Author: Brenda Sunoo

On the evening of December 11, 1995, Bill Perez left Malden Mills after a seemingly normal day. Five minutes after walking into his home, his brother called: There was an explosion at the mills, he said. Several buildings were on fire. Seconds later, the phone rang again. Security personnel at the Lawrence, Massachusetts-based company confirmed the horrible news. “It was pretty bad, so I immediately drove down to the mills,” says Perez, manager of industrial relations. “When I got there, I was devastated by the smoke and flames. I just got there as [fire fighters and ambulance drivers] were evacuating all the burn victims.”

Perez says approximately 300 employees were working when the fire broke out around 7:50 p.m. As it turned out, 22 workers were rushed to several local hospitals. Meanwhile, he and then HR acting-director Alan P. Kraunelis—also at the scene—could think of only one thing: Get the personnel files. Their first concern was to contact the families of injured employees, Perez says.

Violating several orders to evacuate, the two men entered the human resources offices. Fortunately, HR’s offices weren’t located in the three buildings that burned down. Perez recalls that bitter cold evening. The wind was howling at 50 miles per hour. Armed with flashlights and cell phones, the HR duo retrieved the files. Upon locating the injured workers, they notified all of the families. “We had pretty good control of that evening,” he says.

Quick instincts. Unwavering conscience. Risk and faith. That’s what Perez and Kraunelis demonstrated that night—traits only to be further exemplified by CEO Aaron Feuerstein and the Lawrence community immediately thereafter. For some companies, such a tragedy would devastate a workforce and community—but the fire at Malden Mills became a catalyst for change. Founded in 1906 by Feuerstein’s grandfather, the $300 million-a-year manufacturing company is best known for its high-quality surface-finished fabrics, Polarfleece® and Polartec®.

Within the last three years, the story of Malden Mills has focused on Aaron Feuerstein, and how he eschewed the option of taking the insurance money and running overseas. Instead, the third-generation owner opted to pay 1,400 displaced employees for three months, extend their health benefits for nine months and rebuild the plant—all at a personal cost of $15 million. He has since received worldwide praise for his do-right deeds.

What many don’t hear about, however, are the incredible efforts of Malden’s HR team: How it galvanized Malden’s corporate and community resources at critical junctures since Massachusetts’ largest fire. For its achievements, Malden Mills has received the Workforce Magazine Optimas Award for Managing Change. Says Feuerstein: “The tremendous amount of change in the past few years makes me once again recognize HR’s strength and courage. At Malden Mills, we have self-confidence to change without fear.”

First juncture: the fire.
As a family-owned business, the spirit of family resonates as a corporate value, says Kathy Skala, current HR director. The fire, she says, was a great loss not only to the Feuersteins, but to the 3,000 (now 2,500) employees and the people of Lawrence—a mill town 25 miles north of Boston on the Spickett River. Reported structural losses included 750,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space in three buildings. The Flock Division (serving upholstery) was gone; the Woven Division lost much of its finishing operation; and the Knit Division, which makes Polartec(R), lost its dyeing operation and most of its finishing.

Nevertheless, Feuerstein’s vow to rebuild Malden sounded the trumpet. On the day after the fire, Feuerstein made his unexpected announcement to pay his employees’ salaries and benefits. Workers wept as he declared his commitment. Meanwhile, HR shifted into high gear with a Crisis Team—the foundation of which was actually laid before the fire. It was composed of Feuerstein, the COO, CFO, HR and representatives from each department. The team, says Perez, met daily to discuss the status of those injured, to assess the immediate needs of Malden employees, to set up a communications and workers’ training center, to call upon community resources—and even to collect Christmas presents for the children of Malden’s corporate family.

A series of operational moves also were enacted to keep production going. Dyeing and printing were farmed out to other textile companies in Massachusetts and the South. Equipment, designated for the company’s German operations in Goerlitz, was brought to the States.

With 1,400 employees temporarily displaced, HR reached out to the people of Lawrence for help. Between Skala, Kraunelis and Perez—all longtime Malden employees—there were more than 50 years of cumulative experience and extensive community ties. “Nothing happens in this city that we don’t know about,” Kraunelis says. He and Perez located a vacant mall and negotiated space for a workers’ center that would become a place for employees to be updated on the company’s rebuilding efforts, pick up their unemployment checks and, most importantly, to receive job training.

The local Chamber of Commerce, says Skala, collected $320,000 for an employee assistance fund, out of which employees were issued food vouchers. And with the promise of federal and state dollars pouring in for training of dislocated workers, HR created a plan to address such needs. Training included English as a second language, GED and basic computer literacy.

As workers waited for the new state-of-the-art mill to be completed in September 1996, they learned the computer skills that would be required to run the new machines. In less than a year, more than 600 employees completed courses at the communications center or at outside training facilities. Malden’s center has received praise from former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich as a national role model for employee training and development.

Clearly, what began as a traumatic event rallied the company and community—if not others worldwide. HR even received calls from out-of-state employers offering jobs to Malden’s displaced workers. Their reputation as skilled and committed employees had brought forth myriad offers. Of the 1,400 displaced employees, more than 90 percent of them have returned to work.

When asked what lessons she drew from the fire, Skala recommends these HR tips:

• Be active in the community and maintain relationships.
• Participate in the Chamber of Commerce.
• Know the leaders in local cities and towns.
• Have a crisis plan in place and know who’s in charge.
• Know from whom you can seek help.
• Have creativity in the management group.

“[Malden’s] story is all about relationships. They were literally the fiber of our rebuilding efforts,” says Skala. The new facility became fully operational, as scheduled, in September. Employees went back on the line, and what was initially referred to as the Crisis Team evolved into the Recovery Team. It was to lay the basis for HR’s next phase of corporate change.

Closing the upholstery division.
Kraunelis says he’s sensitive about the word downsizing. He doesn’t want anybody to underestimate the business decision Feuerstein made in February 1998—26 months after the fire. In years past, the Flock Division, which served the upholstery market, had been profitable. But as Malden’s Polartec® products took off, the division dragged despite continual investment and research.

Moreover, since the Flock Division was destroyed in the fire, Malden lost the overseas upholstery market. At that point, Feuerstein had to close down the division. It was another blow to Malden because the 300 workers were among the company’s most senior employees. Many had been employed at Malden between 10 and 30 years.

HR initially tried to absorb the displaced workers into the Polartec® business. Still committed to its employees, management did everything it could to keep them on the job. Workers were brought in by seniority. But what Feuerstein and others couldn’t predict was the financial impact of El Nino and the Asian crisis on the Polartec® market. With a milder winter in some parts of the United States and an economic crisis overseas, Malden’s usual Polartec® market took a dive.

“So our people had to be laid off,” he says. Fortunately, the workers’ center that had been established right after the fire was still operational. The 400 employees were given career guidance and job training. In fact, Perez and Kraunelis—at the time of this interview—were expecting to attend ceremonies for 14 workers who obtained their GEDs. Education, he explains, is a major achievement for Malden’s melting pot of immigrant workers.

The layoffs began in March and were completed by August. Of the 400 laid-off employees, most have picked up other jobs, Kraunelis says. Approximately 150 are still unemployed. On the positive side, Malden recently brought back four workers—one of whom had been employed by the firm for 37 years. As the Polartec® market expands, HR hopes to call back as many former employees as possible. “I’d love to bring them all back,” he says.

Consolidating resources: another painful layoff.
As director of industrial relations, one of Kraunelis’ major responsibilities is to negotiate labor contracts. Many of Malden’s employees are represented by UNITE—the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. Among them are 300 employees who worked in Bridgeton, Maine—a satellite knitting mill serving the Polartec® division.

Kraunelis says the mill had been plagued with internal problems, particularly its strained labor-management relations. Malden Mills faced another grim crossroad. “Business was so far down, we had to close the plant and transfer the knitting division to [the new facility in] Lawrence,” he says.

Kraunelis was thus joined by Feuerstein, Perez and the company president in August to make the announcement to shut down the plant. Needless to say, the workers at the Bridgeton Knitting Mill were shocked. Despite the fire in Lawrence, despite the closing of the upholstery division, they had been reassured their plant wouldn’t close. But business imperatives eventually proved otherwise. However, HR and Malden Mills management again promised not to abandon their cherished employees. “In the worst of times, you have to tell people the truth. If you try to snooker them, they can look at your face and eyes—and know whether you’re telling them the truth or not.”

Kraunelis soon met with the union and started hammering out a settlement package. All of the employees were given a severance package of one week per year of service. It also included a month of benefits, holiday pay, a lifetime discount in the company store—and retirement benefits adjustments. In addition, the workers were offered the option of moving to Lawrence, but most decided to remain in Bridgeton—the majority having picked up other jobs. Kraunelis says that Malden plans to open a training center like the one in Lawrence to assist the displaced workers.

In the face of these major dislocations—the fire, the division closing, the consolidation—Malden Mills’ corporate values have remained intact, says Skala. In a speech given to a local HR group, she said: “[Malden Mills] began as a place where senior executives had their offices in the same buildings and on the same floor as the manufacturing equipment, where managers had to yield to fork trucks as they went to meetings. This was the way the Feuerstein family wanted the mill to work. The family members didn’t want their managers to ever forget what their work was truly about.”

For 93 years, change has been ever-constant. But Malden’s employer-employee loyalty has driven the company’s life span. Indeed, the relationships here aren’t only warm ‘n’ fuzzy like Polartec. They’re as solid as a brick.

Workforce, March 1999, Vol. 78, No. 3, pp. 54-59.

PPL Corporation is a Fortune 500 company that markets wholesale or retailenergy in 42 states and Canada. It also delivers energy to nearly 6 millioncustomers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Latin America.

LargeCompany
Name:	PPLCorporation
Location:	Allentown,Pennsylvania
Type ofbusiness:	Energyservices
Numberof Employees:	12,000

    About half of PPL’s workforce use computers to conduct their jobs, accordingto Denis Esslinger, Help Center supervisor in the Information ServicesDepartment. Considering that large number, anything can go wrong. An employeecould have problems preparing a spreadsheet, creating a PowerPoint presentation,writing a report to meet safety regulations, or simply connecting a laptop to ahome office. PPL thus created a Help Center, a team of 30 “analysts”who provide all of the computer support for these 6,000 employees.

    “Last year, they received 90,000 calls at the Help Center,”Esslinger says. This special team was expected to resolve 70 percent of theproblems on the first contact. But the problem was that new members of the teamweren’t properly trained.

    In order to improve and accelerate their customer-service practices, PPLworked with Raleigh, North Carolina-based Productivity Point International (PPI)– oneof its strategic alliance partners. Previously, new team members had beentrained by shadowing experienced consultants and receiving support material asneeded.

    This method presented several problems, Esslinger says:

• There was no consistent and qualitative message from the Help Center.

• Training was too informal.

• Resources were not centralized, and instructions were hard to find.

• Previous training did not lead to a new analyst’s self-directed action.

    PPI designed a customer-service training program for the 30-member team thatincluded instructor-led training with mentors, Web-based self-study, andon-the-job practice. While the training was specifically designed for newemployees, it was delivered to the entire Help Center team.

    The one-week training program produced positive results. New Help Centeranalysts were productive in half the time previously required to get them up tospeed. And they were able to resolve the required 70 percent of customerproblems during the first call.

    “I found the blended solution to be very innovative,” Esslingersays. “We not only solved computer problems but exceeded our customers’expectations of our service.”

    Clearly, a company’s customer-service practice may be an employer’s bestcompetitive edge.

Workforce, May 2001, pp.88-90— Subscribe Now!

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Gulf Breeze Hospital is an acute-care facility with 60 licensed beds. Itopened in June 1985, following five years of research, planning, andconstruction.

SmallCompany
Name:	Gulf BreezeHospital
Location:	GulfBreeze, Florida
Type of business:	Hospital
Numberof Employees:	280

    Longtime administrator Dick Fulford says that the first step toward achievingexceptional standards was to assemble a first-class team ofcustomer-service-oriented managers and staff. It’s what he refers to as hisDream Team.

    Members of the staff were trained early on to make three major pledges toensure better customer service. It all begins with a positive attitude, he says.

• Never say, “It’s not my job.”
• Reduce and eliminate hassles.
• Provide personalized professional care.

    Fulford says that every person working at the hospital has the opportunity tomake a customer’s interaction exceptional. Applicants are immediately told thatif they can’t make this commitment, they will probably not fit in with GulfBreeze Hospital culture.

    Once hired, team participants are encouraged to submit “brightideas,” a training mechanism to foster creative customer-service thinkingon the teams. Various forms of recognition are utilized to keep the staffthinking and challenging existing procedures and policies. Rewards such as mealtickets, mentions in the hospital newsletter, written acknowledgment, andnotation in performance evaluations reinforce the hospital’s customer-servicegoals.

    Ideas that require fine-tuning often are turned over to the Gulf BreezeHospital Satisfaction Team, Fulford says. Hospital staff members representingvarious departments have volunteered to serve on this specialized team toaddress patient, physician, and employee satisfaction issues. To reinforce theideas that emerge, a subgroup produces a newsletter called “BreezeWay.” In this way, employees also are trained to market their successes.

    Every month, the publication features the Baptist Health Care Standards ofPerformance. The standards, says Fulford, are specific behaviors that employeesare required to practice while on duty, such as a positive attitude, goodappearance and communication, and commitment to coworkers.

    Scripts are provided to employees. Gulf Breeze Hospital employees receivebooklets that describe the hospital’s code of conduct. For example, they areadvised to say, “May I help you? I have the time.”

    “This last part is very important to say. There’s so much rush, rush inthe health-care industry,” Fulford says.

    Employees are empowered to please their customers in many ways. Any employeecan open the hospital gift shop and spend up to $250 to replace a patient’s lostbelongings or to buy flowers for a patient with a complaint. Nurses carrywireless phones so doctors can contact them without paging over a noisyintercom.

    In the area of customer-service accountability, Gulf Breeze took a major stepin January 1996. It joined the ranks of facilities surveyed by Press, GaneyAssociates, Inc., of South Bend, Indiana. By submitting to the rigor ofcompetition, the hospital has trained its employees to measure its performanceby industry standards, Fulford says. Press, Ganey Associates processes more than4 million surveys annually for more than 1,400 clients. The firm provides morethan 20 different measurement instruments and reports and conducts surveys forhealth-care clients in 47 states. Its Web site reports that it has been selectedby 74 major health-care systems as their satisfaction measurement provider.

    During the first quarter of each year, clients submit theirquality-improvement experiences for its Success Story Contest. The top sixfacilities from each year are invited to present their stories at the firm’sannual client conference.

    The first Press, Ganey Associates report was received in late May 1996, andGulf Breeze Hospital earned an overall score of 95.7. Gulf Breeze ranked tops inpatient satisfaction compared to more than 600 other hospitals nationwide.

    Only a year before, the hospital had been ranked close to the bottom innational surveys. Its turnaround is a national customer-service model. Lastyear, the hospital ranked among the top 2 percent in customer-service surveys.Its market share reportedly jumped by 4 percentage points, and it generated $4.5million in additional revenue in 1999 while reducing costs by $3.5 million.

    “Doctors love to come to Gulf Breeze,” Fulford says. “Theperception is that the patient is going to be satisfied.”

Workforce, May 2001, p. 86— Subscribe Now!

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The scenario has a familiar ring: A frustrated buyer of computer productsfiles a complaint online. His posting says, “TigerDirect.com hasconsistently refused to respond to my faxes, e-mails, and calls about thismalfunctioning motherboard and CPU bundle. I have purchased many items from themin the past, and they are becoming less responsive to me when I have a problem.They take the customer’s money but don’t support their own product.”

    Never mind that the motherboard was purchased online. A new Web site calledeComplaints.com provides a free online forum for customers to air complaintsabout any company’s products or services. It could be a clothing retailer,manufacturer, financial institution, home-gardening company, hospital, or evenyour neighborhood gas station. At the same time, eComplaints.com gives thecompanies a chance to respond to the customers’ concerns and purchasestatistical information from the site in order to identify and remedy troublespots. Interestingly, 6 out of the top 10 companies receiving online complaintson this particular Web site were airlines, among them American and United.

    Roger H. Nunley, managing director of Atlanta-based Customer Care Institute,says American consumers are more knowledgeable and have higher expectations thanmost other people. When a company improves its service delivery, thesatisfaction bar is raised.

    Why the fuss? According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index-compiledby the University of Michigan-customer satisfaction has dropped since 1994 innearly every sector of the economy.

    In many grocery chains, for example, the tongue-in-cheek phrase”customer checkout” has come to exemplify the unsettling trend of poorcustomer service. It means, of course, that customers won’t be checking back inat the store.

    Customer service training begins with how an employer screens candidates forhire, and not only during employee orientation, says a spokesman at ReidSystems, a Chicago-based developer of automated applicant-screening tools. Inconjunction with several large North American grocery chains, Reid recentlystudied thousands of job applicant responses to pre-employment assessmentquestions on customer service. The study then examined the service-orientedquestions and found that:

• 45 percent said they believe that customers should be told when they are wrong.

• 46 percent said customers have to follow the rules if they are going to help them.

• 34 percent said they would prefer to work behind the scenes, rather than with customers.

• 13 percent said they believe that if customers don’t ask for help, they don’t need it.

• 10 percent said they do not feel it is necessary to help a customer if the request falls outside their area of responsibility.

• 6 percent said they have repeatedly argued with customers and coworkers in recent jobs.

    Is it any wonder that customer-service training-especially with a newgeneration of workers-is taking on greater importance? According to the AmericanSociety for Training and Development, in Alexandria, Virginia, service providersspent an average of $833 in education per employee in 1997, the most recent yearthat figures were available. This is nearly 30 percent higher than the nationalaverage for all industries.

    There was a time when customer service meant hiring an individual to sitbehind a complaint desk. Today, customer-service training is more comprehensive.It requires that employers hire the right employees, create a customer-serviceculture, view customers as high-maintenance “guests,” and trainemployees on select technologies-without sacrificing the human touch. GulfBreeze Hospital, Wild Oats Markets, and the PPL Corporation are examples ofsmall, medium, and large companies, respectively, that are moving away fromhandling complaints to proactively anticipating customer needs-before troublebegins.

    Remember, whatever method or innovation you choose, your customer-servicetraining should be aligned with your company’s own policies, procedures, andculture.

Workforce, May 2001, pp. 84-90— Subscribe Now!

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Each week, Rita Soza crosses the Mexican border, headed for a place that a growing number of HR professionals may soon call their second home: the maquiladora, or foreign-owned assembly plant.

When Soza, vice president of HR for Astec Power’s North American and European operations, goes to Tijuana to meet with the human resources manager of Astec’s plant, the agenda

almost always includes a discussion about recruiting and retention. “We’re constantly working on strategies to attract and retain new employees,” says Soza, a U.S. citizen and San Diego County resident, whose firm manufactures power-conversion equipment.

For HR people overseeing maquiladoras, retention and recruiting — from the workers on the shop floor to top border-commuting executives — are not easy tasks. Nor are they the only ones. Workers’ health and safety issues and corporate security fill out the challenging list.

There are 4,000 maquiladoras operating in Mexico today. Most are clustered near such border towns as Tijuana, Mexicali, and Juarez, and are operated predominately by U.S. companies eager to benefit from Mexico’s proximity, cheap labor and tax breaks. But establishing a stable maquiladora requires business savvy, cultural sensitivity, and social responsibility. So if your boss assigns you to set up your maquiladora’s HR functions, here’s a primer on what you face, and strategies for dealing with this special challenge of global HR. Crossing the border doesn’t have to mean crossing your fingers.

First, some history and an update.

Maquiladoras were first established in 1965, and since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the tax breaks enjoyed by the industry have expanded throughout Mexico.

“The Mexican workforce is highly productive and turns out high quality goods,” says Dennis Briscoe, professor of international human resource management at University of San Diego. The media and politicians, he says, have fostered misperceptions of maquiladoras only as sweatshops. Advocates of maquiladoras contend that most of the plants today are modern and sophisticated places to work.

Mexico, with a population of 97 million, is a developing country undergoing dynamic, turbulent change. Approximately 26 million are reportedly living in extreme poverty. That’s a major concern as the country simultaneously seeks to become less authoritarian, less centralized, and more open to the world. Meanwhile, the country continues to be plagued by disturbing headlines of assassinations, drugs and regional strife.

It’s no wonder that potential U.S. recruits will have reservations about working in Mexico. HR can overcome these obstacles, however:

Partner with executive recruiters.

HR directors say they can barely keep pace with the growth of maquiladoras. “We’re always looking for ways to improve recruiting, but it’s never enough,” says Ana Sotomayor, a Mexican citizen and director of personnel administration for Saft America Inc., which produces rechargeable batteries in Tijuana. With low unemployment [2 percent in Tijuana], the market for workers at all levels is extremely tight, she says.

For its higher-level jobs, companies including Saft turn to executive recruitment firms such as Barbachano International, a San Diego-based firm whose American clients include Tyco International and Johnson & Johnson.

Seventy-five percent of the firm’s recruitment efforts are targeted at maquiladoras, says Fernando Ortiz-Barbachano, general manager and vice president. Of those, 80 percent of the positions are in U.S.-owned operations, not only in the border towns, but also in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.

Ortiz-Barbachano’s clients are primarily searching for professionals who are either in upper-level plant positions (general manager or vice president of operations) or middle-level positions (materials managers, production managers, controllers, and HR managers). Bilingual candidates are especially sought for the mid-level jobs because these employees interface with workers on the shop floor.

In working with executive recruiters, ask them to provide information and materials that address

several key issues, including safety in the host city, politics in Mexico, housing and education, and cultural differences.

Sotomayor, who was already working for a maquiladora when Barbachano International recruited her, has the best of both worlds in her job. She currently lives in San Diego on a working visa and expects to soon acquire permanent residence. Many HR executives whose plants are along the border enjoy the flexibility of being able to commute to Mexico while living more comfortably in the United States. But that’s not an option for those execs employed in the interior.

The benefits of settling in Mexico, however, can definitely be enticing. In a recent The Wall Street Journal article, Mexico’s border towns were headlined as “Perk Paradise for U.S. Middle Managers.” Managerial salaries are reportedly rising at a rate of 8 percent a year, three times the U.S. average. And extras, such as golf-club memberships, free tickets to fly home, housing allowances, and fast-lane passes that avoid long lines at U.S. Customs have become standard.

Partner with security experts.

Although the majority of Americans assigned to maquiladoras live in the United States and commute across the border, they still worry about their personal safety, says Rolando Soliz, director general of Vance International Mexico, an integrated security service firm in Mexico City. Mexico, he says, has the distinction of being No. 2 in the world in kidnappings. Although Soliz says that while the maquiladoras are safe, city crime and violence surrounding the factories are the greatest threats.

HR directors can alleviate an employee’s security worries by taking steps that include:

• Providing the employee’s family with a security awareness briefing before arriving in Mexico.
• Ensuring secure transportation.
• Providing a 24-hour Emergency Response Service by a local security vendor for those living in Mexico.
• Providing employee vehicles with satellite tracking.

Partner with health and safety advocates.

Maquiladoras are a magnet for low-skilled workers from the country’s interior, but wages are low by U.S. standards (between $3 and $4 per day on the border). Employee turnover is subsequently high, reaching 80 percent in some cities, says George Kourous, program director of Silver City, N.M.-based Interhemispheric Resource Center, a non-profit organization that focuses on U.S.-Mexico border issues and U.S. foreign policy.

Companies might have to make peace with attrition because of wage competition, but there are other reasons employees quit: Occupational health and safety issues and sexual harassment, Kourous says. Attrition for executives and managers falls within the range of two years. But workers, mostly women between the ages of 17 and 25, often quit their jobs within months. Employers say it’s not uncommon for a worker to walk across the street, quitting one maquiladora for another. Advice from the pros? Don’t lose employees because they believe the work environment is hazardous to their health.

The Berkeley, California-based Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network (MHSSN) is one group that would like to work more with HR managers in maquiladoras. The volunteer organization of 400 occupational health and safety professionals provides information and technical assistance on workplace hazards.

But maquiladoras have denied such organizations access, says Garrett Brown, an industrial hygienist who works for the State of California’s Department of Industrial Relations and heads MHSSN. So Brown’s group usually works with activist Mexican workers off-site, where they don’t feel at risk of losing their jobs.

He suggests that HR managers:

• Send Mexican health and safety managers to Spanish-language OSHA training institutes in the United States. Or hire Spanish-speaking consultants, private and governmental, to conduct on-site training.
• Encourage the maquiladora associations that represent the corporations to monitor these issues more closely.
• Work with corporate headquarters’ health and safety representatives to ensure that Mexican operations meet U.S. standards.

The principles for managing HR are basically the same for any place in the world,” says Jesus Luis Zuniga, an executive advisor for Sony Centro de Manufactura de Mexico. “What is needed is to apply them within different labor laws, cultures and economies.”

VANCOUVER, B.C.-Starting a new job is like crossing the Capilano Suspension Bridge. At first, it seems scary. After all, the 111-year-old bridge is 450 feet long and hangs 230 feet above a deep canyon. Whitewater rushes over rocks far below. And even though it sways and creaks, who could resist the lush view of giant plants and towering red cedars-10 minutes from downtown Vancouver? Besides, the bridge is very, very strong.

Similarly, Catherine Deslauriers is crossing a human canyon. As the city’s staff and organization development coordinator, she treads lightly in the HR position she’s held since January. One could say she’s often suspended between various parties. Learning about a new corporate culture–and training management–are her biggest challenges. “It’s all about building relationships,” says Deslauriers. “I can’t just come in and tell people what to do.” But once assimilated into the municipal culture, she hopes to leave her mark on one of Canada’s most beautiful and green cities. With measured steps, she’s inhaling the breathtaking view.

There are jagged mountain peaks. Sandy beaches. English Bay. The Haida and Tlingit cultures and a multiethnic population of 543,000 locals to seduce both residents and tourists alike. But from an HR standpoint, Deslauriers and Kim Froats, manager of health and safety, can’t walk down a street without first noticing the city’s employees-the parking-meter trainee writing up her first ticket, construction workers operating cranes in the distance, and bus drivers hauling passengers up and down Cambie Road. They are among the 8,500 public employees of Vancouver, a city of 23 distinct communities.

HR’s current focus is an ambitious leadership training program intended to make managers more accountable for the quality of city services and ultimately increase customer, or in this case citizen, satisfaction. It’s an approach that starts at the top with management leadership and accountability and works its way down to those who provide services directly. Understandably, how HR rolls out the curriculum is a sensitive matter. After spending a day shadowing Deslauriers, I could see why.

Improvements in running city government will also require increased employee recognition and public involvement. “That’s why I love HR,” says Deslauriers. “Human behavior is unpredictable, and you always have to think of new ways to solve people problems.” Moreover, when you work for a municipality, your product-human services-is always on public display.

We begin our day with a visitor’s orientation at 8:30 a.m. in City Hall, second floor, overlooking 12th Avenue.

Respect the history and corporate culture first

I first ask Deslauriers to explain the state of training upon her arrival. The city, she says, has provided ongoing training in a number of areas, including leadership and change management. But even though individual training sessions have been of good quality and the participant feedback has been positive, training hasn’t been strategic-that is, planned and well integrated across all business units. “Each business unit has its own culture,” she says. “How fire and rescue workers think and operate is quite different from those in engineering and public works.”

The new training initiatives, she says, will be delivered through a series of modules that will outline corporate values and expectations for approximately 300 exempt managers and another 400 within 12 bargaining units. The training will provide skill development opportunities, review city policy, procedure, guidelines, and practices, and support managers with tools that can be used in the workplace.

“Our anticipated training outcome is a corporate culture whereby managers will have a common understanding of the expectations of their roles and the necessary skills to be effective,” she says.

The city is looking at a three-year plan. In addition to the actual training curriculum, Deslauriers is mindful of other complexities. “We have a relatively new city manager and corporate management team,” she says. And Mike Zora, general manager of HR, has been with the city of Vancouver for two years. She credits him with urging her to apply for the staff and organization development position. As she eases into her new job, Deslauriers is well seasoned by the cumulative knowledge and skills acquired as an HR generalist since 1979. “I’ve done recruiting, training, labor relations, occupational health and safety-and a little bit of compensation.”

When asked how she entered the HR field, she laughs: “I got the idea from my old boyfriend’s mother.” The two were sitting one day having a chat. Deslauriers told the woman that she was thinking of becoming a schoolteacher. When her boyfriend’s mother observed that Deslauriers could be successful in human resources, the latter replied, “Human resources? What’s that?” Afterward, the young Deslauriers, a native of England, said, “Yeah, it sounds like something I might be interested in.” She subsequently transferred from a university to the British Columbia Institute of Technology, completing a two-year program specializing in human resources.

“I got my degree on a Friday, and I had my first job on Monday at Vancouver General Hospital.” Later, she worked for the British Columbia Cancer Agency, and more recently, the city of Langley, British Columbia.

Although she favors the softer training functions of HR, she also pays attention to the city’s $25 million investment in SAP Canada, an integrated software product using client/server technology. “It’s part of my HR mandate.”

Searching for an enterprise-wide technology solution

Our first meeting of the day is with Jim Hendersen, a temporary consultant coordinating the SAP training project. In October 1997, a project team of city staff and consultants from Ernst & Young and SAP began implementing the client/server technology at the city of Vancouver. The city chose to implement the modules that would help it manage financial accounting, project costing, purchasing and inventory, human resources, and payroll processes.

There are approximately 850 system users across the organization involved in all the modules. The city has been using the financial collective agreement obligations and the inability of legacy systems to deal with Y2K issues as part of the criteria for identifying a process as mission-critical or not.

In addition, the HR/payroll team spent nearly a year defining the city’s requirements and turning its 12 collective bargaining agreements into “rules” that the system will use to calculate employees’ pay. “Basically, the SAP training is an enterprise-wide computer system,” says Deslauriers. “It requires a great deal of training and relearning in the organization, and it has to be configured to meet the needs of our city.”

In the meeting with Hendersen, Deslauriers asks a lot of questions, seeking information about how HR will continue SAP training after his contract expires. During another meeting in the afternoon, Deslauriers learns that Hendersen may be interested in ongoing work. She takes her cue from a senior manager, again keeping her intuitive judgment turned on high volume.

Employee recognition and public involvement

After a leisurely lunch at a local Italian eatery, Deslauriers walks back to City Hall for three more meetings. The first one is with an employee-recognition vendor. He admires the city’s seal and offers to draw a mock-up of a pin that would recognize employee achievements. With semiprecious stones to boot.

Deslauriers is enthusiastic but cautious. The city recently eliminated some forms of flexible work schedules. Morale has been low. Would the pins be perceived as pacifiers, she wonders? Timing is everything. The meeting is short and cordial. But she eventually takes him up on his offer to draw up some tentative ideas.

Her next meeting is of a more serious nature. Her HR predecessor, she says, told the City Council that HR would do several things to improve public involvement. Deslauriers is a bit worried because she found out about it only recently. “Things are popping out of the woodwork as we go along,” she says with a plucky grin. “Obviously, if we told Council we’d do such and such, we’d better have done it or explain why it hasn’t been done.”

Among some of the commitments:

• Create a multicultural outreach and translation strategy.


• Improve public involvement skills.


• Improve community contact.


• Create better civic awareness and understanding of how the city works.

And if there’s any city that takes public involvement seriously, it’s Vancouver. For example, in the fall of 1992, the City Council asked citizens for ideas about the future. Over the following three years, more than 20,000 people participated in developing “CityPlan” as a shared vision for their city’s future. Its highlights include neighborhood centers, new housing downtown, a healthy job mix in the city, community services delivered locally, greenways to walk and bike across the city, and moving people-not cars-to ease congestion and improve the environment.

Clearly, change in Vancouver is occurring everywhere, and on all levels. Citizen activism will continue to compel the city’s employees to provide quality human services. For human resources, it means proceeding with change management on the higher levels of municipal government. Granted, there will be lots of questions and some resistance. Deslauriers experienced this at a previous meeting at which she presented a proposal for management accountability. As senior managers spoke up and raised questions, she quickly realized that she needed to seek further consultation.

A meeting with Jacqui Forbes-Roberts, general manager of community services, bore fruitful advice: be careful how the initiative is titled, positioned, and rolled out. Not every manager needs retraining. In some cases, the training should be voluntary. For others, it is strongly recommended.

Deslauriers leaves the office reassured. Checking in with key senior managers keeps her well informed, especially in learning more about past practices. Change is difficult. “I have to be very careful.” But even though obstacles may appear along her path, she can’t resist the lush vision of Vancouver as an improved “village at the end of the rain forest.” Besides, Deslauriers’s determination is like the Capilano Suspension Bridge: very, very strong.

Just the Facts Organization: City of Vancouver Responsibility: Staff and organizational development coordination Headquarters: Vancouver, British Columbia Employees: Approximately 8,500 HR Staff: Approximately 45, including HR support staff HR Challenges: Training is a major focus point for Vancouver these days, particularly for management leadership and accountability. Link the city’s individual training initiatives to a greater common business goal. Improve how the city government operates by requiring increased employee recognition. Encourage public involvement to create better awareness and understanding of how the city works. Change management holds great importance in this growing city. Discover and learn the corporate culture. You should know: “The City of Vancouver is one of the most beautiful and liveable cities in the world,” says Deslauriers.

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IIt’s no wonder the public sector is having a hard time competing for ITtalent. In light of the IT labor shortage, many private-sector companies areusing gee-whiz ways to lure new hires, such as stock options and conciergeservices, not to mention flashier bonuses like the shiny new BMWs offered lastyear by Mirronex Technologies Inc., a Skillman, New Jersey-based IT consultingfirm.

Competition like this can kick public organizations to the bottom of ITworkers’ desirability list. Therein lies the problem: How do you compete withdot-com companies offering glamorous perks? Says Lewis Temares, vice presidentfor information technology at the University of Miami in Coral Cables, Florida:”The only thing we can beat ‘em on is quality of life. Stock options areeating us alive!”

Fundamentally, there’s little difference between the public and privatesectors. Both view employees as their customers. However, the most obvious, mostconsequential difference is the lack of profit motive in the public sector. Inthe private sector, HR can use the profit motive in bargaining and compensation.Not so in the public sector, which often has more limited resources and isaccountable to elected officials and local citizens rather than corporate boardsof directors.

Given today’s shortage of IT professionals, public-sector professionalshave finally wised up. Not only are they marketing their greatest assets(stability, flexibility, and social-service values), they’re also turning toalternative sources and creative methods to keep a grasp on their fair share ofthe labor pool. Through a combination of benchmark surveys, trainingpartnerships, task forces, and monitoring of IT legislation, the public sectoris slowly regaining its stature as a worthy employer of choice.

The challenge, of course, is to keep pace with the demand.

Today’s IT labor shortage isn’t getting better.

According to a 1998 study by Arlington, Virginia-based Information TechnologyAssociation of America (ITAA), 346,000 IT jobs currently are unfilled in U.S.companies. Moreover, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Office of TechnologyPolicy report (“America’s New Deficit: The Shortage of InformationTechnology Workers”) indicated that between 1996 and 2006, more than 1.3million new systems analysts, computer scientists, engineers, and programmerswould be required to meet industry’s demands. These numbers reflect the ITworkforce shortage in the United States alone. Some government reports estimatethat the current IT shortage costs the nation $105 billion a year.

In that context, the International Personnel Management Association conducteda useful survey in 1998. “Our members wanted to know what were the bestpractices for recruiting IT workers,” says Judith Brown, director ofresearch for the Alexandria, Virginia-based IPMA. Of the survey’s 342respondents — representative of city, county, state, and federal entities –nearly half said they suffered from a shortage of IT staff. Among the mainbarriers to recruiting and retaining staff were low-based salaries compared tothe private sector, less advancement opportunity, and slow applicant tracking.

Interestingly, what is standard fare for the private sector hadn’t beenused by the respondents until recently. These strategies include signing bonusesfor new hires, sponsoring IT job fairs, using professional recruitment firms,sending direct mail to IT professionals, and awarding bonuses to employees whorefer candidates.

On the state level, the most effective recruitment methods identified wereprimarily Internet advertising, college internships, hiring above the minimum ofthe pay range, IT job fairs, campus recruiting, and hiring outside the civilservice test. In the state of New York, the Department of Labor even eliminatedwritten tests for IT professionals and implemented an education and experienceonly review, according to Brown.

Creative partnerships target seniors, women, and youths.

When you think about the IT shortage, doesn’t it seem as though everyone isfixating on the here and now? Sure, who wouldn’t want a young, ready-madecomputer operator, program analyst, and systems programmer? However, to meet theshort-term demand, you may have to consider the global recruitment pool. And inthe long run, consider the vast pool of untrained domestic candidates — theones who didn’t graduate from the top universities, only to flee to SiliconValley.

Then there are retired seniors. Unskilled women. High school youths.

“Managers, abandon one-size-fits-all rules and salaries. And considereveryone and everything a target,” advises Patrick Foss, a former recruiterfor the state of Minnesota and current tech advisor for techies.com in Edina,Minnesota.

Consider Scott Bird, an independent Certified Technical Education Centertrainer. After retiring from small business consulting, he embarked on a courseto become a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Microsoft CertifiedTrainer. At age 72, he reached his goal in less than a year. “In just a fewmonths, I earned back all my training costs,” he says in a testimonialposted on Microsoft’s Web site.

Bird found out about the program through Arlington, Virginia-based GreenThumb, a national nonprofit corporation in the field of older worker employmentand training. This Green Thumb/Microsoft model provides certification-driven ITtraining to undeserved and under-represented individuals being overlooked by thetechnology revolution.

Contrary to some public opinion, mature workers who take advantage of ITtraining opportunities are especially desirable employees because they bringcompetency and wide experience to their new field, according to Green Thumb.Also, in their later years, many seniors are less concerned about pocketing topsalaries. They appreciate the opportunity to give back to their communitiesthrough social service. The public sector can market its work environment andrecruit employees through organizations such as Green Thumb Inc.

In another program, ITAA has partnered with Women Work!, a nonprofitorganization that helps women from diverse backgrounds to achieve economicself-sufficiency. Through a Women in Apprenticeship and Non-TraditionalOccupations (WANTO) grant, administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) Women’sBureau, ITAA and Women Work! have chosen four regional sites: Oregon, Tennessee,Maine, and Colorado. At each site, a minimum of 10 women will be trained andplaced in entry-level IT jobs.

ITAA also will assist in the identification of existing sources and thedevelopment of new resources that will provide guidance on how to recruit,train, integrate, and retain low-income women in IT jobs. This is another sourceof potential recruits for HR in the public sector.

And don’t forget the kids. ITAA has collaborated with Techworld PublicCharter School, an innovative high school (grades 9-12) in Washington, D.C. Itfirst opened its doors in September 1998 and now has approximately 150 studentswho have completed the ninth grade.

Most of the African-American students come from single-parent homes or havebeen raised by guardians such as aunts, uncles, or grandmothers. Public-sectoremployers can certainly compete with the private sector by offering e-mentoringor job-shadowing, curriculum development, internships, materials about ITcareers, and adjunct instructors.

“ITAA is urging the government to invest more funds in education andtraining,” says Olga Grkavac, executive vice president. Indeed, she says,the IT shortage in the federal public sector is quite alarming. It has emergedas one of the most serious concerns of chief information officers and othersenior government officials.

For example, the average age in federal government IT departments ranged fromlate 40s to early 50s. More than 50 percent of these employees will be eligiblefor retirement within the next three years.

“The federal government is facing a crisis in its workforce,” saysGrkavac. Reaching out to under-represented social groups may be one of the bestways to ameliorate the shortage.

New Mexico sets up an IT task force.

It’s no secret that the state of New Mexico has one of the lowest percapita personal incomes in the nation — approximately 79 percent of thenational average, according to the New Mexico Economic Development Department.”You have to be creative and use very limited resources,” says JudithSizemore, bureau chief for management information systems for the state’sDepartment of Labor. “Now that we’re in the world of the Web, ourcustomers [local citizens] are demanding efficient and intuitive onlineservices.”

Local area network administrators are the most difficult IT professionals torecruit, says Sizemore. These are specialists who can ensure seamless servicedelivery of information. Despite its limited resources, New Mexico was one ofthe first states to post personal income tax pieces online. Now the Departmentof Labor would like to automate all the pieces that link unemployment insuranceto other customer-service needs. “Currently, all of our systems areseparate. We want to migrate toward allowing individuals to register forunemployment benefits and work at the same time.”

In order to meet such goals, the state’s personnel office and office ofinformation/communication management formed the Information Technology TaskForce on Human Resources. Created two years ago, it comprised the director ofthe state’s personnel office, the state’s chief information officer, andthree senior IT managers, including Sizemore. “We made a professional dealthat if we saw somebody who didn’t match our job architecture, we’d sharethat candidate information with others. What turned out was a greatpartnership,” she says.

The task force identified three major objectives:

• Establish an IT professional development program.
• Establish an IT internship program.
• Establish an IT mentorship (“Grow Your Own”) program.

Because of the state’s limited resources, Sizemore says, the Department ofLabor also relies a lot on word of mouth. “We try to use as many no-costavenues as possible,” she adds. However, when funding is available, HRrecruiters place ads in Computerworld and hang posters in university placementoffices.

What New Mexico can’t offer in terms of high salaries, it makes up for inits quality of life. Landscape aside, many native New Mexicans are returninghome, seeking simpler lifestyles for their families, having been scathed bycorporate downsizings.

“You’re not going to get rich working in the state publicsector,” admits Sizemore. “But you’re not going to face anotherout-of-business sale either.”

Monitor legislation on foreign worker visas.

On February 9, Senators Spencer Abraham (R-Michigan), Phil Gramm (R-Texas),and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced a bill entitled the American Competitivenessin the 21st Century Act. The bill seeks to build on the successes achieved inbipartisan 1998 legislation that increased the caps placed on visas for highlyskilled foreign workers, known as H-1B visas. Public-sector employers need tomonitor these pieces of legislation and weigh their merits.

In a press statement two months ago, Senator Hatch explained that the twogoals of the bipartisan legislation were to allow for a necessary infusion ofhigh-tech workers in the short term and to make prudent investments in our ownworkforce for the long term. The bill increases the cap on H-1B visas to 195,000visas over each of the next three years. It also would exempt individuals whocome to work in U.S. universities and those who’ve received advanced degreesin our educational institutions.

“We also need to redouble our efforts to provide training andeducational opportunities for our current and future workforce,” saidSenator Hatch. “Thus, we raise an additional $150 million for scholarshipsand training of American workers for these jobs, for a total of $375 million foreducation and training under this program over three fiscal years. Ourlegislation, in other words, seeks to address both the short- and long-termneeds.”

Harris N. Miller, ITAA president, praised the new legislation. “WhenCongress raised the H-1B annual ceiling to 115,000 in 1998, no one anticipatedan even greater escalation in the demand for IT workers,” he said. “It’stime for Congress to increase the cap again.”

The question for public-service employers, however, is whether you’veconsidered hiring foreign workers at all. If you have, don’t be too quick toassume it’ll be that easy. Says Temares: “These foreign workers have alsoheard of stock options.” In other words, you’re still going to have tomarket the benefits of the public sector: social service and quality of lifeversus the entrepreneurial road.

Regardless of which recruiting strategy you use, keep in mind that you’researching for IT workers with specific values. Public-sector workers placedhighest importance on interesting work, while private-sector workers ranked thatfactor as fourth in importance. Good wages ranked first among the latter group.

But public employees ranked salary as second in importance, according toresearch conducted at Indiana University in South Bend by Cynthia Sutton,assistant professor of management, and Katherine A. Karl, assistant professor inthe School of Public and Environmental Affairs. “Public organizations [alsocan] play up job security and long-term careers. While they may downsize, it’sto a lesser extent than private organizations,” says Sutton.

Given those assets, the public sector may not need a complete makeover afterall. Just a better PR machine — and a bigger bag of recruiting tricks.

Workforce, April 2000, Vol. 79, No. 4, pp. 62-70— Subscribenow!

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Bob Andrews can’t make it through the day without a Protein Berry Pizazz, one of his favorite smoothies created by San Francisco-based Jamba Juice. As director of human resources, Andrews says he’s never worked so hard in his life. Nor has he had so much fun. “If the fun were to go away, I’d know it was time for me to go,” he says.

Jamba Juice, this year’s Optimas Winner for Competitive Advantage, is a leading retail purveyor of blended-to-order smoothies, fresh-squeezed juices, healthy soups, and breads. Even the company’s name shouts, “Have a good time”; jamba is a West African word that means “celebration.” Visit its Web site (http://www.jambajuice.com) and you’ll encounter an array of oranges, strawberries, celery, and bananas swirling across the computer screen like a tornado.

Founded in April 1990 by CEO Kirk Perron, the store first opened as Juice Club in San Luis Obispo. By 1993, Juice Club had opened two additional stores. And by 1994, it had nearly quadrupled its size, with 11 stores in operation.

In July 1995, the company relocated its home office to San Francisco and introduced its new store concept, Jamba Juice. Today, there are approximately 300 stores in 15 states. Most are located in the western region of the United States, including Hawaii.

With 4,000 employees, mostly part-time “team members,” Jamba Juice is growing faster than customers can say Kiwi-Berry-Burner.

“We’re a high-growth company, and the competition is fierce,” says Chris Baer, vice president of human resources. “HR’s main challenge is people–finding and keeping them.” That’s no small feat in the smoothie market, estimated to be a $400 million industry.

Two years ago, Jamba Juice ranked number 38 on Inc.’s 1998 list of 500 entrepreneurial superstars. Moreover, some business analysts believe that the smoothie market may replicate the growth of specialty coffees witnessed in the early 1990s.

Given those hopeful predictions, Jamba Juice achieves its competitive advantage through a well-shaken formula. Human resources attracts candidates by marketing its popular food line, slush-fun culture, aggressive recruiting strategies, and entrepreneurial opportunities for its protein-boosted managers.

The company’s values are further articulated in the acronym FIBER, which promotes fun, integrity, balance, empowerment, and respect.

Marketing health, energy, and fun.
What’s a smoothie anyway? With names as perky as Razzmatazz and Mind Over Blueberry, the 24-ounce drinks made with fruit, ice, yogurt or sorbet, juices, and nutritious supplements called boosts are served by part-time “team members”–mostly high school and college-age students. Jamba Juice promotes these “meals” as refreshing alternatives to greasy burgers and fries.

Among health-conscious baby boomers and Gen-Xers, the word is getting out. Last year, for example, the company was featured in several national publications about the smoothie craze, including The Wall Street Journal, Pacific Business News, Menu Masters, Restaurant Business, and Entrepreneur magazines.

In one article, a Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst was quoted as saying that smoothies and juice drinks tap into “a healthy living concept” in which aging baby boomers seek the “Ponce de Leon effect.”

But Baer says that Jamba Juice customers come in all shapes and sizes, even physically fit toddlers.

In other efforts to market its brand and culture, CEO Perron often appears at high-profile events. In January, he joined the festivities at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, blending smoothies for the likes of Hollywood celebs Courtney Cox, Kevin Spacey, and John Singleton.

Another way that Jamba Juice promotes its product and culture is through a campaign called “Jamba Wellennium.” Visitors to the Jamba Juice Web site can sign up for a special sweepstakes established through a partnership with California-based fitness chain 24 Hour Fitness. Winners get a Precor elliptical fitness crosstrainer, a lifecycle trainer, or a one-year membership to 24 Hour Fitness. And to further spread the gospel of wellness, the Jamba Juice site has established links to “Friends of Jamba,” including such do-gooder e-tailers as Wholefoods.com and Earthsave.com.

Clearly, the promotions help Jamba Juice expand its customer base. But HR has its sights set on fruitier rewards. In a no-unemployment market, they’re desperately seeking qualified applicants as managers and part-time team members. Says Baer: “When you’re in the recruiting business, you’re only as good as what you did yesterday.”

Recruiting is a 24-hour job.
Baer takes her own words seriously. On her office wall, she posts red and green tags to designate which jobs have been filled and which jobs are still open. The visual reminders, she says, are a fun way to track HR’s real-time hiring goals and achievements.

A lot of individuals who might have been attracted to the food industry in the past now have more options open to them: the high-tech industry, for one. Like many other companies, Jamba is looking for younger employees who are knowledgeable, outgoing, and friendly. “That could be challenging to find in this economy,” says Baer.

Also, recruitment today is very different than it was even two years ago, says Andrews. One of the biggest HR lessons he learned after switching from retail to the food industry four years ago was to change his attitude. In the past, recruiters considered individuals as liabilities if they left a job after a few years. Today, mobile employees are often perceived as being entrepreneurial. “I’m not going to look negatively anymore at someone who’s changed jobs in four- or five-year stints,” he says.

As Jamba Juice expands its operations nationwide, human resources works closely with the company’s real estate committee. As soon as a new store is identified, HR begins its proactive search four months before an official opening. The lead time allows HR to find, interview, train (general and assistant managers undergo a five-week intensive training program), and place new managers onsite before they open for business.

Searches are conducted through a variety of methods. The trick is to switch tactics when they don’t work.

For example, at the beginning of 2000, Andrews ran recruitment ads for general managers in Southern California. One major newspaper included a box ad that said Jamba Juice was hiring general managers. The company fax and e-mail addresses were provided. HR received numerous responses from candidates in the Los Angeles market. By contrast, the ads in the Bay Area reaped fewer than a dozen responses.

“So we had to be more aggressive in this market,” says Andrews. That’s when HR listed Jamba Juice on every recruiting Web site it could identify. One of them is called restaurantrecruit.com–a site to which aspiring managers in the food industry often surf. After clicking on to the site, job-seeking candidates can go directly to a Jamba Juice link to view some of the benefits offered would-be managers. If more information is sought, one is encouraged to send an e-mail.

Clearly, younger candidates who fit the Jamba profile are very savvy on the Internet. “They go to the Internet before going to the Sunday paper,” says Andrews. The advantage, of course, is that recruiting is occurring 24 hours a day, and sometimes Down Under.

With the ease of a mouse-click, individuals have responded from as far away as Australia, England, and France. If not seeking a job, some of these global Jamba Juice fans have even inquired about opening up individual franchises in their neck of the woods. But Jamba Juice currently does not offer such business opportunities, only partnerships with nontraditional venue operators (at airports and universities, for example) and co-branding alliances with select retail and service-oriented companies.

Having identified the actual job candidates, however, Andrews and another HR colleague then conduct 30-minute phone screens. It’s a weeding-out process, even though one would not expect a low-energy candidate to apply. “Believe me, I’ve had a lot of very dry conversations,” says Andrews.

Over the phone, he asks a lot of questions. A red flag, he says, is when someone complains ad nauseam about his or her last job. “I want to find someone with a sense of humor and someone who thinks the glass is half full,” he says.

Work ethic and personality are premium assets. After phone screening one candidate for district manager, Andrews arranged for the person to fly in for a face-to-face interview at the company’s Support Center in San Francisco. What made the difference on the phone was that the job seeker didn’t just talk about checklists and audits, although that was important.

“He got excited about his store visits to Jamba Juice. And I’m looking for people who want to stick around for a few years.”

Make managers feel like owners.

Another important area for Jamba is the retention of its branch leaders. As incentive to its managers, HR created a unique retention tool called the “J.U.I.C.E. Plan.” According to Baer, this idea was born a couple of years ago. HR knew that in order to keep good managers, Jamba Juice would have to create a retention tool that was atypical of the smoothie and juice industry.

To encourage the store operators to provide outstanding customer service and deliver above-industry profits, HR established the following objectives:

• Attract and retain best-in-the-industry general managers.

• Retain each manager in his or her store for three years.

• Increase the loyal user base.

• Provide general managers with meaningful financial gain for improved profitability in their stores.

• Maintain a 50 percent cash-on-cash return for the company.

The program was officially launched in October 1997 with five of Jamba’s best general managers. And on the basis of successful tests, HR then rolled out the J.U.I.C.E. plan to the entire chain in August 1998.

How does the plan work? Baer explains that the general manager receives a percentage of the store’s cash flow for a bi-period, predicated on how they run their businesses. “Our managers drive the success of their stores and whether they collect on the J.U.I.C.E. Plan,” she says.

In addition, the general manager’s ability to increase year-over-year sales allows him or her to have money accrue in a “retention account” over a three-year period. Once the manager has been in his or her store for three years, the bonus is paid.

“We just had 14 people who’ve accrued more than $10,000 for their retention bonus,” says Baer. “If you build the business well, a lot of it is going to come back to you. So we try to put our money where our mouth is.” All employees in managerial levels, she adds, receive stock options.

And if a general manager completes a three-year term and then decides to recommit to the company for an additional three years, he or she is given a three-week paid sabbatical. General managers also can receive a $1,000 bonus upon promoting an assistant manager to general manager.

Have these incentives worked? According to Baer, Jamba Juice’s turnover among managers is 8 percent lower than a year ago.

As for profits, since its founding 10 years ago, Jamba Juice has reportedly raised $47 million through private stock offerings. Sales for last year were projected to reach $150 million.

That’s a lot of pizazz for a berry fast-growing company. Wanna jamba?

Workforce, March 2000, Vol. 79, No. 3, pp. 44-48.

Employees at LifeCare Assurance Company inWoodland Hills, California, are offered two HMOs: Kaiser Permanente and BlueShield.

    Approximately 50 percent useKaiser, partly because it has a convenient and beautiful facility five minutesaway from the office, says Carol Box, HR specialist. The other half uses BlueShield because of the variety of plans available: two levels of HMO, PPO andPOS. “We began offering Blue Shield on January 1 this year,” she says.

    The main perk for employees,she says, are the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) benefits offeredthrough the HMO’s Mylifepath network. 

Consumers drive benefits.
   Blue Shield of California began providingalternative health coverage to its 1.6 million members in January 1998. Itsmembers have access to more than 1,000 alternative practitioners, includingacupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, stress management experts and- would you believe – health spas?

    Although total coverage isn’t offered, BlueShield provides CAM services for approximately 25 percent less than customaryfees. For example, a chiropractic adjustment may typically cost $40. With adiscount, it would cost the employee $30. Mylifepath participants also areeligible to visit alternative care providers as frequently as they wish. Theyalso don’t need referrals from a physician.

    “The reason for expanded offerings issimple,” says Dr. Albert R. Martin, Blue Shield’s senior vice president andcorporate medical director. In spite of limited scientific evidence of efficacy,growing numbers of consumers are seeking non-traditional medicine for healthservices, he says.

    True, the lack of scientific proof is anobstacle to incorporating CAM more quickly into mainstream health care. ButWashington, D.C.-based National Center for Complementary and AlternativeMedicine (NCCAM) – a part of the National Institutes of Health – is beginning toaddress this need. Founded in 1992, NCCAM’s budget for fiscal year 1999 is ahealthy $50 million. Its priorities are research, research training, publicinformation, field investigations, traditional and indigenous medicine andresponsive operations to the public, CAM and scientific communities, accordingto Dr. Wayne B. Jonas, NCCAM’s former director.

Mylifepath offerings help reduce absenteeism.
   However, the seemingly slow progress hasn’tdeterred consumers. LifeCare employees using Blue Shield are extremely satisfiedso far. Says Box: “I’ve heard very few complaints. And believe me, thisgroup speaks out!” The major cost-saving benefit for the 150-employee firm hasbeen reduced absenteeism among the nonexempt employees. Clearly, wellness paysoff. Absenteeism, on the other hand, costs U.S. employers $50 billion a year,according to the Bureau of National Affairs.

    According to Box, 15 employees have since joineda health club, several have tried acupuncture, a half dozen have usedchiropractic or massage therapy. As employees become more comfortable with theMylifepath plan, members are expected to explore other options as well.

    “LifeCare is proud to offer a variety of plansto our employees,” says Box. “Offering multiple levels of coverage has beenvery positive for recruitment and retention. In the last few months, I’ve seena turnaround. Everyone speaks very positively about the [CAM] experience.”

Workforce,June 1999, Vol 78, No 6, p. 90  SubscribeNow!

Wednesday, April 7
New York City

There’s probably no organization whose mission is more noble—and complex—than the United Nations. I first learned of the UN in grammar school in the 1950s. After a class segment on World War II, our teacher ended the world history unit with the UN’s long-term vision of world peace. Today, the United Nations is a global entity of 185 sovereign States that voluntarily works for global peace, promotes friendship among all nations and supports economic and social progress.

The UN came into being on October 24, 1945. A forum for all nations of the world, it is a diverse meeting place that helps find solutions to disputes or problems, and acts on virtually any matter or concern to humanity: refugee protection in Kosovo, starvation in North Korea, illiteracy, eradicating landmines or fighting the AIDS epidemic, among other critical issues.

I had wanted to shadow the top human resources executive of the UN for a long time. But Rafiah Salim, assistant secretary-general for human resources management, was unavailable last year because she was flying back to her native land, Malaysia. Her e-mail then was quick and cordial, “I regret I cannot do the interview at this time. But please call me again next year.” Perhaps she didn’t expect me to remember her offer, but I did.

As fate would have it, I set up my interview this year on the same day Rafiah was submitting a human resources statement to the General Assembly. In preparation for our meeting, her communications specialist, Samsiah Abdul-Majid, had sent me information regarding the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s (Ghana) efforts to modernize the United Nations.

In a recent report to the General Assembly on Human Resources Management Reform, Annan outlined a vision for a new management culture of empowerment, responsibility and accountability. The overarching goal, he says, “is to align our human resources with our global mission of peace, development and human rights around the world.”

The Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM) is the personnel arm of the UN Secretariat. As such, it has begun to implement new measures to transform how the United Nations makes use of its staff and management of 8,500 core employees. This “quiet HR revolution” initially began in 1994, when the General Assembly adopted Annan’s reform strategy. In short, the strategy focuses on measures that will alter the delegation of authority, streamline procedures, improve HR planning, promote staff development and ensure long-term transformation.

8:30 a.m.
I arrive by taxi on the corner of 46th Street and First Avenue. In just one 360-degree turn, I can view a microcosm of the world: the UN General Assembly and Secretariat building, Raoul Wallenberg Walk, the National Bank of Pakistan, Allard Lowenstein Square and the formidable United States Mission —and employees of every hue passing the security gate with their ID badges. However, there are no colorful flags of the 185 member States flapping against the morning breeze. Only a UN flag flying at half-mast.

9:00 a.m.
My photographer and I arrive at the visitor’s desk to sign in and obtain our press passes for the day. In the cavernous lobby, we’re surrounded by beautiful works of art: a blue and gold mosaic entitled “Dove of Peace” presented by Pope John Paul II in 1979 and a mohair textile of a woman entitled “Hope” by Edite Pauls-Viguere from Latvia.

Soon we are greeted by Samsiah Abdul-Majid, also a Malaysian, who has worked for the United Nations for 25 years. On special assignment because of the mandate for HR reform, she serves as communications specialist for OHRM. I learn from her that the UN flag is at half mast in honor of the Prime Minister of Kyrgyz Republic, Jumabek Ibraimov, who recently passed away.

9:30 a.m.
We take the elevator up to the 25th floor of the Secretariat building—Room 2527A. The sign beside the door reads: Secretariat of Assistant Secretary-General. Abdul-Majid asks us to wait a few minutes before introducing us to Rafiah Salim, but I can see Rafiah through her open-door office, which overlooks a panorama of the East River.

“Hello, nice to meet you,” says Rafiah, greeting us with a warm smile and a handshake. “Would you like something to drink? Some coffee or tea?”

We talk briefly about the day’s schedule. I’m surprised that she is so relaxed, open and trusting that I will use my best judgment not to publish any confidential matters that I am about to witness.

I ask her about her professional background. A former lawyer, she was Assistant Governor at the Bank Negara Malaysia, responsible for human resources management and legal affairs before her current UN appointment. She obtained her college and law degrees from Queen’s University of Belfast in Ireland, and has written numerous articles on commercial law, evidence and the legal status of women. Rafiah is also married and has four children.

“I’m proud of the fact that I’m a woman,” she says, “but my gender [at work] is irrelevant. Yes, I’m a role model as well as a practicing Muslim woman, which dispels stereotypes of Muslim women being backwards. But the biggest asset that I bring to my job is my global viewpoint.”

10:00 a.m.
Every week, Rafiah conducts meetings with her three senior directors and another extended meeting with the other top directors of OHRM. Today, however, I observe an extended director’s meeting with nine individuals, including Rafiah. The meeting is conducted in English, which is the business language of the UN, but one thing is strikingly unusual. Each director and representative hails from a different country: Malaysia, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, Germany and Uganda.

The meeting agenda includes seven topics: staff development, recruitment and manager accountability, status of exit interviews, family support, action items from a recent General Assembly resolution, Rafiah’s written statement to the General Assembly regarding staff promotions and home leave entitlements for UN staff and their families.

In one discussion, Rafiah and her directors discuss the dilemma of a female employee who’s having problems with her manager. (Yes, the UN faces the same HR issues as corporate entities.) With her left hand resting against her chin, Rafiah listens intently to her consultative team. “This is a complex issue—not just a national transfer.”

Turning to Kevin St. Louis, her special assistant, an American, Rafiah asks, “Can we investigate all the options? Where are there vacancies in other agencies? This employee is a very capable woman, but she isn’t contributing under her current situation. We may have to move her out.”

In another item, the group discusses the General Assembly meeting scheduled later at 3 p.m. The Fifth Committee (the body that handles administrative and budgetary issues), she reiterates, has demanded a new accountability procedure for all managers and staff to report on their activities. “It means the blood will flow!” she says with emphasis and humor. “Hopefully we can meet the desired requirement. If there is negligence, we must consider a letter of warning, demotion, no promotion. I’m just looking at some concepts now. Your role is to say how to legalize them.”

Softly pounding her fist on the conference table, she adds, “Someone should’ve had the guts to say it’s a systemic problem. Right now, the UN only tracks fraud and dishonesty. Our paper has to introduce measures to identify non-criminal accountability performance behaviors.”

12:00 noon
My photographer looks for a spot where Rafiah can be photographed. She poses next to “Non-violence,” a sculpture of a large bronze replica of a .45-calibre revolver with its barrel tied into a knot. A signature landmark at the UN, it was created by Swedish artist Karl Fredrik Reutersward. This gift from Luxembourg is located on the apron of the General Assembly Building facing First Avenue at 45th Street.

Oops! Rafiah has forgotten her ID. The security guard stops her from entering the building. But as soon as she firmly announces her name and position and identifies her small entourage, we quickly pass clearance to reenter the building.

12:30 p.m.
Rafiah, Abdul-Majid, photographer Corky Lee and I are welcomed on the fourth floor dining room by a tall, well-suited maitre d’. In the course of our lunch, we talk about the incredible diversity at the United Nations.

“It’s a way of life for us at the UN,” says Rafiah. “But for me, it’s essentially a matter of respecting all the beliefs. If you believe others’ values don’t conform to the United Nations’ goals, then you have to manage it somehow. And to do that, you try to get as many people on board to accomplish the central value we’d like to live with in the UN. These are our challenges. It’s not easy.”

Abdul-Majid adds: “Generally, the people who come to work at the United Nations are inclined to accept diversity and an international outlook.”

I then ask if the UN has established quotas for employees by country. Rafiah explains that according to the UN Charter, the number of personnel is based on the amount of money a country contributes.

“But the United States hasn’t paid its share for a long time,” quips Lee.

We don’t go into that glaring contradiction because it’s time to head to the OHRM staff meeting. There, Rafiah is expected to conduct an open forum and discussion about OHRM’s latest views on HR recruitment and accountability measures.

1:45 p.m.
A room full of OHRM staff—approximately 100 individuals—already are seated in Conference Room 5 of the General Assembly building. For one hour, the OHRM staff listen to a couple of presentations—with flow charts projected on a screen—about proposed recommendations for greater efficiency and accountability.

Rafiah reassures the staff, “These are just concepts, not the finished product.” Among the goals articulated for an improved recruitment process:

• Positions filled within 90 days.
• Empower managers.
• Match managers’ response for recruiting with the organization’s strategic HR goals.
• Eliminate self-imposed hurdles and contractual constraints.

The Secretary-General, I also learn, is considering the possibility of setting up a management review panel that will examine specific cases of non-compliance with delegated responsibilities, and recommend appropriate action.

As I sit through this meeting, I’m struck by this thought: If managing change in a company takes time, of course it’s going to take even longer for a global entity like the United Nations to move such a diverse workforce.

“Our core of employees is 8,500. But our workforce can expand and contract at any moment,” says Rafiah, referring to crises such as Kosovo that require physicians, nurses, peacekeeping forces and other humanitarian contingents as needed. “It can change anytime.”

3:00 p.m.
My photographer and I are escorted to the pressroom for journalists. Situated above the General Assembly, we can see Rafiah seated below in the staff section, to the right of the speaker’s podium. The General Assembly meets every year from September to December, with a special session in between.

The blue, green and gold GA Hall accommodates all 185 delegations. Each delegation has six seats—three at the table for senior delegates and three behind them for others. All 1,898 seats inside the Hall are equipped with earphones, allowing listeners to “tune in” either to the language being spoken on the floor or to interpretations into any of the UN’s six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

For a few seconds, I tune into French. But since I never studied French, I change stations to English.

One of the main HR issues at the UN is staff development. As mentioned earlier, Rafiah has submitted a statement to the United Nations General Assembly. It was excerpted from her statement to the Fifth Committee of the GA, which oversees administrative and budgetary issues for the UN Secretariat.

The statement basically advocates that employees in the General Service category be allowed to move to the Professional category without any discrimination. Excerpts of the statement that seek clarification said:

“Hundreds of staff compete each year for a very small number of posts. Hundreds more each year, at their own expense, continue their education to acquire a university degree with the hope that, one day, they may get the opportunity to sit for the General Service to Professional exams.

“The wording of paragraph 22 [in another recruiting exam called the National Competitive Examination] would mean that some who serve General Service staff would be denied any opportunity for possible promotion because of and by reason of their nationality, which, Mr. Chairman, has never been a criteria for promotion, or a ground to deny promotion. This will be extremely damaging for staff morale since staff in all categories should be afforded opportunities for career growth in the Organization.”

Results of the GA discussion: OHRM was asked to prepare a report that would further elaborate any negative implications of the current wording in the requirement in question.

4:30 p.m.
Rafiah and I end our day discussing the HR challenges she faces at the United Nations. She has been in her position for only one and half years. Her two-year term will most likely be extended. “I’m sure the UN will allow me to stay on and contribute.”

As I leave her office, the phone rings. Behind her desk is a screen of unread e-mails. “When I’m out of the office for a few days, I come back to at least 100 messages. Most of them I pass on, but the important ones I answer right away.”

5:00 p.m.
As I walk toward the exit of the Secretariat building, I’m joined by hundreds of other employees headed for the subway and streets. Most are walking out with the ID badges still pinned to their coats. I should’ve followed them out the door. But the formality of the UN has tempered my bravado. I obediently ask the security guard, “Do I need to hand in my badge?”

He looks at me with baffled eyes. “You can keep it or give it to me,” he says as he extends his hand. With reluctance, I hand it over and angrily stomp my feet on the ground outside. “Darn, there goes my souvenir of the UN.”

Workforce, June 1999, Vol. 78, No. 6, pp. 54-58.