It was lunchtime, and the dads came hungry.
As break began on a Friday in late September, welders and grinders at Watson Metal Masters filed into the conference room, guided by their noses by the mouthwatering scent of Missouri favorites: fried chicken, green beans and corn, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, cookies.
It was the last session of the seven-week Fundamentals for Good Dads course hosted at the company in collaboration with Good Dads. And to mark the occasion, the company provided an extra special Cracker Barrel lunch. To Watson Metal Masters, providing lunch at an employee event says one thing louder than anything else: “We care about you.”
Eight fathers at the company—perhaps half lured by the promise of food but also enticed by the rare chance to gather to talk about being a dad—took the leap to participate in Fundamentals.
The eight-part program takes a deep dive into important topics chiefly relevant to twenty-first century fathers such as masculinity, communication, conflict resolution, safety, values and goals, self-confidence and more. It uses sports metaphors to draw a relatable comparison: Coaches are to a team as a father is to his family.
Good Dads’ facilitators, Dan Johnson and Benjy Lampert, with the help of Director of Training & Education Rhonda Andersen, met with fathers at Watson Metal Masters to make the program a success.
Holly Smith, Training & Development Specialist with Amprod, coordinated with Good Dads to build a plan that would work best for her employees. Three quarters of Watson Metal Masters’ approximately 100 employees are men, Smith estimated, and with many of them fathers, she knew bringing a Good Dads program to their jobs would be met with enthusiasm.
Before the program launched, she and her team spread the word about the opportunity, succeeding in catching the attention of dad employees like Travis Cobb.
Cobb, a father and stepfather who participated in the program, said he first learned about the opportunity from a simple sign-up sheet in the break room, which encouraged involved parenthood.
Cobb had been going through a divorce, and he sought out extra support during this time in his life, he later said. He prides himself on being a good dad and has always prioritized being a part of his children’s lives. The Good Dads class seemed like the perfect chance to connect with his co-workers and bond over what it means to be a father.
While Smith helped plan the logistics of this important collaboration, she humbly said the real brains behind the idea to bring Good Dads programs into the Watson Metal Masters workplace was her boss, crediting CEO Tiffany Claussen as the catalyst.
“I feel like our whole purpose in being alive is to impact other people,” Claussen said. “And this is where I get to impact other people. And if I can help in any way, that’s my mission.”
Claussen first heard of Good Dads through friends at her church, although she didn’t know the nonprofit had workplace programs at first. Only after she looked up Good Dads online for herself did she learn about Fundamentals for Good Dads, which is perfect for working fathers and can take place during a break or during a shift. As general manager at Watson Metal Masters at the time, she knew right away she wanted to bring this opportunity to her father employees.
Getting started was not without its challenges, Claussen admitted. But she was far from discouraged. In her experience, she said, when you take care of people, you earn it back.
“It’s fun… I always like the pushback a little bit,” she said. “They’ll say, like, ‘Oh, we can’t let them be off the floor! That’s not fair!’ … At some point, it doesn’t matter, because you’re gonna earn it back. When you care about (your employees), it’s going to reap rewards one way or another.”
Nonetheless, before the Good Dads course started, there was one challenge that Watson leaders couldn’t ignore: navigating the company’s delicate schedule. The last Friday of the month, Watson administrators explained, was shipping day. It’s an all-hands-on-deck event, so they couldn’t risk taking some off the floor for Good Dads on that day.
Armed with this knowledge, Good Dads built a custom schedule that worked well with everyone. Instead of meeting eight Fridays in a row for class, which could jeopardize the company’s calendar to ship out its products, Good Dads facilitators ran the program for seven weeks—combining Lessons 1 & 2 in the first session.
This plan ended up working great for both parties, said Rhonda Andersen, director of Training & Education, who coordinated the program with Watson’s admin team. Since the first lesson in the program primarily lays out expectations and offers participants a chance to get to know one another, it was easy to combine the first two lessons for the company. Andersen said she’s always happy to collaborate with businesses to find a plan that fits with the team.
For Claussen, finding ways to benefit her employees has always been a priority. It’s about caring about employees as a whole human being, she said.
“I’m interested in making sure the team member as a whole is taken care of,” she said after the final lesson ended. “And that they’re healthy, and that they’re learning, and that they’re growing—as a whole person. Not just as a welder or a grinder.”
Ultimately, she saw Fundamentals for Good Dads as a means for fathers to contribute to their community, calling it “a great program.”
“If you take care of people, you earn it back,” she said.
The final lesson of the seven-week journey was all about support systems, stressors and asking for help. The dads engaged in an important discussion about how stress affects daily life, healthy ways to cope with stress, and the responsibility fathers have to help their children in stressful situations.
Cobb said at the conclusion of the final lesson that he’s had fun getting to connect in a new way with his co-workers—and that he appreciated the chance for his colleagues to share about their experiences as dads.
Dan Johnson, one of the facilitators who helped lead the discussions at Watson Metal Masters, echoed Cobb. In his experience, men find it meaningful to attend class and learn new perspectives.
“They sometimes learn more from each other than from the program,” Johnson said with a laugh.
And the effects aren’t isolated in the conference room alone. Claussen said she’s observed personalities shift on the production floor in the last few weeks, which she attributes to lessons learned in the Fundamentals course.
Now, after the first run of the program, leaders are hungry for more.
Claussen said she’s eager to keep the momentum and expand involvement to other Amprod facilities. The possibility of expanding to more locations, such as the Amprod headquarters of around 300 employees in Strafford, could make an even bigger difference for their dad employees.
Feeling FOMO? Good Dads is eager to bring its programs to your workplace! Find out more about what the nonprofit can do for your company at our website.
About the Author
Diana Dudenhoeffer is the director of communications at Good Dads. She works to maintain Good Dads’ online and print presence. Diana is a graduate of Missouri State University; she studied journalism, sustainability and documentary storytelling.
