­tion­ships with cowork­ers and mem­bers, fur­ther­ing their skillsets and giv­ing back to our com­mu­ni­ty.”

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Bri­an Scott
Area: Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems
Years of Ser­vice: 8

“Humil­i­ty is my favorite pil­lar. I have seen the neg­a­tive effect pride can have from pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences at oth­er com­pa­nies. Humil­i­ty is present here at YEC and it cre­ates the pos­i­tive work eth­ic that I have come to expect in my eight years here. We help each oth­er and band togeth­er to get the job done. Pride can destroy a work­place, where­as humil­i­ty builds up morale and breaks down bar­ri­ers.

Prompt­ly answer­ing an email, return­ing a phone call or trou­bleshoot­ing a tech­ni­cal issue for my cowork­ers makes their jobs eas­i­er and sup­ports them as they serve mem­bers. When employ­ees have reli­able tech­nol­o­gy, they are in a bet­ter posi­tion to help our mem­bers.

I see and hear YEC employ­ees say­ing phras­es like ‘Please,’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘I appre­ci­ate you.’ These words reflect a small part of each pil­lar, mak­ing a huge impact and can be cred­it­ed as a big part of the suc­cess for any rela­tion­ship.”

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Alex Pittman
Area: Linework­er
Years of Ser­vice: 5

“There is not one pil­lar that is more impor­tant than the oth­ers. Each pil­lar builds on one anoth­er to cre­ate a strong foun­da­tion for a good, healthy cul­ture here at YEC.

Per­son­al­ly, I feel that I make a pos­i­tive impact while serv­ing mem­bers by going above and beyond while on-call and dur­ing nor­mal work hours. Exceed­ing expec­ta­tions is the nor­mal work eth­ic among employ­ees here.

The pride we have rep­re­sent­ing YEC’s strong cul­ture is plain to see. We work togeth­er, learn­ing from each oth­er and doing all we can to serve the mem­bers. When storms hit, we are all hands-on deck. Every­one is ready to help do all we can to get the pow­er back on as quick­ly and safe­ly as pos­si­ble. We not only treat each oth­er like fam­i­ly, ensur­ing we all get home safe­ly, but also our mem­bers. If they are in the dark, we know we have the team in place to get the lights back on.”

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Chris­meylin Brito
Area: Mem­ber Ser­vices
Years of Ser­vice: 5

“My favorite pil­lar in our strong cul­ture mod­el is fam­i­ly. At YEC, we tru­ly care. We not only look out for our mem­bers, treat­ing them with respect, but we also look out for each oth­er.

I feel like I pro­vide a pos­i­tive impact while serv­ing our mem­bers by mak­ing mem­bers’ needs my top pri­or­i­ty. I also offer spe­cial assis­tance to our Span­ish-speak­ing mem­bers, ensur­ing their ser­vice expe­ri­ence is easy and help­ful.

I see oth­er co-op employ­ees rep­re­sent our cul­ture mod­el by help­ing our com­mu­ni­ty, look­ing for new learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and find­ing ways to serve. YEC employ­ees think about oth­ers first.”

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Jonathan Lay­field
Area: Account­ing
Years of Ser­vice: 2

“I think it’s impor­tant to stay hum­ble in every­thing you do. Know what you know, know what you don’t know and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Help­ing oth­ers and see­ing them learn and be rec­og­nized is equal­ly as grat­i­fy­ing as doing it your­self. Each per­son here serves a pur­pose. We’re all focused on grow­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly and tak­ing care of our mem­bers.

My team and I take pride in man­ag­ing all coop­er­a­tive finances. Although we are not as mem­ber-fac­ing as some oth­er roles at YEC, we are always serv­ing by bal­anc­ing funds to best serve the pro­grams and ser­vices we offer mem­bers. My team and I are always work­ing to ensure the integri­ty of our finan­cials.

If you take a walk around the build­ing through the dif­fer­ent depart­ments, you will see each pil­lar of our cul­ture rep­re­sent­ed. I start­ed work­ing for the co-op dur­ing the height of COVID 19. Even though we were in the mid­dle of a pan­dem­ic, it was clear to me that every­one here was a big fam­i­ly, ready to help with any­thing I need­ed. Every employ­ee is eager to learn and sup­port each oth­er, so that we con­tin­ue to head in the right direc­tion, focus­ing on our num­ber one priority—our mem­bers.”

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Car­ol New­man
Area: Admin­is­tra­tion
Years of Ser­vice: 3

“All four cul­ture pil­lars are impor­tant, but fam­i­ly and rela­tion­al wis­dom stand out most to me. Treat­ing oth­ers like fam­i­ly makes rela­tion­ships with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and cowork­ers more mean­ing­ful. Wis­dom pro­vides prac­ti­cal advice on how to live wise­ly, cul­ti­vat­ing those rela­tion­ships. I am remind­ed of King Solomon from my favorite book, The Bible, who was giv­en the choice of receiv­ing any­thing— wealth, fame, strength or even courage—yet he chose wis­dom. God was so pleased with his choice, he received every­thing he had not asked for and much more.

I feel I make a pos­i­tive impact by striv­ing to give more than is expect­ed. I try to be aware of what is hap­pen­ing around me so I can exceed the expec­ta­tions of our mem­bers and my cowork­ers. Even if I don’t know the answer to a ques­tion, I’ll go the extra mile and find the answer instead of say­ing, ‘I don’t know.’

I see pos­i­tive atti­tudes and actions that make for a favor­able work envi­ron­ment here. We have a team that fos­ters com­mu­ni­ca­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion and con­sis­tent­ly pos­i­tive inter­ac­tions, which increas­es morale and improves work sat­is­fac­tion.”

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John Good
Area: Engi­neer­ing
Years of Ser­vice: 2

“Out of every­thing that YEC rep­re­sents, fam­i­ly is the most impor­tant. A lot of com­pa­nies claim to have a fam­i­ly work cul­ture, but I did not tru­ly under­stand what that meant until I start­ed work­ing at YEC. It is easy to see that our employ­ees take pride in not only treat­ing cowork­ers as fam­i­ly, but also each mem­ber. Co-ops were built on neigh­bors and fam­i­lies work­ing togeth­er as one, and I feel like YEC still hon­ors that tra­di­tion.

I try to use our 4 pil­lars as a play­book when serv­ing mem­bers to guar­an­tee they have a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence. I know every time a mem­ber is request­ing assis­tance from engi­neer­ing, their job is very impor­tant to them. My goal is to show the mem­ber their job is just as impor­tant to me.

The engi­neer­ing depart­ment has mul­ti­ple employ­ees with more than ten years of expe­ri­ence. There­fore, it is easy to rec­og­nize their knowl­edge, exper­tise and rela­tion­al wis­dom. No mat­ter what sit­u­a­tions arise, we sup­port each oth­er and offer assis­tance to get the job done. Know­ing my team­mates have my back pro­vides me with extra con­fi­dence so I know I’m doing my best to serve mem­bers. All employ­ees also exhib­it a lot of hunger because we con­tin­ue to look for ways we can improve instead of stay­ing com­pla­cent.”

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Brooks Wof­ford
Area: Human Resources
Years of Ser­vice: 11

“Because I help with over­see­ing train­ing and employ­ee edu­ca­tion, see­ing employ­ees suc­ceed is one of my favorite parts of my job. This direct­ly aligns with the hunger pil­lar. When employ­ees strive to work hard, grow, learn and bet­ter serve our mem­bers, it makes me feel like I have helped them make a dif­fer­ence.

I help sup­port our employ­ees through­out their careers at YEC. From mak­ing sure they are paid and that their ben­e­fits are cor­rect, to orga­niz­ing retire­ment infor­ma­tion and new hires, I’m with them every step of the way. Sup­port­ing our employ­ees helps pro­vide a sense of secu­ri­ty, allow­ing them to bet­ter serve our mem­bers.

We’re one big fam­i­ly around YEC. See­ing long-time employ­ees help new employ­ees makes it clear that team­work across our diverse skill lev­els and tal­ents takes us to the next lev­el for excel­lent ser­vice. Our com­mit­ment to treat­ing each oth­er with respect and kind­ness is reflect­ed in our com­mit­ment to look­ing out for our mem­bers.”

Pho­tos by Erin Pow­ell