By Jim Baer
Despite a down economy, some local firms have maintained very successful recruitment programs with high retention rates. In order to make this determination, parallels for this exercise have been drawn among three distinctly different and diverse organizations, those being Cannon Design, Missouri Botanical Garden and DRS Sustainment Systems Inc.
Cannon Design
Cannon Design began 65 years ago in Buffalo, NY with two brothers—one an architect and the other an engineer. All together, Cannon has 755 employees nation-wide and 115 in St. Louis.
The company specializes in the design of higher end expertise construction projects the likes of health care facilities, science labs, sports and fitness centers.
The quality of Cannon’s projects is easily recognizable. They did design work for SLU’s Doisy Research Center; CORTEX, the new
St. Anthony’s Heart Center, BJC Institute of Heart Care and Fort Zumwalt East High School.
Retention for engineers and architects at Cannon is very high. “We push the envelope with our projects. We have young minds that get very excited about their work. Our people are eager to have close contacts with our clients. They believe it is a great opportunity to work on intricate and complex projects,” says Thomas Bergmann, AIA, and Cannon’s Midwest Practice/Operations Leader.
“We feel that success. We have young minds and older minds all working closely together. We have a very low turnover rate, say three to four percent per year, where
the national average is more like 10 percent,” he indicates.
Cannon has a strong mentoring program particularly for young hires. “We have a formal and a more informal system of work. For example, we may have a number of specifically different persons with different skills working on the same green building project. A mentoring program includes at least 18 hours a month of on the job training.”
To stay connected to local universities, senior Cannon staffers will serve on alumni advisory boards.
“Our architects and engineers are particularly excited about projects they work on. You can see it in their final work,” he says.
Missouri Botanical Garden
All one has to do to appreciate why professionals want to work or volunteer for the Missouri Botanical Garden is to step outside the office of Rebecca Ingram-Kutey, vice president, human resources to see the beauty of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Meticulous gardens, towering fountains and walkways surround the office area. The idyllic grounds feature Victorian houses and majestic vistas on this 79-acre tract of land.
“People come here because they truly believe in our mission statement and they want to work in such a peaceful and tranquil environment,” says the H.R. director. “I told my father, when I came to work here (less than a year ago) I had found home. I had been associated with the Garden for many years,” says Ingram-Kutey.
The Garden has 500 full-time and 1,800 volunteers, ranking as one of the largest of 200 similar floral parks throughout the nation and the world.
“Our staff and volunteers want to work for a world-class institute and be at such a historic landmark,” Ingram-Kutey reveals.
In 2008, the nearly 1,800 volunteers contributed 135,000 man-hours. “That is very important to our vision and our success,” says Ingram-Kutey. “This is equivalent to having 65 additional staff members. We could not do it without them,” she says.
Dr. Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden is grateful for the commitment by his staff and volunteer force.
“We know how fortunate we are to have such a wonderful, dedicated staff and volunteers. We appreciate their commitment, their passion for our mission and their professionalism. They are the solid foundation upon which we have built a world-class institution,” says Dr. Raven.
The staff stays for very long spells. One employee has been at the Garden now for 44 years. Altogether, 62 employees have 10 or more years of service; 10 over 30 years; three over 30 years and one over 40.
The Garden is exceedingly generous with staff perks and benefits. For instance, employees get a generous pay and benefits package; they get ample time off, have regular membership in the Garden; are offered educational courses in horticulture and can even hold their wedding ceremonies on the grounds. Staff members get to choose from three different health care plans.
Meanwhile, the volunteers get to select gifts from a garden gift catalogue; Dr. Raven honors them at a quarterly appreciation party while being recognized for years of service. “When Dr. Raven recognizes the volunteers, he presents each of their biographies. You should see their reactions. It’s simply amazing,” says Ingram-Kutey.
DRS-Sustainment Systems
The company provides defense products and integrated solutions for the sustainment and security of U.S. military forces. DRS employs some 550 workers and is located in Cool Valley and has been in
St. Louis in one form or another going back to the 1940s.
Sheila Swisher, director of human resources has close ties to two key initiatives promoted by the engineering company.
First is the engineering mentoring program for nearby high school students, the DSR-Normandy High School Engineer Mentor Partnership and the other is a rigorous internship program, the Cornwell Student Initiative.
The aforementioned program was conceived by John Wooton, vice president engineering and sponsor of the link to the north county school. James Wagy, engineering manager and coordinator for student projects manage the program from the company side while Master Sgt. Sharon Hatley is the point person from the Junior R.O.T.C. program at Normandy.
The goal of the program is working with a bright, yet diversified community of students who have a keen interest in math and science.
“We want these young students to be excited and to have a career in math and science. We prepare them for college. Our engineers give of their time and energy to make this happen,” she says.
From October to May, a dozen Normandy students, grades 10 through 12 learn from the engineers at DSR headquarters or collaborate back at their school. Yearly the program involves 10 students and 20 DSR engineers.
Typical projects would include working on feedback control, circuit logic, shock absorption, material science, electronics and U-2 videos. Normandy is thrilled to have such a close relationship. “This program has given the students a unique chance to explore career opportunities they might not have considered. The students are already inquiring about next year’s program. Our faculty and students are thrilled with the interesting and engaging facets of the program, and are excited that DSR plans to continue the program this fall,” says Sgt. Hatley.
Meanwhile, the Cornwell Initiative is the brainchild of Vice President and General Manager Thomas Cornwell. Company recruiters comb engineering schools across the U.S. cultivating relationships with top students to take part in one of their coveted and paid 10-week internships. Students are provided transportation to and from school, and housed at UM-St. Louis dormitories.
Present interns are from the Frank W. Olin College of engineering in Boston; the University of Arkansas and Missouri S&T.
“The selection process is difficult. We get hundreds of applicants. We look for students with high grade point averages and an abundance of extra curricular activities,” says Swisher.
The program has born fruit. Two former interns now have fulltime employment at DSR.
“We’ve made a sizable investment in this program in terms of our employees’ time, energy and our money. We hope to have some of these young kids working for us in the future,” she says.
Also, DSR offers unique perks to its rank and file employees. The biggest is their innovative 9/80 work schedule. All employees work nine-hour days Monday through Friday on week 1, and then in the second week, the entire operation shuts down on Fridays.
This way, employees are getting 26—three-day weekends. “With all the demands on people’s time, our employees love this time off. Besides, we are “green this way.” We take some 550 cars off the road every other week,” says Swisher.
Looking back, diverse organizations the likes of Cannon Design, DRS Sustainment Systems Inc. and the Missouri Botanical Garden are thriving and doing unique things for their employees, their interns and in the case of Missouri Botanical Garden—their volunteers. Maybe, that’s why in a down economy, each of the three organizations are doing so exceedingly well.
Q & A With Doug Koch & David Walker, Brown Shoe
By Jim Baer |
Brown Shoe is a $2.3 billion global retailer and wholesaler of footwear, with more than 13,000 employees around the globe. Douglas W. Koch is senior vice president, human resources and chief talent officer for Brown Shoe. Koch sat down with Commerce Magazine for an interview, along with David L. Walker, a recent recruit who is the college recruiter for the publicly held, 130 year old company. Walker is a participant in Brown’s ‘Accelerated Career Track’ (ACT) program, designed to turn young talent into future executives.
Brown Shoe employees are quite active in community volunteer projects, and Koch is no exception, serving as Talent Initiative Chair for the Regional Chamber and Growth Association.
Here’s what they had to say to Commerce Magazine:
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| What generally is a talent initiative? |
Doug Koch—Brown Shoe is committed to finding, employing and retaining people from diverse backgrounds with varied professional experience—individuals that want to make a difference. This is important not only for our company, but for attracting the best and brightest individuals to the St. Louis community and to our region. To accomplish this goal, we have several talent initiatives at Brown Shoe, including business and design internships and the Accelerated Career Track program, an initiative that helps new college graduates learn our business by working in various areas across the enterprise over a six to eight year period, earn their MBA, and achieve a management position.
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| When you hire to the company, what skill sets are you looking for? |
Doug Koch—We employ such a broad range of positions, from shoe designers to marketers to IS technicians to research and development specialists, so it is difficult to quantify skill sets. What we seek consistently is top talent with different points of view. We’re a fashion company, and our customers come from every segment of society. To serve them effectively, our employees should reflect that diversity, both in background and professional experience. As one great example, we’ve even hired architects to design shoes.
David Walker—This is why our Talent Acquisition team seeks talent all over the country. When looking for designers, for example, we hire from the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons Design School in New York, as well as locally from Washington University School of Fashion Design, Fontbonne University and the University of Missouri.
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| How do students and graduates make that transition to Brown Shoe? |
David Walker—We go out to a variety of college campuses to recruit talent. We offer a lot of internships and we bring in new employees and give them a variety of opportunities to get their feet wet.
Doug Koch—We assign interns a mentor, but we also encourage them to seek out anyone in the company they want to learn from, and who might help them make that transition to full-time employment with us. That’s where the architects come into play. We found them by thinking outside the box. The architects have a lot of transferable skills and they can transfer that knowledge over to the kind of work we do.
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| How have things changed in the consumer world? |
Doug Koch—You don’t have to go far from this building to find a Burger King or a McDonalds to see how things are advertised differently today. Two years ago everyone was advertising for speed and service. Now they advertise what value meal you can buy for $4. But the definition of value is changing, too. We offer our consumers value through more than just prices—it’s also about giving people the most for their investment. For Brown Shoe, that means added comfort features or shoes that can be worn for multiple occasions. There’s also a new emphasis on technology—how we speak to consumers through tools like Twitter and Facebook and YouTube.
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| So how does company culture play a role at Brown Shoe? |
Doug Koch—Our CEO Ron Fromm and COO Diane Sullivan emphasize teamwork and collaboration. Not only do we talk about it, but it is built into our performance evaluation system. There is an importance placed on integrity and doing the right thing. Ron likes to say “How we do business is just as important as how much business we do,” and we all believe that.
David Walker—Here it’s all about company culture. People simply must have a passion for their work. Here we work hard, play hard and give it all we’ve got. I graduated Emory University (Atlanta) with a degree in neuro science. I was going to become a doctor. I didn’t know a thing about corporate culture until I got here (to St. Louis).
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| How do people feel about their work at Brown? |
David Walker—Here you are rewarded for your hard work. A very collaborative environment exists here. Everyone feels they have the ability to walk into the CEO’s office if they have an important issue to talk about. People like to feel their work is being celebrated and people are encouraged to remain true to themselves as an individual. That goes the same for all areas—retail, wholesale and e-commerce. We offer many ways for our associates to collaborate beyond their jobs, from the Employee Activities Committee to the Brown Inclusion Group, which focuses on fostering diversity. We always put talent (people) first and make sure that talent is taken care of.
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Obviously, Brown has been recognized for being a
strong player in
St. Louis’ volunteer community. |
Doug Koch—We have supported many charitable and social events for as long as the company has existed. That was important to our founder, George Warren Brown, and in fact the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University is named after him. The number of volunteers we have is simply amazing. We always meet and exceed our goals for the annual United Way campaign. Our Famous Footwear division is a national sponsor of the March of Dimes March for Babies, and we support the St. Louis event annually. We keep track of most of our volunteer hours and I can tell you it is disproportionately large for our company.
David Walker—I am personally involved in a variety of things. I take part in a mentorship teaching program with my fraternity. We help high school students get ready for college placement exams. I make regular visits to nursing homes. I coach a track team for at-risk youngsters. Many of our employees do volunteer work independent
of their work at this company. We support the program ‘People First’ sponsored by Catholic Charities. Other employees make themselves available as school tutors.
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| What are some of Brown’s main employee perks? |
David Walker—If you ask most of them, they’d tell you “shoe discounts!” We have several shoe sample sales each year to raise money for philanthropic endeavors we support, in addition to the employee discounts. We have a gym with aerobics classes in our St. Louis office, of which associates have unlimited use for a very small monthly contribution. We’ve cultivated an extensive training program for associates who want to pursue professional development and leadership skills, and offer tuition reimbursement for graduate degrees. In terms of benefits, our associates have access to 401K savings programs, and we are one of the few companies to still offer employee pensions.
So what’s new and different at Brown Shoe today? The messages of speed and service may be outweighed by value, but the corporate culture of
supporting employees, contributing to
the community and keeping the
customer first remains the same as it
has for 130 years. |
| St. Louis Internship
Program’s
Young Leaders |
By Jim Baer
The mission and vision of the St. Louis Internship Program (SLIP) is providing a world of hope and opportunity through partnerships with underserved youth and business, resulting in stronger communities.
Or as Executive Director Shanise Johnson of SLIP likes to think of the program: “building tomorrow’s leaders today.”
So what do sleepy-headed teenagers like to do on a Saturday morning? Oh let’s say, watch cartoons, surf the Internet or roll over and catch a few more zzzz’s. Not so, for the 100 plus inner city St. Louis youngsters in grades 10 and 11 from St. Louis’ public and charter schools. They invested a half-day of their time, each Saturday, March through May to nail down one of those coveted internships with one of St. Louis’ many prestigious firms. The student commitment is for at least 40 hours of training.
Johnson, who is herself a graduate of the program and in her 12th year as director, likes to point out that “more than 2,900 students have completed this program.” She points to an astounding figure. “Ninety-eight percent of the youngsters who have gone through this program have graduated high school and are seeking secondary education in college or technical career training.”
“Our students are learning important traits like honesty and respect while experiencing the many aspects of diversity. Students only go with what they know, and we have to show them a better way to live and learn,” says Johnson.
The SLIP program always has big challenges. This summer they filled more than 100 internship programs in what has been best described as a down economy and co-funding is always a continuing challenge.
Connections have direct payoff results. One young lady graduated the internship program in the founding year of 1992 by working at Mercantile Bank (US Bank today). To this day, she still has employment with the same firm.
Kelvin R. Westbrook, president of SLIP Board of Directors says this program is developing future leaders. “The St. Louis Internship Program epitomizes the development of the workforce of tomorrow. By engaging young minds in job readiness training and development, coupled with internships in professional settings, the St. Louis Internship Program is generating a talented, skilled workforce for St. Louis’ future. This is a surefire return on investment by the
St. Louis business community,” he says.
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay serves as
honorary chairman of SLIP’s Board of Directors. He too is bullish on this program. “The mission of the St. Louis Internship program is vital to the City of St. Louis. It seeks to increase career opportunities and knowledge for St. Louis youth, while giving local businesses the opportunity to develop skilled, qualified, diverse talent,” said the mayor. “The tremendous growth and success of the organization is indicative of the business community’s commitment to investing in skilled talent for their workforce, as well as productive citizens and leaders for the greater community,” says Mayor Slay.
“We really have one basic requirement. That is, students need to become life-long learners,” says Johnson. Any company official looking for a bright, energetic, motivated and intelligent intern for the 2010 summer should contact Shanise Johnson at (314) 371-7547; email slipnc@stlouisinternship.org
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