Jim Salomon sees his company as something of a refuge from life at bigger construction companies.
Workers at his Questar Construction in Newport Beach tend to defect from bigger rivals, he said. Often they’re seeking a change in their work environment.
“They are tired of being treated as a number,” Salomon said.
During a recent interview, a job candidate told Salomon that he’d worked 40 days straight without a day off.
“These are things that would never happen at Questar,” Salomon said.
Questar, part of Questar Engineering Inc., is a “smaller firm that treats everybody like a family, yet we get to work on really large construction projects,” said Salomon, a principal at the company.
Business
The company is a general contractor and construction manager known for healthcare projects. Questar, with 31 workers, ranked No. 1 in the small company category in the Business Journal’s second annual Best Places to Work list.
The list was compiled for the Business Journal by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Best Companies Group, an independent workplace researcher that managed the registration process, conducted the surveys, evaluated the data and selected companies for the list based on overall scores from surveys of management and employees.
Questar seeks a workplace Salomon calls less “regimented” than what’s seen at larger construction companies.
“If you get your work done, nothing says you have to be here,” he said. “A lot of other companies require you to be here at 6 o’clock in the morning, and they want you leaving at 7 o’clock at night.”
He said he doesn’t micromanage his workers, but “we don’t want them to hang out there on their own, either,” Salomon said.
Questar seeks “to indoctrinate our new employees as to the way we do business,” he said.
“Then we let them know you control your own destiny but we’re here if you need us,” Salomon said.
Questar is big on listening to employees.
The company holds regular, informal team-building meetings where concerns are aired out and ideas are discussed.
Completed projects are analyzed for ways to improve at “lessons-learned meetings.” Seminars to help workers perform their jobs better also are offered by Questar through various industry groups.
Perks
It isn’t all about work, according to project executive Ed Sukchai, who has been with Questar for nearly two years.
“Some of the little fringe benefits” of working at Questar make Sukchai feel appreciated, he said, as well as what he called Salomon’s supportive attitude.
One of those perks is occasional tickets to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim games.
Salomon “has some of the best seats in the house,” Sukchai said.
Besides Angels games, Sukchai said he gets other out-of-office opportunities through working at Questar, including a chance to play in charity golf tournaments.
“He’s a good golfer,” Salomon said of Sukchai.
“I’m all right,” Sukchai said. “It’s fun and enjoyable to get out with clients and coworkers.”
Questar workers go on other outings, sometimes on the spur of the moment.
“(One time) we just said, ‘Hey, let’s leave early today’ and we all went and raced cars,” Salomon said. “I think we had a good day that day and we all deserved it.”
The company has done Christmas trips for employees and their spouses to Las Vegas, among other places.
“Everybody got to stay over the weekend at a hotel and we gave them money for gambling. They gave us a percentage if they won,” Salomon said.
Questar has traditional benefits including healthcare, retirement savings and educational reimbursement.
“We offer all that stuff,” Salomon said. “Even though we’re a smaller firm, we have to compete with our larger competitors as far as benefits go.”
Questar got its start in San Dimas in the early 1990s, specializing in tenant improvements for healthcare clients before moving to Newport Beach.
Clients include Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, a hospital with campuses in Laguna Hills and San Clemente.
Questar designed and built Saddleback’s Meiklejohn Critical Care Pavilion, which opened in 2002.
The company’s other local clients include Westcliff Labs, a Santa Ana-based medical laboratory that was acquired earlier this year by North Carolina’s Laboratory Corporation of America, as well as individual doctors. n
