February 13, 2023
On Sunday, Feb. 12, the American Rental Association (ARA) offered those attending The ARA Show™ 2023 in Orlando 16 unique learning opportunities on a wide variety of business and operational topics in education sessions presented by experts and industry peers. The day of education was sponsored by Ditch Witch.
Education sessions were broken up into four tracks — “Learn and Lead,” “Connect and Collaborate,” “Empower and Engage” and “Plan and Strategize.”
Speaker Arthur Greeno didn’t share the recipe for the company’s secret sauce during the “Learn and Lead” session What You Need to Learn from Chick-fil-A’s Remarkable Leadership Tactics, but he did share how he takes care of his team to build a positive culture.
“The culture is the glue that puts everything together,” Greeno says. “My job, as a leader, is to protect my team. If you’re taking care of your team, they’re going to take care of your guests. Our job is to make our people feel special, whatever that may be.”
“I love Chick-fil-A,” says Kelsey Maynard, CERP, All Occasions Party Rentals, Knoxville, Tenn. “Our whole team came to this session. We were just excited to see how Chick-fil-A does it because they are so successful everywhere. I really liked the parts where he talked about how he retains employees. He goes out of his way to show up to an employee’s school to present an award or just do little things throughout the day to help people stay. I think we would implement more personalized things to celebrate our employees. We do a monthly birthday cake for all of our people, but we could do a little something extra here and there,” she says.
During the Drop Stress and Increase Collaboration with the “Focus Secret” session, speaker Will Bowen provided tools to make simple and powerful shifts that can decrease stress and improve workplace harmony, productivity and morale.
Ellen Simmons, CERP, Mutton Party and Tent Rental, Fort Wayne, Ind., says her takeaway was that “it’s important to recenter yourself. He gave us tools such as meditation and decluttering your environment to find a balance internally and have a fresher mindspace.”
At the “Empower and Engage” session Be the One: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others, speaker Ted Ma challenged attendees to rethink their role as leaders, change how they interact with their team, and learn how to bring out the best in the people around them.
“On education, this year I think [The ARA Show] hit the nail on the head with leadership, which is huge, because leadership can apply to managers, supervisors or owners. It’s not specific to owners. So, I think the leadership part was fantastic. I went to ‘Be the One’ with Ted Ma. That one made me cry; it was fantastic, it was just awesome,” says Carol Fontanez, ECP-SM, Jamco, Inc., Sanford, Fla.
“I like that they’re focusing on employees. There are a lot of HR-driven sessions. It’s been really nice to see,” says Dan Farrell, Marquee Event Rentals, Mission, Kan., and ARA Event Rental Shared Interest Group (SIG) chair.
