Most organizations reach a point where they need to get really specific about what traits make leaders successful in their organization. Sometimes organizations get lucky and promote the right people from staff positions into supervisory roles and these people are successful leaders. But many times, the wrong person gets promoted, and this is because they focus more on the person’s success in their current role and less on what the expected behaviors are for leaders and whether this person has demonstrated their ability to exercise them. This month’s success story shares our recent work with a company that came to that conclusion. Aim Transportation Solutions is the largest, privately owned truck leasing company in North America. Aim Leasing Company was founded in 1982 as an affiliate of McNicholas Transportation who was, at that time, the largest steel hauler east of the Mississippi. Their initial goal was to purchase and maintain equipment for companies that didn’t have internal logistics capabilities. Since then, they have achieved steady growth and are now considered the largest, privately owned truck leasing company in North America. Like many growing business, identifying and promoting the right people into the critical middle management role was something Aim struggled with. Their people are truly passionate about solving their customers’ problems, but this passion does not necessarily mean that these employees would be good leaders. What Aim wanted to do was develop tools and processes to identify potential leaders in a consistent manner, in order to increase newly-promoted supervisors’ success, and continue to enhance their ability to solve customers’ problems. Vice President of Human Resources Patty Durkin said: We knew that by implementing a process to identify potential leaders in a consistent fashion would greatly enhance our succession planning efforts. We are a growing company in a very dynamic industry…we need to make sure we have the right people in the right place and trained the right way for our customers. This is especially true for anyone with the great responsibility for leading people. We connected with OA based on their experience helping companies implement leadership development programs. They have a solid methodology for identifying leadership competencies, defining them, and helping organizations integrate them into their succession planning...
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This month’s success story features our work with The City of Cleveland Heights. After living and working there for 20 years and then moving away…they become a client! Cleveland Heights, Ohio is a diverse, progressive, vital suburb of Cleveland that is well known for its rich variety of homes, from front-porch Colonials and Arts and Crafts bungalows to stately Tudors, historic mansions, and innovative new condos. You’ll find tree-lined streets, great parks and recreational facilities, authentic “main-street” shopping, award-winning restaurants, entertainment, theaters, and more! After a major revision to their job descriptions, the City wanted to determine how competitive their base compensation was compared to the talent market. Additionally, they wanted recommendations on compensation best practices and how to ensure their program stayed competitive to the market. Anna Smith, Director of Human Resources said: We were aware of OA’s work in the not-for-profit and public-sector environments, so when it was time to conduct an analysis of our base compensation, we contacted them for assistance. Public sector compensation can be challenging. On one hand it can be easier to locate data on positions because of the disclosure requirements for public entities. On the other hand, being able to pay competitively for top talent in a competitive labor market, coupled with the budget constraints in the public sector, can make it challenging. Also, pay structures in the public sector do not always keep pace with the private sector, which can be problematic when trying to update compensation programs. OA’s approach was to locate meaningful benchmarking date from both public and other sources and develop tools to show our positions relative to the market. Additionally, they provided insight into current compensation trends and strategies for implementing better approaches to attract, retain, and motivate our staff. The OA team was helpful in assisting with consensus-building with our leadership team so that we could implement the program we needed to reach our goals. Public sector employers are one of our specialties. Whether you are a municipality, agency, or public library system, we can help with your HR programs, including compensation benchmarking and pay structures. If you need assistance with your compensation programs or other HR consulting needs, contact us and check out our...
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This month’s success story features our work with Case Paper. Although they are 75 years old, they just recently hired their first HR director [and also an old colleague]. One of his first tasks was to review the employee handbook provisions and processes related to harassment. More on that below… Since 1943, Case Paper Company has provided incomparable service to the printing and packaging industry. The foundation of this service rests on maintaining one of the largest inventories of coated paper and board in both rolls and sheets in the United States; providing swift delivery of custom-converted products from state-of-the-art equipment; and the ability to process custom sizes. In fact, Case Paper has an extensive inventory of over 75,000 tons of paper and board available for immediate delivery, warehoused in over 1.25 million square feet of storage space across the U.S. They also provide state-of-the-art converting, warehousing, shipping, and logistics from several North American locations. Once their HR leader assessed the current state of their harassment avoidance program, he contacted OA for assistance in developing and delivering Diversity and Harassment Awareness Training. Ron Hervi, Director of Human Resources said: I had worked with OA’s Mark Fiala years ago when we were part of the Human Resources department in the company in which we worked. I knew his reputation and that of his company, so once I got acclimated to my new role at Case Paper, we started talking about how we could work together to deliver Diversity, Inclusion, Sensitivity, and Harassment Prevention training to my management team. Mark developed and delivered some of the best training we have ever received…his approach was to facilitate a real conversation with my leaders and help them understand the negative effect of harassment and the benefits of fostering diversity and inclusion. We held workshops in Philadelphia and Chicago for a total of six workshops. Each session was delivered effectively, and real learning took place…the feedback we received was that the training was useful, meaningful…and believe it or not, fun! It’s no secret that harassment is on many employer’s minds…making sure your managers are trained to spot and take action in cases of harassment is critical. Make sure you provide them the tools they...
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This month’s success story features our work with Athens Foods. We were asked to assist with updating their compensation system and provide information on best practices to help them remain competitive. Athens Foods is the world’s largest producer of fillo dough and fillo products, including convenient, pre-baked Mini Fillo Shells. Since 1958 they’ve been perfecting fillo. Athens® is committed to continually creating new recipes, gourmet appetizers, handmade desserts, and a full array of fillo delicacies. Bob Tansing, Chief Financial Officer at Athens Foods, said: Organizational Architecture brought a fresh set of eyes to our compensation practices. They took the time to thoroughly evaluate our needs and understand our organization. They also made valuable recommendations to improve our compensation practices. We pay close attention to labor rates and have developed useful tools to understand the competitive landscape. But we wanted to know if there were ways to enhance our current system as well as learn best practices and what other organizations are doing. Organizational Architecture gave us a good perspective on what approaches are being used, how to enhance our compensation philosophy, and what merit increase trends they are seeing. Organizations of all types and sizes can use help to assess if their compensation program is driving the results they want. Implementing basic compensation tools, systems, and policies can make a world of difference in your reward strategies. If you need assistance improving your compensation practices or other human resources consulting, contact us and check out our blog for more...
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Are you a newer organization that has to develop your Human Resources function? Recently, Organizational Architecture worked with a company that was just starting on the path of building its HR function, and needed some help assessing what they were doing and how to build their HR processes the right way. ALICE Training Institute was founded in 2013. The ALICE [Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate] Training instructor-led classes provide preparation and a plan for individuals and organizations on how to more proactively handle the threat of an aggressive intruder or active shooter event. Whether it is an attack by an individual person or by an international group of professionals intent on conveying a political message through violence, ALICE Training option based tactics have become the accepted response, versus the traditional “lockdown only” approach. Since they had been in business for several years, we performed a review of their HR practices to make sure they were in full compliance. Then, we turned our focus to improving processes to ensure the HR function was operating effectively and efficiently. Dave Mueller, Chief Executive Officer, said: We contacted Organizational Architecture to help us make sure we were operating in a compliant manner, and to ensure we were building effective processes to ensure our people were treated in a fair and consistent manner. They didn’t let us down. Not only did they review our programs and make recommendations to ensure we were compliant and efficient, they also assisted us with building an employee relations model that was responsive to employees and helped our supervisors become more effective at leading their people. The mission of ALICE Training Institute is to SAVE MORE LIVES. Their program is critical to helping ensure people have an effective response to active shooter situations. Most organizations could benefit from their training. If you would like to learn more, contact us and we can connect you with their Program Management team to get your training scheduled. Do you need to review your HR function for compliance and efficiency? Learn more about our HR consulting services and check out our blog. Then, contact us to see how we can help...
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One example of how Organizational Architecture assists its client with management training is our work with ACRT Inc. and its management development workshops. Training and development programs can help new managers grow into their role and make current managers even better! ACRT is a leading independent utility vegetation management consulting company that prevents and rapidly resolves utility challenges by assessing and monitoring utility systems for vegetation liabilities and storm preparedness. They have teams of employees all over the United States ensuring that electrical power lines are clear of hazards that can disrupt service. They were ready to implement several initiatives to help their workforce, but with limited bandwidth, they needed to bring in an external resource to assist them. Their leadership had already done a needs assessment of their managers and identified development areas, so they were ready to hit the ground running. We were able to help them by developing and delivering training workshops on topics such as Customer service Effective communication Effective interviewing and selection Effective presentation techniques Leading productive meetings Understanding generational differences The workshops included facilitation, workbooks, activities, handouts, and other tools for effective learning. Additionally, many of these workshops were developed to be uploaded to their learning management system [LMS] so that remote learners could take advantage of the learning. Bob Chess, Chief Human Resources Officer at ACRT, said, Organizational Architecture was a huge help with developing and delivering our leadership workshops. We had begun to develop an internal capability for staff training and development as part of our overall succession planning process, and needed assistance in the meantime ensuring our staff received the training they needed. Partnering with Organizational Architecture allowed us to focus on launching other HR initiatives while ensuring that development of our managers was underway. They were effective in helping us develop the content for the workshops as well as the tools to ensure effective learning. Organizational Architecture was able to provide an outside perspective on how to deliver the training effectively, which equipped our managers with tools to integrate into ongoing performance management and delivering annual performance reviews. No matter what type of training your staff or managers need, Organizational Architecture can provide the necessary training to help...
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