How Brothers Plumbing, Heating & Electric Is Rewriting the Rules of Trade Company Culture

Not many companies kick off a new quarter by sending their employees axe-throwing. But at Brothers Plumbing, Heating & Electric, that’s exactly what happened in early 2022, and it made perfect sense.

The Denver-based HVAC, plumbing, and electrical company runs a quarterly performance contest tied to a creative theme. That quarter, the theme was “Bad Axe Start to the New Year.” Employees earned points through performance metrics, and the celebration that followed involved hurling freshly sharpened axes at targets. Other quarters have been equally inventive: a pirate theme where top performers pulled gift cards from a treasure chest, and a Mighty Ducks theme in Q3 2023 where every three Home Care Club memberships sold earned an employee a chance to pull a rubber duck from a pond, and win a prize.

“We really try to have a little bit of fun. You know, spin the wheel, pull from a box, go on a company outing, and we also tie in our company events,” says President Lynn Tomasek.

Culture as a Core Strategy

The quarterly contests are just one thread in a much larger cultural tapestry that Tomasek has deliberately woven over years of leadership. Brothers holds themed culture days throughout the year; celebrating the Denver Nuggets’ NBA championship, for instance, or marking National HVAC Day with department-wide recognition. There are dress-up days, food days (National Donut Day included), and dedicated lunches for new employees and their managers.

Each quarter also brings a company-wide gathering called Jamboree, where leadership serves breakfast, facilitates team-building activities, and hands out both KPI-based recognitions and employee-nominated awards.

None of this is accidental. For Tomasek, a strong culture isn’t a perk; it’s a business strategy.

Sharpening the Edge

To keep the company moving in a unified direction, Tomasek and her leadership team set a theme for each year. Last year’s theme was “Shine”, captured in the acronym Success Happens with Intentional Nonstop focus on Excellence. The team used that period to make visible, surface-level improvements, including adding inspiration-focused décor throughout their headquarters.

This year, the theme is “Sharpen.”

“After you shine a knife, you sharpen a knife,” Tomasek explains. “It’s really all about putting forth extraordinary effort to sharpen our tools, so that we can be better and stronger and so that we can slice through our challenges no matter what.”

The shift in focus comes after a stretch of significant change: a move to a new, more centrally located 25,000-square-foot headquarters, the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rollout of a new operations software platform.

“We kind of got a little dull and rusty through the transition of those three big things,” she says.

Now, the sharpening is underway. Brothers is rolling out new standard operating procedures, expanding training materials, and launching a unified platform to ensure every team member receives consistent information. Client communication is also getting an overhaul, including a new phone system for the client care department planned for this fall.

Making the Trades Worth Choosing

Brothers currently employs 90 team members serving the greater Denver metro area, a far cry from the small family operation Tomasek grew up helping out in. Attracting and retaining that talent, especially younger workers, is something she thinks about constantly.

Her pitch to prospective employees is straightforward and sincere.

“The trades are a good place to be,” Tomasek says. “You don’t need a college education to make over $100,000 a year. Somebody who has an aptitude for mechanical ability, working with their hands, they can start in our warehouse, and then progress to an apprenticeship, and then progress as a technician. Through the course of a couple of years, they can learn and progress in their careers without going into debt.”

To back that up, Brothers promotes from within and runs a tool account program that covers the cost of the equipment tradespeople need to advance. Long-tenured employees, several have been with the company for more than a decade, are recognized annually in dedicated celebrations.

New hires are also introduced early to Brothers’ three core values: family, care, and excellence. Last year, the company added a set of “be” principles: be remarkable, be better, be committed, be driven, and be brotherly to further define what showing up well at Brothers actually looks like.

The result, in Tomasek’s view, is a triple win: “good for the company, good for its clients and good for the community.”

A Family Business, Through and Through

Brothers was founded in 1980 by Tomasek’s father and his brother. Today, Lynn runs it alongside her own brother and sister, the three of them having purchased the business from their father when he retired in 2015.

Growing up, there was no clean line between home and work.

“We all worked in the business growing up,” she says. “We filed and did yard work and detailed trucks and worked in the warehouse and played in the office. We did ride-alongs with our dad. So, we grew up in the family business from a very young age.”

Tomasek graduated from Montana State University-Northern in 2000 with a degree in small business management and joined Brothers that same year as the HR and marketing manager. She spent the next 14 years building expertise across nearly every corner of the business before stepping into the presidency in 2015.

“I love what I do and who I work with. Not only do I get to work with family members, but I work with others who feel like family, too,” she says. “It’s my passion to help people grow and excel in all areas of their life, not just in their careers, and it’s so rewarding to be able to positively impact so many people’s lives through this journey.”

At Brothers, that’s not just a mission statement. It’s visible in every duck pond, treasure chest, and axe-throwing outing along the way.