A great career doesn’t always follow a straight line. Sometimes, the next step moves you up. Other times, it introduces you to a completely different career path you hadn’t considered before.
That’s part of what makes our internal S.T.E.P. program, short for Success Through Exploring Possibilities, so valuable. It exposes our team members to the skills and knowledge they need for future opportunities, creates meaningful connections between them and business leaders, and helps Lee Company identify potential future leaders.
S.T.E.P. may lead someone toward a supervisor or manager role. It may spark an interest in another area of the company. Or it may simply help someone become a stronger leader in the role they already have. There’s no single destination.
What matters is having the opportunity to learn more about yourself, your strengths, and the business in ways you may not get to explore somewhere else.
Learning How to Lead
Leadership is about more than having the right title. It’s about knowing how to communicate, make decisions, support a team, and work through challenges when the answer isn’t immediately clear.
Team members will be exposed to topics like the Foundations of Leadership, Safety Leadership, and the ideas around creating an exceptional customer experience. They also have the opportunity to practice what they’ve learned day-to-day with application assignments and bi-weekly workshops.
In this program, they will also be matched with a mentor and placed in a structured mentorship program for six weeks as part of their S.T.E.P. experience, where they will talk about their careers and development, receive coaching on their S.T.E.P. project, and gain insight into the reality of leadership.
You can also learn more about the people helping guide our company on Our Leadership page.
Understanding The Bigger Picture
Good leaders need to understand more than the work happening directly in front of them.
That’s why S.T.E.P. also gives participants a closer look at how our business works, including financials, team structure, and how decisions are made.
Jackson W. experienced that firsthand as his career moved from plumbing into another area of the business and eventually into preconstruction management.
“S.T.E.P. is a great platform for you to help build your leadership skills and learn about the company as a whole,” Jackson said. “You can really take what you learn from S.T.E.P. and apply it every day into your work.”
His path is a good reminder that career growth doesn’t always mean moving straight up. Sometimes, learning more about the business helps you discover a direction you didn’t know was available to you.
For another look at how we support learning and development, read Careers Corner: Building Careers, One Class at a Time.
Growing From Within
Bryan P., a Plumbing Service Technician, came to us with installation experience but no service experience. With support from his manager, coworkers, and resources like S.T.E.P., he continued building his skills and eventually became a team lead.
“I’ve definitely had a lot of growth,” Bryan said. “The resources we have here and the knowledge I’ve gained, I couldn’t do it without my manager and coworkers.”
Stories like Bryan’s are why career growth at Lee Company matters so much to us.
We want our people to see possibilities here, whether that means stepping into leadership, strengthening their current skills, or exploring a new career path. S.T.E.P. is provided to our team members at no cost, helping remove the financial barrier from leadership development.
And the learning doesn’t stop when the course ends. Mentorship, coaching from local leaders, and daily opportunities to practice new skills help turn what’s learned in class into habits on the job.
That focus on growth connects back to who we are as a company and how we support our people. You can learn more on our About Us page.
There’s More Than One Way to Grow
S.T.E.P. is only one piece of the career-development opportunities available to our team. We also invest in in-house trade training, apprenticeship opportunities, and on-demand skills courses designed to help people keep learning throughout their careers.
That matters whether you’re working toward your next license, learning a new skill, preparing to lead a team, or discovering a career path you hadn’t considered before.
Ready to see where your career could take you? Explore our Careers page and learn more about opportunities to join our team. During the hiring process, ask us about S.T.E.P. and the other ways we invest in our people.
Your next step might lead somewhere you never expected.
