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General

Who is the HR manager and the name of the position he held? Shanna Dick, Director of HR

Which is his academic preparation? Shanna holds to majors from West Virginia University. A Bachelor of Science in Education and a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science. She holds a Master of Science in Education from Texas A&M and is a Doctoral Candidate for a Doctor of Business Administration in Human Resources Management.

How many years the HR manager has with the company (in total) and in that position? A little over 6 years total. Director of HR for 5 years, 9 months.

How many years of experience the HR manager has in HR, in and out the organization? Shanna’s HR experience has largely been built at Concert Technologies.

Which are his functions as an HR manager? Shanna started as the Director of Training and QA for the company. She utilized her analytical experience and worked to analyze, create, and assess the company’s training programs. She also established methods to track and provide opportunities for meeting continuing education credit requirements needed to maintain key technical and certifications. From there she moved on to become the Director of HR, where she maintains those responsibilities as well as took on several others. She manages recruiting, on boarding, training, succession planning, engagement, and leadership development. She also ensures that the company maintains compliance with employment legislation and advises the company’s executives.

Which is his opinion about having HR as a strategic business partner? A company owes its success to decisions made by leadership and the efforts of its staff. Great leaders come from successful development and acquisition of talent. HR must be involved in supporting the development and execution of business strategies to ensure that the company can effectively use its human capital to meet the needs of its customers.

Staffing

Which factors should be considered to determine staff needs within your department? Multiple factors should be considered to determine staff needs. Concert, at its core, is a technology rollout company. It supports a variety of projects from inside and outside plant cabling installs to equipment installations and programming/configuration. Some of these projects support services for government entities such as the US Secret Service, the US Postal Service and branches of the US Military while others are for private companies like Starbucks, Verizon, and AT&T. As such, the volume of projects from each customer can vary across the year due to budgets, planning, and other factors. This requires us to shift the size of our teams from time to time to better support the fluctuation of workload. When new projects come in, it is also needed to assess the skill set that our staff must possess to best handle a specific scope of work. For network equipment configuration, for example, project facilitators must be familiar with programming and consoling into equipment remotely using a variety of networking applications. For cabling projects, they may need more experience in the capabilities of specific types of cabling and familiarly with insurance, confined space permits, or other details needed to coordinate site visits with property management, site contacts, and carrier engineers. Finally, when new types of projects come in, it creates opportunities to develop employees to handle new scopes of work.

Does the company have a succession plan?  Who manages it and how they perform it? Yes, the company does have a succession plan. It is managed by the Director of Human Resources with key input from senior executives. At a base level, the chain of command and seniority provide the succession plan in its initial form. From there, a closer examination is done to determine whether person would be a suitable candidate for promotion to fill a higher-level position (knowledge, skills, abilities). Developmental activities such as mentoring, job shadowing, and on-the-job training will then be used to expose a lower level employee to the duties and responsibilities of their manager. When a manager is out of the office on vacation or due to travel, a Team Leader may take on some of the responsibilities of their Project Manager, further improving their ability to make a successful transition into the position if required.

Which recruitment method the HR department uses?  Why this specific one? The company uses three strategies to attract potential candidates. The first is to post and accept applications using the company’s website as well as common job sites like Indeed and Glassdoor. The second method is to attend job shows at local colleges and universities to meet potential candidates in person and introduce the company to people who may not have heard about it. It also provides an opportunity to build student interest in telecommunications and provides insight into the type of people who may be interested in working for the company. Finally, the company uses its staff to attract new talent. Employees are encouraged to share job posting with friends and family that they feel may fit in the company culture, possess existing experience the company could use, or are simply interested in pursuing a career from an entry level position.

Which tools the HR department uses to select a candidate? Phone interviews, in-person interviews, references, background checks

Who is involved in the selection process?  How? The process starts with the company recruiter who assesses applications and conducts phone interviews. From there, candidates may move on to the next phase in which the HR director reviews screened applications and discusses the results of the phone interview with the recruiter. If they pass that round, they will be offered an in-person interview. During that interview, they will meet with the HR director and one of the company’s senior program managers. During the interview, the HR director and program manager will independently take notes and score responses to questions. Following the interview, they will compare their assessments. From there, candidates may be asked to submit some references and take a background check. The HR director or recruiter may reach out to some of the references. The HR director will then meet with the recruiter and senior program manager again to make the final decision of whether to send a candidate an offer.

Who decided which candidate select for the position? See above.

Training and development

Which methods does HR use to socialize new employees? On Day 1, a group of new employees meet with the HR director to go over a brief presentation on the company’s history, values, benefits, and the role of the team they will be starting on. Following the presentation, the HR director will take them on a tour of the building and to meet the two program managers, their project manager, the IT team, and the members of their new team. Once the tour is over, the team usually holds a short meeting to introduce themselves to the new team member(s). The first round of position specific training will begin with shadowing a current, experienced employee. This increases their familiarity with senior members of the teams and encourages them to ask questions based on their observations.

Which are the most important areas to include in the new employee orientation training? There are multiple areas that are critical for new employee orientation. Covering company history and values in both written and video forms helps to draw new employees into the culture of the company. Explaining compensation and benefits opportunities as well as the performance evaluation process is also key. Tying performance to compensation provides an incentive for employees to put effort into their work to gain promotional opportunities. Going over benefits early allows the new employee to understand the healthcare, retirement/401k, and other options available to them. Finally, providing e-learning courses that detail how to properly handle personally identifiable information, disaster recovery, common standard opportunity procedures, and anti-harassment/discrimination training rounds out the base of knowledge that all employees need prior to job specific training taking place.

Which methods are the most common that HR uses to train an employee? Instructional videos, white papers, e-learning, and job shadowing/on the job training.

Which methods are the most common that HR uses to develop an employee? E-learning classes, on the job training (standard operating procedures and new scopes of work), in-person classes (cabling classes, project management, certifications, and continuing education credits).

Who performs the performance appraisal of the employees? The performance appraisal is conducted by an employee’s manager (Project Facilitator’s review is conducted by the Project Manager, Project Manager’s review is conducted by the Program Manager). In general, the manager conducting the performance review consults others as well such as HR, his/her own manager, team members, or others who have worked with the employee for additional contributions for the appraisal.

Which is the purpose of the performance appraisal? The purpose of the performance appraisal is to assess an employee’s progress towards meeting their goals and how their efforts meet the company’s standards. Appraisal’s might be used to justify promotions/demotions and provide an indication of where an employee can improve. Additional training and development opportunities can be provided to the employee and the employee can also take their own initiative to study or find other ways to improve.

Compensation and benefits

Which are the main benefits the organization offers to the employees? Why? Concert offers a number of benefits to employees. Retirement benefits come in the form of a 401k. The company matches 100% of employee contributions up to 3% of their pay. It also offers 50% matching from 3% up to 5%. Employees become eligible for it after a year of employment. The company offers a variety of health insurance options through United Healthcare. These include options such as vision, disability, medical, and dental insurance. As part of the county chamber of commerce and through partnerships with local colleges, the company also offers tuition discounts and will cover the costs for specific certification related classes. Those discounts provide an incentive for employees to continue learning and investing in themselves.

When does an employee qualify for benefits? Employees qualify for varying types of benefits at different periods. Retirement benefits are offered after one year, while insurance is provided at 90 days.

Employee and labor relations

Who manage the disciplinary actions? Depending on the type of action and the individuals involved, different people may handle disciplinary procedure. Most are conducted by the individual’s superior with aid from HR.

Who should be the person in charge of employee relations issues? The HR department handles employee relations and conflict resolution. This is usually handled by the Director of HR and the HR assistant.

Does the organization have a union?  How was it developed?  How is the relationship with them? Concert Technologies does not have a union.

How does HR manage the safety of the employees? HR takes many steps to protect employees and maintain their safety. The building requires badges for entry and any unbadged visitors must have approval of HR or senior management before being allowed in. Any building access violations that lead to unauthorized individuals gaining entry to the building are met with suspensions or terminations depending on the results of an investigation. Employees have been provided with evacuation plans and maps are provided through the major hallways. Fire/emergency evacuation drills are held throughout the year. In severe weather conditions (major snow storms, icy roadways, damage from severe storms, etc) employees have the option to work remotely from home to reduce travel risk.

Which are the labor legislation that mostly affect the organization? Major legislation that affect the whole organization include Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993. There are also state regulations and OSHA regulations that affect safety standards for technicians and employees working in warehouses.

How HR works with the manager in the employee and labor relations function? HR acts as a mediator and consultant in conflict resolution and grievance cases to aid in investigations and ensure compliance with internal and external rules or laws.