Archive for the 'CareerBuilder Leadership Series' Category

In CareerBuilder’s recent interview with Ben Roth, founder and chief executive officer of Roth Staffing Companies, L.P., Ben revealed his thoughts on the “three circles of the hedgehog,” his advice to other companies on how to create a values-driven company, the importance of his company’s “Ambassadors” in driving employee engagement, and more.

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• Posted by: Amy Chulik on August 26, 2009
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• Categories: CareerBuilder Leadership Series, Employee Attraction, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employer Advice, Leadership Development

Our latest CareerBuilder Leadership Series spotlight is on Ron Williams, chairman and chief executive officer of Aetna, one of the nation’s leading diversified health care benefits companies.

A strong proponent of meaningful health care reform, Mr. Williams has championed specific solutions in op-ed articles featured in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Financial Times, and he lends his time and expertise to a number of organizations, including the Business Council as vice chairman and the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, which he currently chairs. Ron talks to CareerBuilder about the power of employee suggestions, how leaders play a critical role in employee engagement, how he focuses on driving home diversity in the organization, and more.

What is your philosophy as far as the role people play in your organization?

At Aetna, we have a set of values we call The Aetna Way. The values really start with putting the people who use our services at the center of what we do. We maintain an intense focus on employee engagement because it is so fundamental and critical to our success. As a service business, we are what our employees do. You cannot go into any store in America, and buy one Aetna off the shelf – it doesn’t exist. So our employees have to internalize the importance of their role in living our values and meeting our customers’ needs. One way we measure how we’re doing in this area is through an annual employee survey. This year, 94 percent of our 36,000 employees completed the survey, which is an extraordinary response rate. Through the survey they are able to tell us what they think is working well and where there is room for improvement.

Can you give an example of an instance where an employee suggested an improvement for the company that you implemented and some effects you saw from that?

One great example is that employees felt we should have company-wide recognition events. So we established The Aetna Way Excellence Awards to recognize employee excellence in living our values and meeting the needs of our customers. The awards are especially meaningful, because winners are nominated by their peers. Last year we had nearly 4,000 employees nominated for silver awards, the first level of awards. From that group of winners, we selected about 35 to 40 gold award winners, who went onto the Platinum awards or highest level of award, where roughly 10 individuals were recognized as the very best examples of the values of the company. That whole program came about as a result of employees suggestions that came through the survey.

How do you ensure that employee engagement starts from day one and continues through the 10, 15, 20 years they might spend with your company?

Our leaders play a critical role in employee engagement. We have a set of leadership expectations that lays out core behaviors, including the expectation that leaders will communicate, communicate, communicate. A big part of their regular communication is to help transmit the culture and the values of the company. For example, we put new leaders through a first impressions orientation program where a senior officer, like myself, the president of the company, the CFO or our head of human resources, will go in and talk with them to make certain that they understand the culture at Aetna, how seriously we take our values, and the expectations we have for them as leaders in fostering employee engagement.

What is your set of values composed of?

It has four values. The first is integrity, which is about both what you do and what you don’t do. And we talk a lot about how we honor our commitments, behave ethically and do the right thing for the right reasons.. The second value is employee engagement, which we describe as leading people to success, valuing diversity and building confidence and pride in our company. The third value is excellence and accountability. It is doing what we say we are going to do when we say we are going to do it. The final value is really about quality service and value. Quality is so important in health care because most members presume that they are going to receive quality, but in reality, they may or may not. So we focus a lot on quality as one of the core values in our organization.

How do you engage different members of your organization?

One of the goals of an executive is to define reality for the organization, and to help the organization confront that reality quickly and effectively, and at the same time inspire managers and employees that these challenges can, in fact, be addressed. To give you an example, as I moved around the business community in the last half of 2008, it became clear that businesses were facing very substantial economic challenges. When our service team met with the benefit executives in our client organizations, they were not yet feeling a lot of that tension in their organization at that level. But when you talk to many executive leaders, they were clearly sharing their anxiety about how they saw the second half shaping up. So as the leader of the organization it is my job to define that reality, bring that reality back into the organization and say, “You may not yet be seeing what will be happening, but it is going to happen. We have to prepare for it happening,” and develop the next set of products that will be responsive to where our customers are going as opposed to where they are today.

Who or what has made the biggest impact in how you lead or interact with people?

• Posted by: Amy Chulik on July 27, 2009
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• Categories: Building a Best Place to Work, CareerBuilder Leadership Series, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employer Advice

CareerBuilder’s recent interview with Matthew Van Vranken, executive vice president of Spectrum Health, a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan, and president of Spectrum Health Hospital Group, revealed Van Vranken’s thoughts on how to foster and measure “engagement” in the health care industry, why he refers to staff members as “partners,” combating the loss of skilled talent in a competitive industry, and more.

How do you describe your leadership philosophy as it relates to people?

My biggest focus is engagement. In health care, where nearly 50 percent of expenses is human capital, I see Spectrum Health as the quintessential service provider with a very high-tech component. Fostering engagement begins by connecting each of our employees to a purpose. Whether they work directly at the bedside or indirectly support patient care, we must cultivate highly engaged staff. Each member of our team is responsible and accountable for providing an exceptional experience to our patients and their families.

How do you define engagement in your industry?

An engaged organization intentionally links to the hearts and minds of its staff. We need to understand how to inspire people in order to build and sustain strong business performance. Our business metrics include patient satisfaction, staff perception, efficiency and superior quality care. In many cases, I can identify engaged leaders and staff as a result of the metrics and business outcomes they drive.

Fully engaged staff members need to know our direction, vision and action, and how we intend to achieve our plan. They need to understand how their contributions connect to our mission and vision. These ideas are pretty fundamental. They convey the behaviors required to maximize our staff’s contributions to our success.

In our organization, if we can help people understand their purpose, and reinforce and reward their contributions based on that purpose, we can continue to recruit and retain the best and the brightest staff. It also helps us focus on our goal of caring for patients and families in a trusted, efficient and timely manner.

How do you engage your executive leadership team?

We focus on our mission to improve the health of the communities we serve. One third of our strategic plan is focused on our staff. The process of engagement is multifaceted and requires reinforcement. My executive leadership team and I have commitments that drive our daily interactions. We also demonstrate behaviors that we believe are vital to our success and to improving our key performance indicators. These behaviors are driving change, creating a safe environment, freely sharing information, holding people accountable, accepting responsibility and taking time daily to praise people.

These six behaviors create a culture that allows our leaders and staff to discuss important issues. We model these ideals in hopes that they funnel down to each person in our organization.

How else do you foster and measure engagement in your organization?

In addition to our leadership commitments and vital behaviors, we are dedicated to executive rounding. I conduct regular meetings every month with roughly 15 employees where we spend an hour discussing the strategic direction of Spectrum Health. My executive team and I have a goal to meet with 2,000 employees in a relaxed setting during the next year. These meetings foster engagement and give leadership an opportunity to meet with the people who support our large, complex organization. In addition to this, it is an organizational expectation that all leaders regularly meet with their staff.

We monitor business outcomes quarterly to get a snapshot measurement of engagement and conduct biannual employee perception surveys. Over the last three surveys, our overall score improved by nine points, a shift that’s statistically significant and often unseen in this type of survey.

It demonstrates that our improvement was not by pure happenstance. It occurred as a result of listening to our staff and making changes accordingly.

One of the major challenges for health care is losing skilled talent to competitors. How do you actively target high-potential talent in critical positions to retain them in your business?

• Posted by: Amy Chulik on July 8, 2009
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• Categories: CareerBuilder Leadership Series, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employer Advice, Leadership Development

This week, our spotlight is on Jim Rose, Chairman and CEO of Dallas-based Mosaic Sales Solutions Corporation, a 10,000-employee, privately held field sales and marketing company. In the Q&A to follow, Jim shares his thoughts on the importance of collaboration over individual success, the power of candid feedback, the coveted “White Glove” award, the importance of your employment brand, and more.

As a leader, what has influenced your strong emphasis on people?

People are absolutely critical to our business. If you look back over my nearly 15-year executive career, I’ve always been in the service industry, where people are the product. In these types of businesses, we aren’t making widgets. Instead, the input of people drives 100 percent of our company’s output. I have regard and respect for high-quality people because they contribute the best knowledge and skill sets to produce the best return for our customers. Aside from professional experience, my executive education has driven this value deeper. I earned my MBA from the Kellogg School of Management where people are the foundation of that program. The emphasis is on collaboration, teamwork and getting a job done together over individual success.

How do you describe your personal leadership philosophy?

My view is to lead very much by example. I have never believed that as CEO I am all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-being. I see myself as just another member of the team. I have a set of responsibilities and skill sets that are good for what needs to be done, but others have abilities and skill sets that are right for what they need to accomplish. I see everyone as playing an integral role in our team and collaboration as the cornerstone to success. I strive to be an action-oriented leader and, because I believe in management by walking around, I am with people all the time. Whether it is spending time in the field, attending meetings, rewarding people, or sending encouraging emails for a job well done. I am very engaged with our people at all levels. And this extends to social activities. I play on our bowling and softball teams and believe this helps people at all levels know who I am and that I am relatable. I enjoy giving our people the ability to ask questions and they know their opinion matters. In return, these gestures have an incredibly powerful effect on the team’s confidence and their contributions.

What is one value you feel leaders can emphasize to develop their people?

Feedback. It is easy to give positive feedback, but at the same time, good leadership means delivering the not-so-good message. I believe in showing appreciation for the things a person does well, but also providing constructive direction for the things that may have not gone so well. I am candid about areas of growth, suggesting why they are in need of attention and what steps can be taken to improve. This whole element of constructive feedback is a difficult practice, one that some leaders can be better at. In the moment, people don’t always appreciate the candor, but in time they respect the openness and honesty because they know the feedback is given with sincerity.

Is there a memory that had an impact on your professional development and influences how you lead today?

I have tons of those memories! The key point you’re hitting on is to have good mentors at a young age. And I think that’s huge. In high school I was a fry cook at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and my manager was phenomenal and took his business very seriously. After cleaning, he would point out areas I missed and taught me at a very young age that doing a job right took less time than redoing the work a second or third time. Each year, he would strive to win KFC’s “White Glove” award, which is an assessment from people hired to mystery shop at the store. The evaluation was based on the friendliness of the staff, offering French fries and Cokes, and whether the food was prepared properly and served at the right temperature. We were one of two or three locations to win the “White Glove” award that year, a very high honor. The award was not worth millions of dollars, we received an inexpensive plaque, but those things left a big impression in my life about quality, service, focus and discipline.

How do you define the value of your people at Mosaic?

As a client-facing organization, our whole business is service. Our purpose is to help our customers, both retailers and brand owners, be more effective in retail. Our field staff works hard to ensure that products are on the shelves, promoted and priced right. And they know that whatever communication or engagement we have with customers must be delivered appropriately because it ultimately drives sales for retailers and brands – and for us.

With nearly 10,000 employees, the bulk of our people are in the field performing sales-driven activities. Aside from the field organization, typical back office functions like finance, HR and IT are very front and center. They communicate with customers, participate in customer meetings, and contribute to solutions for our customers. Having people in these roles who understand the business and think practically is a significant value. With everyone at Mosaic able to interact with customers and be fully customer-focused, we differentiate and drive business forward for our clients.

What is the impact to your business when you have a vacancy in a field position? Is that a client who is either underserved or not served at all?

If we are understaffed or have the wrong individuals in place, we miss opportunities to be effective in retail for our customers. If we’re not out in the field making visits, we cannot generate revenue. Such a significant part of our business is driven by field activity, so the goal is to always be fully staffed with competent, well-trained and focused people who do an incredible job. As I mentioned before, people are our product.

How does your executive team strategically consider talent to sustain and grow business?

• Posted by: Amy Chulik on July 2, 2009
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• Categories: CareerBuilder Leadership Series, Employee Attraction, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employer Advice, Leadership Development

What exactly is the key to great leaders’ success? What do strong and successful leaders know that we may not — and how can we learn from them and apply those findings in our own businesses?

In the weeks to come, we will feature leaders in industries spanning from sales and marketing to health care. We will share their answers about their business insight, leadership strategy and philosophy, methods of finding and retaining top talent, and much more.

CareerBuilder recently interviewed Jon Luther, executive chairman of Dunkin’ Brands, and picked his brain a bit about his leadership philosophy, his role in Dunkin’s talent strategy, the secret to being a great leader, and how he balances inspiration versus reality in today’s economical environment.

Read the full interview:

• Posted by: Amy Chulik on June 22, 2009
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• Categories: CareerBuilder Leadership Series, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employer Advice, Leadership Development