Tips from today’s top companies on developing and utilizing your workforce

Employees are central to every company operating today. Without them, work doesn’t get done. That’s why employee staffing and utilization are two of the more talked about topics among today’s business leaders. Companies are focused on bringing in talent, but they’re also concerned with tapping into the knowledge base of their employees and getting them to all pull in the same direction.
Having the right people on-board who can grow and contribute in a meaningful way is central to the success of any company. But the competition for the best and brightest is high, which is why hiring has become top-of-mind for many businesses.

Talent acquisition

cin_cs_SueMcPartlinSue McPartlin, market managing partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s Cincinnati office, says that more than half of the company’s employee base is made up of millennials.
“Because such a large percentage of our employees are millennials, we can’t survive in business if we don’t attract and retain that talent,” she says.
And that’s one of the company’s biggest challenges: competing for, developing and retaining talent. To address that challenge, PwC has keyed in on college campuses as part of its recruiting initiative in order to get to know the potential talent available in the market.
“It’s about getting to know people on a personal level so potential hires know from a people perspective what they’re getting into,” McPartlin says. “It’s also helpful to have people understand what the culture of your organization is like. That’s really important, and we see that in internal surveys we do of our people, and external data validates that the fit with a culture is really important to people.”
cin_cs_EricHillMuch like PwC, hiring high-quality talent is paramount for Philip Rielly and Eric Hill, co-founders of BioRx LLC. As the company expands, it stays on the lookout for great candidates.
“It may not be today, but it may be three months or six months from now that we’ll need talent,” Hill says. “When the opportunity to hire somebody comes along, we need to already have a portfolio of folks we’ve been talking to. That dialogue helps get those jobs filled quicker and with better talent.”

Develop tomorrow’s leaders

It’s critical that companies are creative with their talent retention strategies, offering what others don’t. That’s why PwC focuses on training and development of its employees.
“Our folks consistently tell us that they think our learning and development is very strong in helping them prepare to do their work. We also offer on-the-job training,” McPartlin says.
PwC also puts emphasis on working in team environments.
“You’re always learning from somebody who is a bit more experienced than you,” she says. “Our team members get a variety of clients, which keeps things interesting and they can learn from people with different experiences than they have.
“When we ask people about what they like best about the firm and what keeps them here, they consistently say the people and the ability to team with people and learn from them. That’s one of the key drivers in terms of retention.”
McPartlin also finds it’s good to get employees out of their comfort zones and take on different roles, but they need to know that the leadership will support them. Similarly, she says offering opportunities to employees, even if they don’t take them, shows goodwill.
“That lets them know that you think highly enough of them that you want to offer them that next role and next opportunity.
“That’s really important,” she says.
Having the right talent on-board is central to the execution of a strategic plan, according to the co-founders of BioRx.
“If we have done anything, we have hired a fantastic management team and our bench strength is pretty deep,” Hill says.
“I think either one of us could get hit by a bus tomorrow and the company wouldn’t have a whole lot of issues. We have managers and operators that we turn loose to let them earn their stripes. Those guys know where our next bets need to be.”

Help steer the ship

cin_cs_ChuckShiveOnce talented new hires are brought into the fold, they can often help steer the direction of the company. When Chuck Shive, president and CEO of Mikesell’s Snack Foods Co., was looking to upgrade the company’s more than 100-year-old potato chip brand, he turned to his employees for help.
“There’s a lot of good institutional knowledge among partners and employees that all you have to do is ask and they’re willing to share that information and ideas,” he says.
Shive had his own ideas about what he thought was the right direction for the company, but that didn’t stop him from getting others’ input in the decision process.
“It is a balance,” he says. “You strategically have an idea of where you want to go and through asking a lot of good questions and getting a lot of good feedback and working with your executive team and others, you refine that strategy based on what is realistic to expect and execute going forward.
“At the same time, if you believe in your strategy, your team and employees, and the company understands what that strategy is and you’ve communicated it well enough, then it becomes time to implement it and execute it.”

Pull in the same direction

cin_cs_RossBushmanEmployee buy-in is critical for companies, especially when times are tough. Getting them involved in the planning process when significant changes must be made, however, takes persistence. Ross Bushman, president and CEO of Cast-Fab Technologies Inc., learned this lesson when the castings and fabrication industry was hit hard by the recession.
“We went through some hellacious turmoil in our industry, to say the least, back in that 2009 time frame,” Bushman says. “It was a period of about five or six months where a lot of that drop occurred. It wasn’t that we just lost 30 or 40 percent of the business in one day. We didn’t lose any customers. What we lost was our customers weren’t buying anything and that was different.”
The recession caused panic in a number of businesses, but Bushman was determined not to let doubt rule Cast-Fab, so he made sure employees knew how the company was going to move forward.
“People need clarity and every day we were out there trying to talk about those things and we kept talking to them about reaffirming America’s manufacturing excellence. That was what we were after.”
To do that, Bushman got a number of people involved in the strategic planning process, many of whom had different levels of experience.
“We certainly have the key managers involved, but we’re also looking out for those up-and-coming associates who are going to be the key folks five or 10 years from now and getting them to be part of the process,” Bushman says.
“That just helps with the breadth of opinion,” he says. “In the C-suite, we all can get blinders on at times and forget that information isn’t assimilated through the organization as much as it comes to you. That’s why your players need clarity — the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ — and you have to communicate those things.”
Having all of those people in the room helps gain buy-in, but not everyone jumps on-board at once, so it takes patience and persistence to win the majority over.
“My dad told me years ago that if you got even 70 percent of your workforce on-board, buying in to what you were doing, that’s probably world class. You’re probably not going to have everybody, you just have to keep getting some converts each day, each week, each year to what you’re trying to do and you’ll slowly move the needle,” Bushman says.
It’s one thing to hash out a plan. It’s another, however, to enact it.
“Too often people go through a huge strategic planning process, they come out with a great plan, but they spent months and months doing it, and at that point, people are exhausted,” he says. “When the work needs to begin on the implementation side, it fizzles out a little bit.
“We really shortened the time on the strategic planning side and we really focused on the implementation. On the implementation side is really where plans are won or lost and strategies are won or lost.”

Lessen anxiety

Employees don’t always get a choice when it comes to choosing an employer. In the case of a merger or acquisition, sometimes employees come along for the ride.
cin_cs_JamesWendleJames Wendle, former president and COO at EQM Technologies & Energy Inc., was working to diversify the company through mergers and acquisitions. He found that when it comes to integrating the people who are part of these deals, it takes a certain kind of approach in order to lessen employees’ anxiety.
 
In a merger process, there are two sides: a legal side and an emotional side.
“The legal side is pretty cut and dry,” Wendle says. “The emotional side is more cultural. What kind of culture are they coming into and how comfortable do they feel with it.”
A successful transition takes strong communication, specifically from leadership.
“You cannot communicate enough,” he says. “We have town hall meetings. We have staff meetings every week. Each business unit has staff meetings every week and you’re just trying to keep the lines of communication open. It really comes down to employee engagement and whether the employees feel that they have a say and whether they’re being listened to.”
It’s important that employees have the right attitude and that they’re happy. Otherwise, it can get bad for business.

“If the employees are not happy, customers are going to hear about it because there are close relationships between the employees and the clients. And vice versa, if our client’s employees aren’t happy, we hear about it.”