John Laing Homes
Company: John Laing Homes, Newport Beach, California
Company Description: With a tradition of quality dating back more than 150 years, John Laing Homes is the second largest privately held homebuilder in the nation. The company finished 2005 with revenues of more than $1.6 billion on 2,891 closings. Based in Newport Beach, California, John Laing Homes concentrates its efforts in California and Colorado. For more information: http://www.johnlainghomes.com/.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Overall Company
Nomination Title: John Laing Homes
1. Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Since emerging from a management-led buyout in 2000, the leadership at homebuilder John Laing Homes has built the company around a core mission to deliver the best new home experience by providing the right environment for team members. In 2005, the focus on this core mission culminated in the most successful year in the history of the company, and makes John Laing Homes worthy of the Best Overall Company Award.
Our people are the key to achieving our core mission to deliver the best new home experience. By investing in educating team members for personal and professional growth (team members on average received 140 hours of training and coaching), we foster more satisfied people.
The proof is in our annual Team Member Satisfaction Survey. The overall satisfaction scores on the survey, administered by independent consumer research firm Eliant for confidentiality, are consistently above 85 percent. In fact, in 2005, the overall level of satisfaction for JLH team members was 88 percent and the response rate 84 percent. In addition, 90 percent of respondents said they agree or strongly agree that they are extremely satisfied working at JLH.
Another component of providing a great work environment is being a good neighbor, so community involvement has always been a fundamental value at John Laing Homes. In 2005, we took this commitment one step further and launched our innovative Reach Out program. It was created to spark a social force of people giving back. The program is based on our activities within the communities where we build, but we also encourage our team members and homebuyers to reach out as well.
Whether it was supporting Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, raising nearly $200,000 at a charity golf tournament for victims of domestic violence, raffling off a house for Ronald McDonald House, or participating in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” we supported more than 100 philanthropic organizations, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars and volunteering countless hours of time.
If the assumption that providing a great environment for our people will help us deliver the best new home experience is accurate, than our homebuyer satisfaction levels in 2005 should reflect our team members’ satisfaction levels.
We participate in three different independent, nationwide market research surveys, JD Power & Associates, Eliant and NRS. In 2005, each one ranked John Laing Homes as the leader in overall customer satisfaction. In fact, Eliant, which annually conducts more than 400,000 surveys of new homebuyers, ranked six of our divisions within the top 10 in overall customer satisfaction from purchase through the first year of ownership.
So, how did this translate into financial performance? In terms of growth, our revenues increased by 60 percent to $1.6 billion and we closed 46 percent more homes for a total of 2,891. The company achieved its financial goals at each of its divisions throughout California and Colorado for the first time and successfully launched three new divisions in California (San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley and Laing Urban).
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Please review our supporting materials at the following Web page. The Web page
contains several hyper links to other materials.
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:
Dynamic, innovative, dedicated to learning and self-improvement, and consumed with delivering an unparalleled new home experience. It’s a description of John Laing Homes, and a description of the company’s CEO Larry Webb. Simply, Webb’s not a typical bottom-line executive. His background as a teacher, researcher and marketer keeps him in touch with the human side of homebuying and homeowning. Webb brings more than 20 years of homebuilding experience to his roles as the leader, owner, and member of the Board of Managers of John Laing Homes, the second largest private homebuilder in the United States.