Photos by Joshua McCoyLarry Hollon, a business consultant, offers his services through Holistic Outlook in Bowling Green.

The workplace is an amalgam of employee attitudes, morale, productivity and management quirks, but sometimes that environment needs outside help to sort through the kinks.

That’s why some managers feel business consulting is a much-needed industry that’s cropping up in smaller cities like Bowling Green.

After all, it’s hard to tell your boss when he or she is managing the workplace badly.

&#8220The general employee is not going to go to a supervisor and tell him he needs to improve something; he usually voices his displeasure to his coworkers,” said Gerald Belcher, parks maintenance division manager for the city of Bowling Green for the last 14 years. &#8220Using a business consultant breaks down the communication barriers.”

Belcher said besides giving employees a voice again, using a business consultant can enhance productivity, reduce unnecessary time off by employees and build leadership into the work force.

Belcher’s department is a long-term client of Larry Hollon, a business consultant who offers his services through Holistic Outlook in Bowling Green.

&#8220I brought him in to do some consulting work with our staff members, pretty much our senior workers to work on our organizational climate – to improve the communications of our labor staff and to attempt to resolve issues that the line staff might have with management,” Belcher said.

Hollon stresses the human part of management and does training workshops for organizations along with private consulting for his clients nationwide.

But he had to learn his craft the hard way – after his business, CableStar Inc., a manufacturing firm started in 1983 that provided products to various industries, was driven out by foreign competition in the early ’90s. By then, he had learned what it took for a business to survive on selling better service and more reliable products when it became obvious foreign competition could offer lower prices.

Hollon said the conventional management method – where a manager tells his or her employee what they’re doing wrong without providing feedback on everything else – doesn’t work.

&#8220There’s an epidemic of dysfunction in the workplace,” he said.

Hollon said only management can distinguish the difference between an employee’s compliance and commitment to workplace morale. Hollon teaches managers how to address emotional needs to keep employees engaged.

That’s something Belcher does as he feverishly completes Bowling Green’s skate park, which is expected to open by the end of October.

&#8220We’re expanding so fast and have so many new parks on board, that we’re growing faster than we can bring in new employees,” he said.

Belcher said the city has been progressive in using leadership training to address a growing work force. That work must be able to perform multiple tasks.

In the mid to late ’90s, organizational climate surveys were completed by workers, but Belcher said that attempt to remedy work place ailments came up short.

&#8220We didn’t take it another step and do leadership training on top of (the surveys),” he said. &#8220It was just placed on the back of the managers, supervisors and department heads to create their own programs with mixed results.”

Now, the city uses many programs to build leadership within its work force, he said.

&#8220Most of our employees have been offered or exposed to Team Bowling Green, a ground level leadership training course,” Belcher said. &#8220And many of the middle level managers and senior level managers have been exposed to outside leadership opportunities.”

Business consulting is a growing industry.

Randall Capps, president of Leadership Strategies, has owned his consulting business since 1994.

&#8220We got started because we realized there were some companies and organizations out there that could benefit from our expertise to their processes and strategies,” Capps said.

Capps works with Fortune 500 companies, universities and non-profit organizations to help them with what he sees as problems with individual leadership.

While it may be difficult to pinpoint what consultants do, Capps has a simple definition.

&#8220My definition of consulting is helping,” he said. &#8220I realize that there are a lot of organizations and companies that need help.

&#8220There’s going to continue to be a need for someone on the outside that has an objective viewpoint to be able to discuss strategies about company leadership,” Capps said. &#8220All indications are that this will be a growing area.”

Capps said the trend is for companies to outsource management and human resource help instead of spending the money to do it in-house.

&#8220They don’t need them to be on the payroll all the time, but they need someone to come in and work on specific projects,” he said.

He travels a lot and likes living in Bowling Green, he said.

&#8220If you’re going to be in this business, you have to be willing to go where the clients are,” Capps said. &#8220We’re always going to have face-to-face meetings with clients.”

Capps also teaches in the management department of Western Kentucky University. He helps MBA students get a preview into the consulting industry with various opportunities since some 65 percent of those pursuing an MBA want to get into it.

&#8220A lot of the MBA students want to go into consulting so Western asked me to teach there,” he said.

-Holistic Outlook business consultant Larry Hollon can be reached at 393-0100 and Leadership Strategies business consultant Randall Capps can be reached at 781-1336.

Benefits of corporate referees propelling trend

—The Department of Labor expects the consulting industry to grow by 55.4 percent by 2012.

—Thirty percent of consultants are self-employed, with the other 70 percent working for firms.

—In 2004, revenues were up 3 percent over the previous year, yielding a market size of just under $125 billion.

—The top six management consulting firms earned about $13.5 billion from their U.S. and $29 billion from their worldwide activities in 1998.