Slalom is a business and technology consulting firm headquartered in beautiful Seattle, WA. The company, which is a division of Slalom, LLC, employs over 4,500 people across 25 offices in North America and London. Slalom has been named a best company to work for by numerous sources such as Forbes Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Consulting Magazine, Glassdoor, was recognised by the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index with a perfect score of 100 in 2015, 2016, and 2017, earned the #3 ranking on the “Best Firms to Work For” list by Consulting Magazine and more recently was nominated for 100 Best Places for Women to Work. We asked Dave Gartenberg, CHRO of Slalom about their success. 

Congratulations on being nominated for 100 Best Places for Women to Work!

Whirling Chief: How important is it for Slalom to receive such a recognition?

Dave Gartenberg: Our focus is to create an environment where all our employees can do their best work for our customers.  Consequently, we focus on our internal employee engagement survey as the critical indicator of how we are living up to our aspiration.  That said, external validate from the Forbes, Great Places To Work and Glassdoor surveys are nice reinforcement to our employees and a valuable signal prospective employees.

WC: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to creating a culture where women can thrive?

DG: It absolutely starts with the founder of the company, and supported by leadership. Our founder wanted to create a company that does amazing things for our customers.  As a consulting company, he realized that the only way that was possible in a sustainable and scalable way, was to create an atmosphere that lets our talent thrive – regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, orientation, etc.  Consequently, we have some basic tenets on creating the atmosphere that unleashes great performances.  It’s a holistic approach that encompasses creating a physical atmosphere that supports collaboration, to events that drive connection, to management processes that focus on not just the “what” people do, but also the “how”, etc.

WC: What does an organizational value mean to you as the CHRO of such a recognized organization?

DG: Organizational Values can be tail winds or head winds in an organizations evolution.  I’m not talking about the words on posters, or laminated cards on a desk, but the values that are actually lived and inherently reinforced.  Slalom is fortunate to have amazing values that start with the concept of “Do what is right – always”.

WC: How, then, do you find organizational values relate to the workplace environment? And to employee motivation?

DG: Internally, it means not letting a policy stop us from doing what is right for an employee. Externally, it’s about making sure  we create value for the customer or we’ll rebate some or all the cost of the contract.  I use this as examples of how our core values are the key ingredients to the special sauce that makes Slalom unique.  You can find the our core set of values here.  Btw, an interesting fact about our values is that we have 10…no org expert would ever tell you to have 10 values.  So why 10?  Our values were defined by asking cross group of our consultants to spend time reflecting on their time here and telling us what they think our actual values are based upon their experience – what they saw peers and leaders valued/behaved.  So they are not aspirational as many companies have – but more retrospectively divined from actual experience.  This makes living them, inculcating them into new hires, etc frictionless.

WC: Many organizations struggle to find their true WHY. What’s the process Slalom followed to make its meaningful and differentiated mark?

DG: Slalom is a purpose-driven consulting firm that helps companies solve business problems and build for the future, with solutions spanning business advisory, customer experience, technology, and analytics. We partner with companies to push the boundaries of what’s possible—together. This “why” was present from the founding of the business.  Our CEO drove a highly engaging process which sought feedback from all our employees, and sampling of our customers, to take his original idea and clarify/expand/revise it.  While this process took a bit of time, there’s an old adage that sometimes you go slow to go fast – this highly inclusive process allowed for a deeper understanding by our employees AND tapped into another old adage, that people will support what they help create.  To take this a step further, we get annual feedback from our customers on how we are living up to our “why” and our “how” (the values).

WC: The research and data tells us underqualified and underprepared men lean in twice as much as overqualified and over prepared women in the workplace. What do you make of this data?

DG: I have not seen that specific data, so its hard to comment on that…but I will I sadly concede the conclusion in implies.  From my reading and my experience there are two dynamics that tend to be at the source for inequity for women in the workplace. The first is at the start of the people’s career.  Studies have shown that women tend to accept the offer “as is” and men negotiate – so this creates an inequity that compounds over time.  The second factor highlighted in other studies is that women wait until they are ready for a (promotional) role before applying, where men frequently seek the stretch opportunity when it feels close.  While the dynamics are simply stated, the solutions are a bit more complex to solve.  Elements of a holistically approach to fixing the gender gap include hard and soft changes in an organization’s approach.  Systemically, recruiters can watch for equity issues at the start.  On the softer side, leadership can create a culture that both encourages women to put their names in consideration for stretch opportunities.  Again, a highly complex problem that requires a holistic set of responses to ensure the headwinds that drive the gap are turned into tailwinds that create parity.  On a related note, I’m pleased to share that Slalom goes through an analysis to ensure we have parity between our genders (as well as other segmentation ie ethnicity, etc)

WC: You were also selected as a Great Place to Work. We can’t help but wonder: Are the two awards somehow connected? Also, how do you make inclusion a lived value inside an organization?

DG: Absolutely!  Having a holistic approach to creating an environment where people can do their best work, benefits all employees.  We are living proof as evidenced by our recent distinctions.  In the past year, in addition to earning the Great Place to Work, we earned best places to work, for Women, Minorities, Millennials, etc. Building the muscle that helps leaders how to unleash each individual’s unique talent, is right for the individual and ultimately benefits our customers!

WC: For those organizations wanting to create environments where more minorities can thrive, what tips (2-3) would you share?

DG: Align – this is a space where it’s easy to confuse activity with impact.  Before an HR person spins up a lot of well-meaning activity, it pays to ensure the leadership of the company is truly committed to creating a great environment.  Ensure they understand the business value in creating the environment that unleashes potential and that it’s just not a head not to something that sounds like a “nice to have”… do NOT start this work till they understand why they “need” it to be successful for the long term.

Listen –  set up safe opportunities for your employees to honestly share their experience, concerns and hopes.  Whether that’s an employee survey, round tables led by a trusted advisor, etc, listen and seek out to understand what the issues are.  Do not get defensive or try to convince people of something different – the purpose of this step is to surface the realities and perceptions.  One cannot fix what one does not understand.

Today, let’s talk about a topic we all want to discuss, yet most of us struggle to determine its true value.

• How many times have you been automatically assigned a mentor inside an organization?
• How many times have you seeked someone out?
• How many times have you found value in your mentorship relationship?

There is absolutely no doubt that sponsorship inside an organization makes a difference for how one experiences their environment. This was the case for baby boomers and it will be for generations to come. Sponsorship, though, is vastly different than mentorship, and we do ourselves an injustice by using the two terms interchangeably.

• Should organizations have mentorship programs?
• Should organizations pride themselves on “owning” and “setting up” mentor relationships?
• Should employees play an active role in their mentor’s selection?

A lot of questions come to mind…

Mentorship is surely an effective method for helping less experienced individuals develop certain knowledge and skills sets, and abilities; however, we need to highlight the fact that mentorship is more about the relationship than anything else. The number one key to establishing a successful mentoring relationship is creating trust, and then “clearly defining roles and responsibilities, establishing short- and long-term goals, using open and supportive communication, and collaboratively solving problems.”

In her study, Toward Improving the Effectiveness of Formal Mentoring Programs: Matching by Personality Matters, Christine Menges of Ruskin University reports very clearly “Organizations establish formal mentoring programs to advance personal and professional development, but not all relationships between mentors and protégés deliver these results. Based on the similarity-attraction paradigm, it is proposed that protégés receive more career and psychosocial support if mentors and protégés have similar personalities.”

Why? Because mentorship is about safety and learning. When one individual connects with another, the expectation is to be vulnerable in that relationship, to ask questions they cannot ask anywhere else, and share experiences regarding gender, culture, religion, balance, and management issues…all those things we typically don’t want to talk to just anyone about. That’s the power of mentorship: trust and vulnerability.

We need to stop pretending we do people good by assigning them mentors they have nothing in common with. Those relationships don’t get any deeper than “I have a list of questions” during a 30 minutes coffee break every now and then. Those relationships do not stretch or grow people. Nor do they have any impact inside an organization.

If we are really going to use mentorship to develop our people, we need to put a bit more ‘care’ into how we design and execute our models.

As organizations and work in general evolve into 21^st century models, as people live and work more dispersed and diversely across geographies, and more workers leverage technology to get their jobs done, we need to consider multi-faceted mentorship ecosystems that’ll have a meaningful impact on people’s lives as they embark on their own journeys.

Mentorships built on solid relationships can deliver actionable perspective and serve as catalysts to help others discover what’s best for themselves. With time, a relationship of reciprocity can be built, where both mentor and mentee share and celebrate a lifetime of experience and achievement.

Two of the very early articles we had published on Whirling Chief in 2016 were around what majority of us calls ‘King Managers’ because these managers believe (and therefore behave in a way) they have the ultimate solution.

King Managers: Skills you should learn before losing time!

King Managers, continued…

By writing about these topics, we try to bring humility and humor into very real human scenarios, which make or break up our days at the workplace, every day.

It is really a shame that despite a ton of research and best-selling books on the topic of leadership, many people managers continue to downplay the importance of emotional intelligence (EI). In fact, we continue to hear it being referred to as a “touchy-feely” soft skill.

Thank goodness, by the virtue of industrial and organizational psychology and neuroscience researches being published in the last few years, we are finally able to pinpoint to the hard, physical facts that demonstrate higher emotional intelligence is a stronger predictor of success for those in people management roles.

An understanding of what exactly constitutes emotional intelligence is not only important because the capacity is so central to being true to self, but it also bolsters the hard skills, like analytical thinking, operations management, etc., helping us think more creatively about how best to leverage our technical know-how.

If you are a people manager, please, please, take a little time to invest in yourself. To gain self-awareness, self-regulation, try to understand your intrinsic motivations, grow empathy and other skills.

For those in Zurich area, enhanced by research findings from Daniel Goleman, Brene Brown and Susan David, my dear colleague, Vendula Pavlikova and I are offering an Emotional Intelligence for Business Professionals & Leaders workshop.

We have a few slots remaining, so, please consider joining us!

Have you ever been in a situation where your manager claimed to hold certain values, yet didn’t seem to live up to them?

Guess what? You are not alone. Did you know the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that employers with fewer than 100 employees provided only 0.8 hour – that’s only 48 measly minutes! – of manager training per six-month period. And organizations with 100-500 employees provided only 0.9 hour (54 minutes) of training for the same time span. Further, a survey by Progressive Business Publications shows that a pitiful 52% of companies trained their managers once a year or less. This lack of training is reflected in the Conference Board Report which found that less than 1/3 of all supervisors or managers were perceived to be strong leaders – which doesn’t take a math degree to calculate that over 2/3 are perceived as being weak leaders. ☹

The truth of the matter is that good management doesn’t happen accidentally.

Managers are human beings like you and me, who have been successful in individual contributor roles and then promoted into people management roles. They don’t inherently know how to handle personnel relations. The majority of us barely know how to handle ourselves, let alone manage our relationship with others…

Obviously, a lack of managerial leadership skills directly correlates to high turnover and low productivity inside organizations. Therefore, the most frequent request we received from our followers over the last year has been around intact management and leadership learning sessions. So, we did something about it!

We invested in building day-long learning & networking workshops around key people management and leadership topics in collaboration with world recognized academic leaders, leveraging the latest research available to us.

The registration for our first round of our workshops are already open and classes are filling up fast! Check out the brochures on different offerings and find out which workshop you’d like to join with us:

• Emotional Intelligence
• Strategy Execution
• Leading HR into 21st Century
• Transition into People Management

We can’t wait to spend some quality time with you.

By Fateme Banishoeib

I recently attended TEDx Lugano as a speaker. The theme of the event was very dear to me: Professions of the Future. It was very uplifting and inspiring to join 10 other speakers to spread very worthwhile ideas, and engage in a dialogue with such an engaged audience. Whirling Chief founder Sesil Pir has already written a very detailed update on the topics discussed at TEDx Lugano, which you can find here. I have also written a more specific blog post on my talk…including some poetry as a gift for you!

What I would like to discuss here are some of the questions that emerged during the several dialogues before and after the event. We will be sharing videos of the talks as soon as they are available (you can check as well on the TEDxLugano page) – hopefully this will allow you to reflect on the professions of the future on your own.

Understanding the pace of change and the type of changes we will be facing can help governments, leaders, each one of us, to move forward. We all debate about the 4th industrial revolution and whether in the future we will have jobs. This 4th revolution, which is said to not have started just yet, is nonetheless reshaping all of our careers. It is estimated that 65% of children entering primary school today will fill roles that currently do not exist, due to the advancement of automation, digital platforms, and other innovations changing the fundamental nature of work.

The development of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence will substitute the way we do certain jobs, and will hopefully relieve humans from working in harsh conditions. At the same time, we need to pay closer attention to what images we put out there on social media, for example on LinkedIn, to be identified and selected for a job in the future.

But the reality is that in the next 5 years, in the USA at least, independent workers will form 50% of the workforce. They will increasingly choose to offer their services on digital platforms, challenging conventional ideas about how and where work is undertaken.

We cannot deny that some jobs, as we now know them, are simply going away. What we do not know is which type of new jobs will emerge, and the real question to me remains: How do we equip ourselves and evolve in our journey as humankind? It is clear that the business structure as it currently exists must change. We need to innovate business so as to support all of humankind’s progress. This means we must look at old hierarchy models and make them less rigid (millennials won’t feel comfortable working under rigid hierarchies), make jobs more dynamic, and reconsider income inequality not only from the perspective of gender. As robots take over jobs, how do we ensure we have a fair redistribution of wealth? Is basic income the future?

Prior to the event I was interviewed by the Swiss national radio RS1 “Mille Voci” and someone from the public asked a fair question on ethics and morals in the era of automation. How will government create policies to embed ethics in the design of robots?

What I am perceiving is that we finally have the opportunity to humanize business. It almost seems a paradox while talking about virtual reality, AI, and robotics. The choice is totally up to us – take it or leave it. The essence of the shift is a simple but big idea: the idea of being in a job – just “doing” without “being” – is starting to go away. It must. We do not want, nor can we, compete with robots on the level of doing. Let me break down (after a day long event at TEDxLugano) the professions of the future into three simple buckets, which regardless of the field represent the main areas of impact for the future of work:

1. Personal impact:leading with “why.” Asking ourselves why we work, and becoming very clear on how work fits into our life, will differentiate us from a robot. It is important we all make a personal decision on how we stay current in our skills and capabilities, and how work gives us meaning and purpose.
2. Organizational impact:creating a business model that serves all humankind. A model that allows all of us, robots and humans, to perform at the best of our capabilities while allowing continuous development.
3. Societal impact: creating a new education system to support the new generations to enter the workplace, and prepare the current workforce to transition into the jobs of the future.

I believe it came across strongly from several of the speakers at TEDx Lugano that how we prepare for such an uncertain, complex, and ambiguous future is going to be critical. A first step we can take is acknowledging the “death of a single skill set.” We need to understand that “business as usual” is no longer enough and what has made us employable today will not be enough tomorrow.

There are three key things we all need to guarantee and create in order for everyone to have a better future:

• Definitively guarantee more freedom as to how and where we work, and allow employees to work in the way that is most conducive to their productivity and success. And also create for ourselves the flexibility and the freedom of different careers (maybe in very diverse fields) in parallel.
• We need to move from direct guidance and supervision, which seems more appropriate for robots and computers, to considering our employees entrepreneurs who need to be self-motivated in order to find career success.
• Career paths and education must become customised rather than standardized to allow more diversity and innovation capacity.

I came to a simple conclusion: The future of work is already here. So how are you and your organization getting ready for it and everything it entails?

The median number of years that wage and salary workers have been with their current employer is currently 4.6 year (as per an Economic News Release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). That median varies by age and occupation – the median tenure for workers aged 25 to 34 is just 3.2 years. Extrapolate that info and you see a person could have a whopping 10 to 20 jobs in his career!¹

The majority of us grew up watching our parents work for the same company their entire careers and, for the most part, only advancing by climbing the proverbial corporate ladder.

Our experience is now entirely different.

The idea of career development today is more like a “jungle gym” rather than a ladder, as Sheryl Sandberg put it in her thought-provoking book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead , which I believe is actually a must-read for males and females alike in professional roles.

The traditional metaphor for professional and career development has been ladders, but that no longer holds true. The environment in which we live and work is evolving vastly, and requires us to adapt to ever-changing factors.

As traditional structures are breaking down, leadership and people management practices must evolve as well. In the business models, for example, we are slowly going from hierarchy to networks; in the governance models, from control to empowerment, dictating to collaboration; in the performance models, from planning to experimentation.

We need the same evolution for our people models.

The path to 21^st century success is going to be fueled by our desire and need to adapt individually and collectively. Therefore, the idea of professional and career development will likely be driven by an individual’s passion, desire, and ability to contribute in meaningful ways, combined with an organization’s desire and ability to honor that drive in meaningful ways.

“A jungle gym scramble is the best description of my career,” wrote Sandberg, who attributes the metaphor to Fortune magazine editor Pattie Sellers. “I could never have connected the dots from where I started to where I am today.” Neither could I, because I always loved being a part of an organization. Yet here I am… ☺

You want to have a successful career in 21^st century? Here’s how you may think of the jungle gym concept:

• Anything is possible if you authentically connect to your heart’s desire.
• You want to change careers? Make it so!
• Many jobs require deep technical skills and, yes, you need to learn them. So, stay curious and get yourself signed up for alternative education platforms.
• Love what you do and only do what you love; do not bound yourself to any task, environment, or people you do not love – that’s a dead zone.
• Finally, and most importantly, find a way to create and share value. Remember: A majority of organizations are still managed through IR practices; only through value creation would you be considered for a different job!

¹ https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm

Ready for an alarming fact? A majority of corporations lose 33% of newly hired talent within the first year. One-friggin’-third! Scary, right?

When it comes to talent acquisition, organisations tend to assume their fresh employee is a lock-in after the oftentimes gruelling interview-and-selection process. We are here to tell you they are most definitely not! ☺ Staffing is not only the most important people process you’ll lead, but it is also a multi-faceted activity that requires more than just interviews.

On-boarding can (and does!) play a big role in offering your new hires better support and a more positive experience in this vital transition. In fact, new hires are 69% more likely to stay at a company for 3 years if they were a part of a well-structured on-boarding program. In the following article by Think Wise,  Whirling Chief and our expert HR colleagues get into finer detail why on-boarding is key and, more importantly, what you can do about it.

For general tips on recruitment and selection, you can also refer to our YouTube video here.

Wow, what a year this has been for Whirling Chief! On June 15th, we marked the first anniversary of our platform. A big heartfelt congratulations to our community!

It’s hard to believe that in just one short year, our team has grown to 5 core team members, 11 contributors, 11 collaborating businesses, and 4 academic partnerships…while our followership has grown to over 1K subscriptions (subscribe here), over 2K followers on Facebook, over 700 on Twitter and almost 250 on YouTube. Somebody pinch me, because this has got to be the best dream ever!

When we launched our platform last spring, we predicted development would be slow and consistent; looking back, we didn’t fully comprehend how much work it would take to run a consulting business on one side, while developing and growing a digital platform on the other. 🙂 We’ve been working hard, but it has paid off big time!

With this post, I’d like to THANK our team members, contributors, collaborators, partners AND friends and colleagues for your endless and tireless support.

What’s Next For Whirling Chief?

In the last 6 months, we’ve gained more clarity as to our vision, mission, values, and what exactly our product has to offer. That accomplished, we are now looking for early sponsors and external funding to take our prototype to the next level. We want to further curate our content and evolve our UI to make our product even more relevant  for potential users.

For this, we are actively having conversations with early adopters and angel investors. We are also venturing into new channels to broaden our visibility and to open up revenue possibilities. If you haven’t received our latest newsletter, you may find more information there.

Needless to say, if you are in a position of support, we would love to have your subscription, corporate sponsorship, workshop registration, or simple reference to network.

While we take off the next two months to focus on our internal efforts, we wish everyone a wonderful summer holiday. Health and peace to all, and we look forward to serving up some fresh content and new information mid-September.

See you then!

As our readership goes up, we are starting to get inquiries about specific HR topics – digitalization of certain people services is one!

Not only we want to respond to our readers’ areas of interest, we want to highlight those businesses that share our passion of championing humanity into the workplace.

Today, we have our first guest post from MyHub, an intranet software company offering customized solutions to do just that!

Make sure to pay attention to statistics as well as trends included! These are indeed the top trends we are seeing in our consulting work also and they may just give you another creative idea for offering a human solution at work….

It’s time for some all-important reflection, people. Let’s take a look at which key trends should be included in your HR strategy, and examine how businesses have been responding.

1. Employee Experience

We’ve heard so much about the customer experience in recent years, and now it’s employees’ turn. Singled out by Deloitte in their 2017 survey Global Human Capital Trends, the employee experience as a key trend is likely to continue beyond this calendar year. In fact, in Deloitte’s survey nearly 80 percent of executives rated employee experience very important or important.

Employee experience has a very broad definition and is much more than just an annual survey of staff members, or a vague notion of improving employee engagement or organizational culture. It’s more about building a positive and productive total employee experience that encompasses such things as work-life balance, flexible working, employee wellness initiatives, and opportunities to promote diversity and inclusion.

In the modern global workplace, companies are realizing that you need to focus more on the holistic employee experience if you want to attract and retain the best people. What’s more, a positive employee experience will in turn impact on a better customer experience. So it’s win-win…provided you get it right.

Think creatively about how you can improve the employee experience in your own organization. The possibilities don’t have to be mega expensive either. View the workplace through the eyes of your employees. Use the company intranet to involve staff in identifying priorities through an online survey or blog. It could be something as small as improving the office décor, providing a range of workspace options within the business, or facilitating a lunchtime walking group. Just make sure that the employee experience is as central to your operations as the customer experience.

2. Digital HR

It almost goes without saying that the digital HR trend will continue unabated as technology drives innovation, and the development of cloud technologies in particular is changing the way that we work. And just as customers are demanding personalized, interactive online experiences, so your employees are, too. From employee self-service options to automated workflow processes, there’s no doubt that new technologies and platforms are changing the way that HR works to provide more unique and tailored user experiences. And the increasing use of cloud computing, as well as being environmentally friendly, has also provided more flexibility and accessibility in the workplace.

So how are your competitors responding to the digital IT trend? Not surprisingly, companies such as IBM are leading the way when it comes to digital HR. They’ve developed their own HR version of Apple’s Siri in CHIP – an intelligent chatbot which recognizes frequently asked employee questions. Currently available through computer and text messaging, it will soon also be available in voice.

Other organizations, such as University of California, Berkley, and Oklahoma State Bank have gone the route of using cloud intranets to provide employees with an integrated range of tools and business modules. From content management systems and document sharing to streamlined business processes and shared work spaces, the cloud intranet has the advantage of providing all these tools in a single platform. Every department – not just HR – can therefore take advantage of the cloud intranet’s offering, reducing the potential for the proliferation of incompatible software within an organization.

3. Flexible Workers Expect Flexible Working Practices

The traditional 9 to 5, desk-bound office worker is now becoming little more than a relic of the past. The reality is that the average company’s workforce consists of a range of employees working alongside the traditional full-time ones, including contingent workers – freelancers, interns, and contractors – as well as telecommuters and part-time workers. Today’s workers are demanding more flexibility from employers, and given the increasingly globalized nature of the workforce, as well as the paucity of talent out there, employers that are not meeting this demand for flexible working practices are missing a trick.

How are businesses responding to this challenge? Virtual teams, project working, increased opportunities for cross-departmental collaborations, as well as teams of geographically dispersed remote workers and telecommuters, have become the norm in organizations across the globe. This has implications for HR both in terms of performance management, which increasingly is moving towards peer feedback, and in relation to employee self-steered learning and development.

Domestic and international companies such as AT&T, Dell, and Xerox have led the way in offering their staff flexible work arrangements, including some full-time, part-time, and freelance positions. However, the development of cloud computing, particularly in the shape of intranets, has opened up the possibility of flexible working practices to small and medium-sized enterprises, too. With the number of contingent workers predicted to grow by 25% over the next 12 months, cloud intranets are a cost-effective option for many businesses, although others have gone down the route of utilizing various HR or collaborative software options. The fact is, HR departments need to develop innovative ways to integrate and engage with this new style of workforce.

So how does your HR strategy measure up against the competition?