PAUL GAMMIE'S APPROACH to running his home medical equipment business is reminiscent of Avis rent-a-car's "We Try Harder" ad campaign, which was such a success that Avis still uses the slogan nearly 40 years later.

Yet Hawaii-based Gammie HomeCare is No. 2 only in the sense that it is the proverbial little guy going up against the big companies. By emphasizing internal communications and cooperation, Gammie says, his HME and clinical respiratory company can give clients outstanding service-and can outmaneuver the giants.

"This level of constant staff-to-staff and staff-to-patient communication is what separates the service level possible in smaller HME companies from the larger chains that are out there," says Gammie. "When a company gets too large to maintain a tight flow of communication, the opportunity for confusion increases dramatically. I do not feel 'small' is a bad word in this industry!'

Every morning, the workday begins with a company-wide meeting that includes 17 employees at the Kahului, Maui, main store, which Gammie founded with his wife Nancy in 1986. The manager of the second location, which recently opened in Lihue, Kauai, also conducts morning meetings with that store's three employees.

"We were finding that the day starts with absolute chaos," Gammie says. "Everybody's just walking in, and the phones are already ringing. It's hard to get organized. So at the morning meeting, we gather everything up and make a plan. The staff puts on work hats, so to speak."

Those communal 15 to 20 minutes give those assembled a sense of what needs to be done that day. Goals are discussed and trouble spots identified. Each employee is encouraged to interject comments relevant to the tasks at hand. "Even if people are not directly involved in a big job, they will gain an appreciation of what the other employees are doing to keep things moving along,' Gammie says.

At day's end, another "communication system' is activated: Employees, except for those in customer service, share with their immediate supervisors the daily activity logs they are required to keep. As Gammie notes, the supervisors often catch potential problems here before they become big problems.

"And if follow-up work is required, it is scheduled at that time for the following day, so issues are not left dangling," Gammie says. "This allows time for the employees to think through each situation they were involved with during that day and make sure they did not forget to follow up on some minor detail. That can make or break a lot of jobs."

One-on-one communication with employees is also made a priority when it comes to the employees themselves. Their performance is assessed and compared against a written job description semiannually, if not quarterly. "We find these reviews useful in keeping everybody on the same page," Gammie says. "They allow us time to communicate directly with employees about how we feel they are fitting in with the entire scheme of things."

And what does all this effort, all this trying so hard to communicate yield? Good employee morale and great customer service, says Gammie.

Perhaps there's a slogan lurking in there.