Summary: <p>Andrea Garson has over 27 years of HR experience in multiple industries with organizations including Loblaws, Pepsi, Dell, Workopolis and Cardinal Health. She is a leading authority on values based leadership, culture, engagement, and attracting and retaining key talent. A seasoned presenter, Andrea has spoken across Canada at conferences, seminars, and has taught HR courses at Saint Mary’s, Mount Saint Vincent and York Universities. In 2017 Andrea retired from corporate HR to start her own HR Consulting firm, Breaking Glass where she specializes in helping CEO’s “break some glass” in order to affect change in their organizations. </p> <p> </p> <p>Here are the key factors she believes, will help elevate your team and your company as a whole: </p> <ul> <li>Companies too often make decisions based on the financial impact and forget about the impact these decisions have on their people,</li> <li>With Human Resources every day is a brand new adventure that has no secret ingredient carved in stone. The more you deal with opportunities, the better your judgment will become to help you make the right decisions. </li> <li>You want to create an environment in the work space where everyone is thriving and wants to perform their best and be aligned with the vision of the company. Being transparent with communication and trust plays an integral role in creating this environment.</li> </ul> <p>.</p> <ul> <li>Communication and transparency: Employees need to be aware of what’s happening in the business and when they are succeeding or failing. When celebrating the successes or handling the failures in a business, employees feel like they are part of the overall process and they feel like they played a vital role. This in turn will motivate them to contribute to the growth trajectory of the business </li> <li>Why is an HR investment integral in the growth of your business? HR consultants partner with the CEO and leadership team to understand the business strategy and build the team strategy around the objectives.</li> <li>Cardinal mistakes where HR can help: 1) As your business grows entrepreneurs may not focus or understand how to handle the people side of the business which can increase turnover, 2) Making hiring errors and not hiring all-stars can be costly. 3) The way that your staff interacts with customers may not be the way you would communicate with them so expectations must be set and performance results measured. </li> <li>HR leaders develop people and their primary focus is to alleviate all the minutia going on in an entrepreneurs mind. </li> <li>What do companies have to do in the early stages to create a strong Culture? Companies should have well written hand books, such an employee handbook that outlines policies, procedures and guidelines to direct their decision making so there is less subjectivity and ability to break rules/laws of the organization. </li> <li>Most successful companies have crystal clear missions, visions and values. This helps the team understand where you are headed as a business and what values and behaviours are going to be expected to help you reach the mission</li> <li>Always set very clear objectives, expectations, targets and measure performance by making sure people are held accountable. </li> <li>Holding people accountable is imperative because pitfalls occur if you let it slide. It ruins the culture as your all-star players see how others are allowed to sway away from the mission and objectives. Accountability drives high performance and weeds out the non-aligned team members</li> <li>Accountability is at its best when leaders and employees are constantly communicating what is expected of them and tracking their progress and results.</li> <li>Understand what the team members are working on, identify roadblocks and remove them, let them know what you see them doing well. Stretch opportunities to stretch their learning. Aid and resolve conflict and hold them accountable at the end of day. </li> </ul>
