Helix Electric of Nevada

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How Safety and Education Make Helix Electric of Nevada an Employer of Choice in Energy

As an established industry leader in construction and engineering, Helix Electric has proven its commitment to excellence and an employee-empowered corporate culture. The company has been in Las Vegas since 1985 with a vision of creating a team-oriented company with the right management structure and the industry’s best manpower. Since then, Helix has built upon its areas of expertise and now offers ways to improve productivity of installation and quality of electrical systems in several industries, ranging from commercial hospitality spaces to transportation and correctional facilities.

Since its inception, the largest non-union electrical contractor in Nevada has expanded to multiple locations throughout the United States, moving into some of the most important markets that also make the company more accessible to its clients. Helix Electric has always strived to be the best, whether the company is providing services at the preconstruction, prefabrication, or the project management stage, Helix’s system of processes and procedures help guide its customers through the project with ease and care.

BOSS Magazine had the opportunity to talk with Victor Fuchs, president at Helix, about his company, its projects, and what’s most important to him: its staff.

“We have the ability to grow and educate people from within, giving us more control than most companies over our own destiny,” he said. “Our team can tackle complicated jobs that are time-sensitive, perfect for our industry.

“We’ve got a core group of people who are committed to the company and you can’t ask for much more than that.”

Serving Employees’ Needs through Safety Training To maintain such a high level of excellence, Helix’s team puts safety first in all of its practices. But Helix’s approach to safety is much different from most companies, the likes of which might show a video of a CEO they never meet about how safety is his number one priority. As corporate safety manager Lawrence Fry discovered, this was not the most effective way to share safety information with new employees.

“We created a video where current employees actually walk a new hire through an active construction project from the first day the new hire arrives on site,” Fry said. “So the camera takes on the role of the new hire from their perspective. This unique approach puts them right in the middle of a construction project faced with similar types of work they’ll be performing.”

Not only do the videos walk new hires through projects, the videos also introduce them to the company’s values. Fry commented the company has found that new hires retain more information, ask smarter questions and do a more efficient job of incorporating safety, productivity, and quality into each and every task through this unique video capturing approach.

Helix also partakes in unannounced safety inspections as a key component of its in-house safety audit process. The rest of the company’s safety standards include providing a tremendous amount of support and resources to safety and health including monthly safety meetings with the superintendent and a project manager of each project.

We have the ability to grow and educate people from within, giving us more control than most companies over our own destiny. Our team can tackle complicated jobs that are time-sensitive, perfect for our industry. - Victor Fuchs, President

The company is also the holder of numerous safety awards that have been awarded throughout the years; however, Fry doesn’t focus on the accolades.

“Every award we earn is a team effort. However, we fully realize those awards represent the hard work our dedicated Helix employees have performed safely day in and day out,” he said. “If they didn’t care or chose to take shortcuts and compromised their values, we wouldn’t have any safety awards. Safety awards validate the most important aspect of safety, and that is each and every Helix employee returns home to their family in the same condition they came to work that morning.”

Helix University In an effort to continue striving for excellence, Helix offers its employees several opportunities to take industry and company-specific classes through its “Helix University”.

“We surveyed our employees to see what topics people would benefit the most from,” Fuchs shared. “Helix University offers ongoing classes, often hosted nights or weekends, for all employees with several different areas of study.”

Past and upcoming classes open to employees include Blue Print Reading, Bending Conduit, AWP/Fork, and First Aid/CPR training.

Upper management—supervisors and above—are also able to take training courses, specifically geared towards leadership. Fuchs shared that continuing education is essential to being successful in business, especially in the construction and engineering fields.

Vision for the Future Helix Electric has internally released its 2020 strategic plan during a management and supervisor retreat in April, but the information is not yet available to the public. Fuchs did tell us that the main goal is to be turning over $150m by 2020, meaning the company is committed to growing both internally and externally at a controlled pace, or 10 to 15 per cent growth a year. The company’s upcoming quarterly newsletter details the strategic plan.

“We’re looking for new niches,” Fuchs shared. “By expanding into these new niches, I believe we can meet our goals and develop new clients. We run like a family business—we have strong core values that we stick to—and I think if we can continue this commitment to both our clients and our employees, Helix can continue to grow like we have planned.”