Ariel Parrella-Aureli

August 9, 2017June 29, 2023

Could a Smart Mirror Make Us More Productive or Invade Our Privacy?

When you hear about a smart mirror, you think it’s a future endeavor. Then you hear it’s a real thing happening right now, and others have created similar tools — like HiMirror, a smart mirror that tracks your skin health. Or the one with a personal and business application — MirroCool, a personal assistant smart mirror and camera.

When I got an email about MirroCool, which uses facial recognition technology and keeps track of your calendar events and to-do lists, my mouth dropped. Not because it sounded like the next technology people would be grabbing,

but because it sounds like a choke on our increasingly shrinking private lives outside of technology.

MirroCool is the creation of the company’s founder and CEO Wojtek Kaszycki, who worked in business and investment in Poland for more than 20 years. Given his wide expertise in IT, consulting and finance, he set out on a new adventure to create the smart mirror that also acts as a personal assistant.

The advanced facial recognition system makes it a selling point and no longer seems like something you’d find in a futuristic film. But while it also seems convenient for organizing your day, taking selfies with friends and reading your face, it feels more like just another thing to connect to all of our devices and does not sound like it will improve any productivity, as it is meant to do.

Kaszycki begs to differ, and said the mirror is compatible with organizational apps on smartphones you use daily to sync up and provide all the information you need for your morning routine.

“What is the perfect personal assistant? A person or device that gives you information when you want and when it is done in a way that you don’t lose your time,” Kaszycki said.

Sure, efficiency is key, but having a mirror in my bathroom still sounds invasive. While it can be placed anywhere you wish — whether that is in the bathroom, in the living room or in an office space, the bathroom is getting the most points in terms of advertisement for the mirror’s locations.

It knows all my information and can tell me what I need to know based on smiles or frowns, but I don’t want to be bombarded with all my daily tasks first thing in the morning. When I am doing my hair — or the seldom occasion that I wear makeup — the last thing I want is to see bubbles of information blasted back at me from my reflection. How many productivity hacks do we need these days?

MirroCool’s Instagram shows examples of messages the smart mirror can shoot at the user to be ready for the day.

Kaszycki hopes for just one in the future and sees the mirror as a one-stop memo. Technology is becoming more intelligent and is ever-changing; mirrors will always be a necessity, he said.

“MirroCool is safer and more secure than a regular smartphone,” he said. He reasons that smartphones connect to the internet, whereas the mirror is connected to just the MirroCloud, which does not store personal data but rather numbers from face recognition vectors. If the cloud were to be breached, hackers would not be able to connect the numbers to specific people.

Kaszycki also shared that you can turn the camera off for more privacy and always need to turn it on manually to take a photo. He said privacy is the biggest concern of his customers, but hearing these features did calm me down about user safety, although not enough to use a MirroCool.

I asked my friends and coworkers if they shared my same opinion, and they all felt similarly terrified of the addition of a smart mirror in a sacred place like the bathroom. With all the increased tech in our lives, meditation and yoga are seeing an uptick in our generation who want to get away from all the screens — myself included. Picking up a fiction book rather than reading online or watching the real sunset instead of it being through a screen is so much more meaningful these days; even at work, people are adapting to methods of not being so “on” all the time.

Although one could put the mirror in the hallway or even a workspace for communal use, the tools we already have — our smartphone, computer, smart watches and even tablets — help people manage their lives, stay productive and remind us to send flowers to grandma. Having a mirror at work to ping us for meetings or work-related events is a waste of wall space; we already have our computer and phone beeping at us constantly.

The Kickstarter campaign surpassed its goal within two days of being open.

My skepticism might be small in the target audience of the product. MirroCool Inc. launched its smart mirror on Kickstarter on July 11 to an anxious crowd ready to get their hands on the new personal assistant. By day two, the campaign had reached its backing goal of $50,000. Currently, it stands at over $68,000 with 15 days to go. Kaszycki said he hopes to reach between $500,000 and $700,000, and most of the backers are from the U.S.

I am struggling to find out who would want a selfie-taking-assistant mirror in their sacred space or how it would amplify their lives, but the campaign shows that there’s clearly a market for this new item. While I cannot foresee myself ever using it, I can reach to see the appeal of a mirror that takes that perfect selfie you want when you are looking back at yourself. I, like so many these days, am not ready to jump into the immediate future; sticking with a cell phone that tells me the weather and reminds me to check my laundry is innovative enough.

Ariel Parrella-Aureli is a Workforce intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

July 5, 2017June 29, 2023

Smart Lockers Open Options for Workplace Wellness and Safety

Employees at Hull & Knarr have no excuses to not pedal around on a bike. The Indianapolis-based financial services firm has opened the door to new wellness and team-building initiatives for its employees in an eco-friendly and accessible manner.

A brightly lit orange locker room with company-owned bikes, showers and personal lockers with bike equipment and accessories line the workout room for the firm’s workers to use at their leisure. Commuting to work and rides during lunch are the most common times the equipment is used, said Brad Ferrell, director at Hull & Knarr.

“Anything we can do to remove reasons not to participate [in biking] — we really try to remove all those obstacles,” Ferrell said.

Of the company’s 13 employees, Ferrell said five or six use the bikes daily. He said having all of the biking equipment easily accessible has created happier and healthier workers, which in turn has positively affected the workplace.

“We are creating a culture where people want to be a part of something, but it also gives them a cause and something to root for,” said Ferrell, who tries to bike at least twice a week. “It creates teamwork outside of the office.”

Hull & Knarr use IM lockers for personal bike and workout equipment. *Photo courtesy Brad Ferrell*

In the three years Hull & Knarr has used the smart lockers — which can track employee use and well-being by how many times lockers are opened and offer data for rewards and incentives — they have evolved to become more user-friendly and personal for anyone looking to balance work and wellness. While these locker trends are not new to corporate wellness, they are beginning to reshape workplace culture to give employees a healthy dose of activity and social engagement with others in their office and the larger community.

Much of this has stemmed from IVM Inc., the creators of the lockers and one of Hull & Knarr’s clients. The lockers can be used numerous ways — from IT help, snacks and medical supplies to fire extinguishers, according to IVM President Mike Pitts, who has seen the product’s growth since the company was founded in 1991.

IVM produces not only smart lockers but smart vending machines too, which thrive among big tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Facebook, and are made to improve accessibility of needed items in the workplace. By scanning an employee badge, those looking for headphones, a temporary computer or a new keyboard can get them immediately without using cash or coins.

Facebook, whose headquarter offices in Menlo Park, California, use IVM’s vending machines to sell bike parts to employees and promote corporate wellness. The machines replace the need for a campus repair shop and promote cycling across the board, giving employees instant gratification through IVM’s technology, Pitts affirmed.

Facebook’s office headquarters sell bike parts to employees and promote corporate wellness.

The newest tool to the vending machine community are the fire extinguishers from WESCO Distribution, a longtime IVM customer. The company is getting ready to roll out the fire extinguisher application with a major electric utility. WESCO places IVM’s vending machines and lockers in utility and nuclear plants to distribute safety tools such as goggles, safety suits and gloves for employees to grab before starting their shift.

“That all came about from this culture of watching out for employees,” Pitts said of the upcoming deal. “[It’s] not just giving them the tools they need to do their job but the things that make their jobs safer and better to this far extreme of even the well-being of their employees.”

This kind of technology use in the workplace brings up the question of future technological assistance and how smart lockers are influencing the workplace. Pitts said he does not foresee any negatives as technology will positively affect productivity, accessibility and job security and will not eliminate jobs — similar to the continued growth of robotic technology.

“What you are going to see over the coming years is that these vending systems are going to be prevalent throughout all industries,” he said. “They are going to be used for so many different things that it staggers the imagination.”

Ariel Parrella-Aureli is a Workforce intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changer: Jay Fortuna

When Jay Fortuna stepped into his role as director of training and development at The Horton Group, he didn’t just carry on with business as usual. Fortuna, 32, wanted to be transformative. No stranger to a challenge many insurance companies face, Horton Group dealt with difficulties attracting and developing new insurance agents and brokers. Without an ability to effectively develop talent organically, keeping the privately held brokerage independent would be nearly impossible.

In response to this reality, Fortuna got to work on creating a road map, so to speak. In developing the Journey to Validation program, Fortuna laid out everything that must be accomplished by new sales executives in their first three years of employment to ensure long-term success. The journey takes a blended learning approach and is made up of four stages to shape Horton’s new employees from Day One through their validation with company.

Although Fortuna is on a new path at JADO Solutions, he firmly established a learning culture at Horton. And to think Fortuna rolled out the fully polished program in his first six months with the organization.

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changer: S. Cameron Cox

It’s not easy being a media company these days.

It’s even more difficult, one might argue, to be a media company experiencing seismic transformational change. So is the case of Atlantic Media, publisher of the 159-year-old Atlantic magazine. S. Cameron Cox isn’t an editor or writer at any of the company’s esteemed publications, but ask any of his colleagues and it’s easy to see how his work has been equally as instrumental in the company’s recent growth and success.

Cox, 38, is managing director of talent and culture at Atlantic Media, and in the seven years he’s been with the firm, the company has grown twofold, from about a 400-person operation with a primary presence in Washington, D.C., to an 800-person operation with offices spread across the globe. In that span, Atlantic Media has launched new publications, expanded its headcount and reorganized its teams globally, all of which have required an astute leader on the talent and culture side to manage the change.

Even before taking on his current role in June 2016, colleagues say Cox has been a sought-after adviser to new hires and seasoned executives alike on matters relating to anything from the intricacies of people management to the technical minutiae of implementing a new benefits administration software platform and building a global recruiting function.

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changer: David Ziebler

As a certified organizational development specialist, David Ziebler works to enhance the onboarding and assimilation of team members at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. Ziebler has been credited with kick-starting and implementing an organizational development curriculum available to staff and faculty across the entire university.

David Ziebler, HR associate, organizational development specialist, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield, Illinois

After four years at the university, Ziebler, 35, has worked on an innovative 10-month leadership development program for health care administrators within the organization, a new employee orientation program and other advanced initiatives that work toward organizational development and culture.

As a result of Ziebler’s drive and desire to exceed expectations, his efforts to expand organizational culture and development have incorporated leadership. He has attained several accreditations, including designated master trainer, consulting and coaching certifications, and certified emotional intelligence assessor.

SIU’s School of Medicine has garnered new coaching for managers and leaders, as well as matrixed committees for facilitating development of the organizationwide employee onboarding system.

As one of Ziebler’s colleagues put it, the strides that their office has made in the organizational development arena would not have occurred if it weren’t for his approach and passion for continuous improvement.

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changer: Florine van Everdingen

Florine van Everdingen has tapped her entrepreneurial spirit to launch an initiative aimed at inspiring and empowering young female talent. MyWinspiration was founded in 2015 with the mission of attracting women to enter the workforce. With a group of 12 young women, she created a magazine focused on this goal. It’s available for free internationally.

That’s on top of her full-time gig at consultancy KPMG, where she’s considered a steady, strong, reliable rock that her colleagues can rely on. As the leader of MyWinspiration, van Everdingen, 28, is a familiar face as a keynote speaker and has built a global community that continues to grow.

“Ultimately my goal is to provide women with the opportunity to empower one another and learn from each other; enabling them to actively participate in the workforce to the best of their abilities and ambitions,” said van Everdingen in an email interview.

It’s at speaking events where she engages and connects most with her audience. This gave her the idea to develop a Young Female Talent Program, which allows her to coach young talent trying to build their careers. Meanwhile, it’s also given her the idea to bring all these ideas together in a book.

“Both are ambitious works in progress and will, I am sure, take us some time to realize,” she said. “But I do believe that if you can dream it, you can do it. And I have to say, the dream I have for MyWinspiration is only getting better.”

Her colleagues are impressed with what van Everdingen has accomplished. “We’re amazed by her ability to not only be an excellent consultant at one of the largest organizations in the world, but also be an inspiration and driving force for gender equality,” wrote Juliette Cleton, sales and operations planner at cosmetics company Rituals and part of the MyWinspiration team, in van Everdingen’s Game Changer application.

MyWinspiration has not hampered her ability to be a great leader at KPMG. As a manager, she develops and gets the best out of her team, said Lizzie Garland, junior consultant at KPMG. Van Everdingen proactively listens to her team and gives them the opportunity to grow but also provides, strong, steady, calm leadership when needed.

Her success in people management comes from an appreciation for people, which was fostered early on in her university years when she came across this Henry Ford quote: “You can take my factories, burn my buildings, but give me my people and I’ll build the business right back again.”

“I believe that quote is still very much relevant today and that people are the single most valuable asset an organization will ever possess,” she said.

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changers: Katie Traviglia

There’s a reason why some leaders earn accolades and some don’t. Very often those leaders, those award-winning organizational members, stand out in some way. It could be that leader has a trait that brings about something special by way of results in their department, their company or even in their industry.

It could be the leader heads up an employee referral bonus program that contributes to a 70 percent retention rate for new hires. Or, perhaps that leader — we’re talking about Katie Traviglia, director of human resources for New American Funding — designed a high impact managerial survey.

Data from that survey shapes leadership development programs that promote team building and advanced-level skills in mortgages, compliance and regulatory matters.

Or, it could be something else. Those kinds of leaders, special leaders like Traviglia, 34, often earn their particular spotlight because they are generous in sharing that spotlight with others.

“It’s not any one person who’s a game changer,” she said. “The whole company is game changing. We’re a group of amazing individuals who all work together … in an innovative organization led by amazing leaders. I’m the lucky person who gets to lead the human resources department.”

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changer: Philipp Schramm

Philipp Schramm, Webasto Roof Systems Americas

Philipp Schramm made it his mission to lead Webasto Roof Systems to a financial turnaround.

Schramm, 37, is an analytically driven realist and compassionate leader. As chief financial officer and vice president of human resources and IT, he motivates more than 2,000 employees but admits he wasn’t born a leader.

“I truly believe we are shaped by the environment we were raised in and live in every day. We learn from everyone who has impacted us,” Schramm said.

This mindset led him to take action when he heard Webasto was projecting a $63 million loss in 2014.

“I’m a glass half-full kind of person. The bad experiences provide the deepest insights. I help make change happen by trusting in the people around me,” said Schramm.

He knew that the link to organizational success is corporate culture and employee engagement. He used his leadership role and human resources responsibility to resuscitate Webasto’s failing corporate culture.

“I’d rather be part of a trailblazing team than of one without drive. If you’re not willing to develop yourself, you will stop improving, and if you stop improving, you will lose,” said Schramm. He implemented new internal communication strategies and practical tools guided in “corporate listening.” Schramm knows listening leads to action, but can only be facilitated in a trusting environment.

He utilized opportunities for employees to be heard in fairness committees and skip-level meetings — sessions where upper-level management bypasses midlevel management to talk directly to nonmanagerial employees.

“I’m deeply energized by caring for and fighting to help others shape their destinies in a positive way,” said Schramm. Listen Like a Leader communication training was implemented for all employees from the shop floor to the executive suite. “Hundreds of colleagues have taken the course and often describe it as life-changing in every aspect of their lives,” said Schramm.

Today, the once-ranked “worst ever seen” corporate culture by McKinsey & Co.’s Organizational Health Index has returned to profitability. “Schramm is the visionary behind our forward-looking corporate strategy which has fueled Webasto’s comeback and ignited a cultural shift,” said André Schoenekaes, president and chief executive officer of Webasto, in his recommendation letter.

“A strategy provides you with a plan to track progress. By establishing SMART goals, you can motivate the broader population of individuals,” said Schramm.

Now the culture has ranked in its second quartile in just under 15 months. These changes indicate a transformational workplace change.

“Schramm’s humility, humor, authenticity and consistency is now written in our DNA,” said Schoenekaes. “We’ve changed from a disengaged organization to a culture that is caring and engaged in a future together.”

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 26, 2017August 3, 2023

2017 Game Changer: Agnes Cholewa

Agnes Cholewa, District of Columbia Department of Human Resources — Agnes Cholewa, Associate Director of strategic capital at District of Columbia Department of Human Resources

Agnes Cholewa’s love of data began at an early age. “Math was my comfort as a child because English is my third language,” said Cholewa. As associate director of strategic capital at D.C. Department of Human Resources, Cholewa, 34, helps others see the significance of using data to measure results. Cholewa has been creating strategic process improvement by utilizing 21st century practices since 2012.

“Agnes is an exemplary, compassionate, dedicated and devoted leader,” said Ventris Gibson, director at DCHR, in the Game Changers application reference letter. “Her consistent high performance and extraordinary achievements resulted in the development and delivery of citywide innovative HR programs.”

While data trends are always changing, Cholewa has improved Washington’s government with new technologies. Her partnership with the district’s chief technology officer led to the creation of dashboards. Users can view data directly on their mobile devices.

Without her innovative practices and project management skillset, HR couldn’t provide the significant data that drives decision-making to the mayor and other senior leaders. “She is becoming a proven leader in D.C. government business intelligence,” said Gwen Thomas, consultant at Gwen Thomas PR, in her nomination letter.

Cholewa creates an innovative approach to managing the crucial touch points surrounding Washington’s human resources. It allows them to recruit “the best and the brightest” talent to local government. This citywide automated exit interview process impacts 80 different district agencies. Her predictive models throughout DCHR provide internal data. This transforms people’s approach to improving leadership and employee competencies.

Cholewa leads four different subordinate organizational units in HR: performance management; records management; customer care and credentialing; and human capital planning. She finds time outside her heavy workload to mentor and coach members of her team.

“Her transformational style of leadership touches the heads, hands and hearts of her team,” said Gibson. This led Gibson to appoint her as the executive change agent over the district’s realignment of the decentralized HR organizations.

“It’s difficult to be in HR without caring for people,” said Cholewa.

Cholewa emphasizes quality and commitment to sustain a welcoming workplace culture. “I speak with my employees daily. I make sure that they are doing well professionally and personally because it is almost impossible to separate the two,” said Cholewa. Little things, like candy in her office, help create a welcoming environment

Those who work with Cholewa attest to her strong ability to influence others, rally a team and meet outcomes. Gibson said she can rely on Cholewa for her “forward thinking, analytical and customer-centric mindset.”

[To read about our other 2017 Game Changers, click here.]

June 19, 2017June 29, 2023

Benefits Are a Large, Important Part of Total Compensation

The 2017 Society for Human Resource Management conference is in New Orleans this year, which I love. I got to stay with my sister and her 60-pound pit bull for a couple of days before entering Conference-land. We went on long walks in the heat, took a yoga class and ate some good food. We spent one Friday evening at a small Irish pub, where none of these non-HR professionals knew much about HR at all — but it still came up in conversation.

This is going to be really obvious, but benefits truly impact people’s lives, even if people don’t regularly think about HR. One person I talked to that night is using his unlimited PTO to take a motorcycle trip across the country. Another person got to leave work early that afternoon and have some Abita beers/frozen Irish coffees with us because of a policy at her office; take shorter lunch breaks throughout the week and you can leave early Friday. We didn’t mean to have this conversation about workplace benefits, but there it was.

This first night of SHRM’s conference, the HR association released its 2017 “Employee Benefits” survey, which cemented this feeling that benefits really do make up a large part of the employee value proposition.

A couple of statistics stuck out to me at first: one-third of surveyed organizations have increased their benefits offerings in the past year in an effort to be an employer of choice and attract the best people. Not surprising, of course. What interested me was that the value of benefits accounted for, on average, about 30 percent of an employee’s total compensation (30 percent in private industry; 37 percent in state and local government).

This was relevant because of an article I read about how employees shouldn’t just negotiate for a higher salary. Negotiating for alternative forms of compensation like benefits is just as important. This article pointed out areas like flex time, transportation and student loan repayment, which an employee can ask for if, for example, the company is not in the financial situation to offer a raise.

Wellness was a benefit that saw a large increase in the survey. A quarter of these companies have increased their wellness benefits, and three-quarters said their wellness program was “somewhat to very effective on reducing health care costs.”

I’ve seen statistics like this a lot, and they disagree greatly with other stats that say wellness programs don’t save money at all. There are very logical arguments on both sides of this wellness coin. From what I can tell, employee wellness programs aren’t going anywhere, whether they notably reduce employers’ and employees’ health care costs or not. What they do is help give people resources to make healthy changes in their lives.

Interestingly, in the wellness space, fewer employers offer smoking cessation programs than before. The person presenting this information, SHRM Vice President of Research Shonna Waters, did mention that “sitting is the new standing” line we’ve been hearing about so much. While smoking cessation programs are in the decline in the employer space, sit-stand desks are spiking upward, from 13 percent in 2013 to 44 percent in 2017.

My take on this? Since the “Mad Men” era 50 years ago, smoking’s prevalence in, well, everywhere has declined. People are also much more educated on the health risks of smoking. No one can pretend it’s harmless anymore.

In an employer wellness program, wouldn’t it be more valuable to focus on a problem that’s less understood and more prevalent in 2017? Even though people still smoke, other harmful habits are growing in prevalence. Those problems deserve a little attention, too, and many people could use the educational opportunity.

Three more days of the conference and so many more benefits related sessions to go! I’ll be sharing my takeaways from sessions on this Workforce blog and at my twitter handle @andie_burjek. Any questions in the benefits/wellness space, comment or tweet at me and I’ll scope out the answer in this room of an estimated 15k HR professionals.

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.