Out to Sea with the Human Resources Forum

Out to Sea with the Human Resources Forum

The ninth annual Human Resources Forum, recently held for three days on board the Norwegian Dawn cruise liner off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., provided insights to best practices in human resources and training. Keynoter Alex Gibney, writer/director/producer of the documentary Enron:
The Smartest Guys in the Room, talked more about what not to do than what to do when it comes to business practices. Incorporating clips of his film, which also was broadcast continually into attendees’ cabins during the conference, Gibney highlighted the culture of abuse that made Enron infamous, and ultimately, criminal.

Gibney spoke of, for instance, how Enron practiced a corrupt form of forced ranking in which workers battled against each other only to find their ranking often had as much to do with who they knew on the evaluating committee. The Machiavellian culture had exactly the effect Enron execs were hoping for, Gibney explained. It allowed Skilling and chairman (and later CEO) Kenneth Lay to efficiently cover up the company’s abuses and its declining financial performance. “If you’re battling with co-workers, you’re not going to share information,” he noted.

Gibney said workers and associates may have felt as if it were OK to be unethical because authority figures, namely Skilling and Lay, were giving them permission. Gibney said the effect Enron management had on its employees and business partners was similar to that exhibited in the famed “Obedience to Authority” experiment conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram.

Subjects were encouraged to continue administering electrical shocks to what they thought was a person actually suffering the effects (they were in fact actors). Despite the screaming they heard, they kept pressing the levers to electrocute because those were the orders they had been given. Similarly, Gibney posited, Enron employees and cohorts continued doing what they may have suspected or even known was unethical because they were “following orders.” As everyone knows now, it wasn’t until whistleblower Sharon Watkins spoke up that the company’s wrongdoings came to light. “The truly powerful message that comes out of Enron,” Gibney said, “is to treasure the people who ask ‘why?’”

Dell HR Makes Waves

Steven Helmholz, outgoing director, executive talent acquisition, global human resources for Round Rock, Texas-based computer manufacturer Dell, shared the secrets behind Dell’s talent procurement and corporate culture.Like all efforts at the company, talent acquisition reinforces the ethic espoused by founder Michael Dell that “we can always do better.” Even when the company made the cover of Fortune, for instance, there was no celebration, Helmholz said, “because it wasn’t part of our culture.”

Human resources, he explained, is no exception to the mantra of constant improvement. There have been some cultural shifts, though, as Helmholz pointed out. Until recently, applicants have had the responsibility to court Dell as a prospective employer. “There was a mentality that they were privileged to be here in this room,” he noted. “Not a good idea.” The tide is changing in Dell’s approach to talent recruitment, Helmholz said. “We’re now trying to sell [to] a candidate, not just put an offer out there,” he pointed out.

It was this shift in approach that gave rise to the global talent management department Helmholz headed, and coupled with an emphasis on talent retention, is indicative of Dell’s “organic growth” strategy. The company now has a 1:1 ratio in how often it fills slots from within vs. finding new talent from outside. The attrition rate at the non-executive level is at 20 percent, and at 9 percent among executives. Look for more information on this year’s HR Forum in the June issue of Training.