Employee Appreciation Archives - Kenton Brothers Systems for Security

Kenton Brothers Kulture Club – Work Hard, Play Hard

March 27, 2024/in Company Culture, Employee Appreciation/by Gina Stuelke

By Gina Stuelke, CEO of Kenton Brothers

Building and maintaining a strong company culture can be challenging. One of the ways we’ve found to help strengthen our culture is to actively solicit employee feedback. When done right, these conversations foster a sense of inclusion and make your team members feel valued and heard. (It’s just like in a marriage, communication is crucial.)

When people feel included and listened to, it boosts morale, productivity, and overall job satisfaction. Why does this matter? We genuinely care about every team member and we want to make sure they know that. On the practical front, it leads to lower turnover rates and higher retention of our top talent. Employee feedback serves as a crucial source of insight for identifying areas of improvement, improving processes, and making changes to how we do things.

The Kulture Club

We created the Kulture Club to foster these conversations and to make sure we are taking time to have fun together outside of working hard together.

Our Kulture Club provides a safe environment for our associates to bring both ideas and issues to the forefront. There have been great suggestions on ways we can improve that we’ve implemented. Dealing with issues head on is efficient and productive. A strong team can have real conversations about real things, especially when it comes to harder conversations. So there have been some of those as well over the past couple of years.

Kulture Club includes representation from most of our departments. One of the contributions in 2023 was to establish a new holiday to recognize veteran associates who served by gifting them an additional day of paid time off, in appreciation for their service.

Company Events

Kulture Club is also great at creating and organizing our company events for team building. And yes, it can be a lot to organize and plan for, but it is so important to make sure these things happen on a regular basis. Some of the events and activities we do annually include the Kenton Brothers family picnic, holiday parties, National fun holiday recognitions, Blast from the Past Breakfast bar, Red Friday celebrations, potato bar for St. Patrick’s Day, Chili cook offs and more.

Brag Board

Another output from the Kulture Club is our Brag Board. This is a form of recognition for Kenton Brothers associates including birthdays, anniversaries, certifications, and fun and exciting tidbits. These images are displayed on monitors in our offices throughout the day.

We appreciate the insight and ideas that our Kulture Club associates bring to the table. We have seen significant, positive impacts to our culture in part due to the efforts of the Kulture Club. Do you have something similar set up in your company? We would love to hear in the comments any ideas you have about fun events or activities you’re doing to improve communication and teamwork!

Have you been to a Puppy PAW-ty???

February 14, 2024/in Community, Company Culture, Employee Appreciation/by Gina Stuelke

We hosted our first Puppy PAW-ty recently at our office. Wayside Waifs brought in four adorable 8-week-old puppies!

2023 KENTON BROTHERS ANNUAL CHRISTMAS PARTY RECAP and Sales Masters Awards!

December 28, 2023/in Company Culture, Employee Appreciation/by Neal Bellamy

By Neal Bellamy, IT Director at Kenton Brothers
Photos courtesy of David Strickland, COO of Kenton Brothers

The holiday season is upon us! On December 9th, the Kenton Brothers team celebrated the holidays with our annual Christmas party at Chicken N Pickle in Overland Park, Kansas.

We are so fortunate to not only have colleagues who are incredibly talented and hardworking, but we also like spending time with each other!

The evening started off with a Happy Hour and socializing in the BE AMAZING room with games of Foosball, Ping Pong and Shuffle Board. Next, dinner was served!

Later in the evening, we had our awards ceremony. The award winners are voted by their peers to take home a prize! Here at Kenton Brothers, we believe firmly that it’s important to celebrate individuals who live the KB way, take pride in their work and go above and beyond to provide not only extraordinary service quality to our customers, but also to their teammates and partnerships alike.

Congratulations to this year’s award winners!

The MVP Award– We wouldn’t be KB without them! – Gene Ross
The Moving Mountains Award– Person who best exemplifies the KB Way – Paul Bennett
The Road Warrior—Technician who traveled the most—Jeff Evers
The MacGyver Award– Finds a way to get it done! – Shawn Hamilton
The “Give A Damn” Award– Danielle Hoover
The Clean Truck Award– Cleanest most organized technician van – Jeremy Shinneman
The KB Pride Award – Vince Gelei
The Lone Wolf Award– Highest Sales Year – Luke Bergin

In 2023, we started a new Sales Masters Award ceremony, presenting jackets to our top selling sales consultants in two categories:

The Multi-Million Dollar Sales Club

Stacy Wessing, Luke Bergin, Kevin Whaley

The Million Dollar Sales Club

Neal Bellamy, Erik Andress and Jon Gann

Congratulations to our super Security Consultants!

For additional gift giving fun, we conducted a raffle for all party goers and prizes were handed out as for that as well. To end the evening, we shared drinks, laughs, stories and more ultra-competitive, top tier pickleball! Special thank you to our KB Kulture Club for your contributions and organizing the award winners! We hope you are enjoying the holidays!

The 2023 Annual Kenton Brothers Family Picnic!

July 5, 2023/in Community, Company Culture, Employee Appreciation/by David Strickland

By David Strickland, Vice President of Kenton Brothers

It’s Summer time! The sun is shining and the weather is great in KC!

The annual family picnic is a cherished tradition for Kenton Brothers. It offers a unique opportunity for team members and their families to come together in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. We have a blast, but there are other benefits.

We refer to our team as the KB family.

Kenton Brothers is a fourth generation family-owned company that has a great philosophy: Family First. Each year, we host an annual family picnic to celebrate our “Why?” Ask anyone on the team why they work so hard, they will tell you. Family.

In the fast-paced and high stakes industry of Security Integration it’s very important to stop once in a while and enjoy each other’s company and celebrate the fruits of our labor. The KB Family picnic allows our team members to connect on a personal level and take the time to bond. By sharing a picnic table, engaging in friendly conversations, and participating in various activities, team members build stronger relationships and develop a deeper understanding of one another outside the confines of the office or job site.

At KB we LOVE opportunities to get together. The annual family picnic is one of our favorites!

A Security Industry Legend Retires. An Homage to Kip Phillips

June 28, 2023/in Employee Appreciation, In the News/by Gina Stuelke

By Gina Stuelke, CEO of Kenton Brothers

Kip Phillips is a rare breed in today’s world. He has dedicated 37 years of his life to the security industry, from running his own business Phillip’s Electrical Enterprises on and off for 21 years, to working for other security integrators along the way. Kip began learning the electrical field starting at 8 years old from his father and went to school to become an electrical engineer at Southern Illinois Carbondale. To this day, Kip is a life-long learner and is very passionate and committed to his craft. He has followed in his father’s footsteps by carrying on the tradition of teaching others to share his knowledge and perpetuate the industry.

Kip’s role at Kenton Brothers as Integration Manager was designed to oversee the leadership, training and development of the technicians in the field. He’s a master at streamlining processes and implementing quality standards to ensure that the technicians do the job consistently and with quality.

As a 37 year security industry veteran, Kip’s top tips to be a successful technician include:

You must understand all of the systems involved
You must have the desire for continuous learning; be interested in the technology, the environment you’re working in, and value your hand tools
You must want to learn it, not just do it
You must have the technology skills, but also be willing to get your hands dirty

The technicians that he lead loved his experience and willingness to take time with them to mentor and help them advance in the industry.

“I especially enjoy commercial access control systems because there are so many moving parts. We can do so many things with the options, your imagination with AC is limitless. Protecting people, protecting things, plus it can interface with just about anything-the possibilities are endless!”
Kip Phillips

When asked about the three most influential people that have helped him become the man he is today, he mentions his dad, his wife, and his friend Herb Farnsworth.

“My dad taught me so many skills my whole life from an early age. My wife has been my rock. She has taught me how to enjoy life, encouraged me through my career and is always there to listen. Herb Farnsworth is a unique person and has presented opportunities for many young people. He is responsible for getting me in to the low voltage systems field right out of college. He provided me an opportunity for a career, taught me about the KC market and how wheels of business turn.”

Outside of his work life, Kip is happily married to Angela, his wife of 37 years. They have two adult children and are expecting their first grandchild this summer. Kip looks forward to traveling and camping in state and national parks, spending time in nature and taking care of their new grandbaby.

The KB team has appreciated Kip’s experience, love of the industry, willingness to give of himself and being an overall good human! Congratulations on your next season of life Kip! We will miss you!

We celebrated Kip’s retirement and enjoyed breakfast with Chris Cakes flipping pancakes to the team.