If your managers brag about “servant leadership,” but then rarely engage with employees, it’s all for naught.
Michelle Mikesell gives her take on how managers can truly walk the walk to create a workplace culture worthy of staying. Mikesell is chief people officer at G&A Partners, a national professional employer organization and human resources outsourcing provider headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Can you share innovative programs or practices you’ve implemented at G&A Partners that have significantly impacted the culture?
I arrived at G&A Partners just 30 days before the Covid-19 pandemic impacted our world and the workplace. From that moment forward, my team’s focus has remained the same—to ensure G&A Partners is a place where employees want to come to work and a place where they feel valued and motivated.
Through our people programs, we honor our commitment to put people first and empower them to make a difference. G&A Partners’ employee resource groups are a testament to that commitment, and they are a catalyst for action. Our Younify team provides a place where people can come together to understand and celebrate what makes us unique, while With Women allows employees to unlock the power inside.
Helping Hands, our philanthropic arm, has, among many other things, designed an employee CARE fund to support one another in times of duress. We’re also proud to have our Veterans group SERV, our Confetti Crew events team and our Wellness Warriors group, which provides opportunities to keep us healthy, wealthy and wise.
What are some key elements you believe are essential for creating a robust culture strategy?
With culture, the status quo is never enough, so our efforts are dedicated to being better. Better inspires inclusion. It means moving forward through change and empowering our employees to reach their full potential. For our leaders, better is a call to bring others up, encouraging them to be their authentic selves.
At our core, we believe every human should feel valued. To support that belief, we focus on championing every employee experience along every stage of the employee life cycle—from hire to retirement. We do this by:
- Empowering employees to make a difference
- Ensuring a collaborative environment where every voice matters
- Inspiring leaders to be driven by influencing vs. authority
- Providing tools, training and real-time support for employees
- Delivering great benefits and meaningful career paths
- Rewarding individual and team performance
- Ensuring a flexible work environment
Since being promoted to chief people officer in 2021, how have you approached leadership differently?
I believe a company’s culture is about more than a set of values or posters on a wall. Culture is formed, good or bad, through everything you do. It’s how you hire, how you fire, how you dress, how you speak to each other, who you cc—or don’t—on an email and much more.
I try to ensure that our words match our actions, because there is nothing worse than touting the values of servant leadership at the company meeting, if in our daily business operations leaders and managers rarely interact with employees. Ultimately, culture is defined by actions, not just words. What leaders do, or don’t do, sets the tone for the entire organization.
I also believe a title does not make you a leader. It may get you in a room you weren’t in before, but how you show up, how authentic you are, that’s what matters.
Personally, I try to stay connected to our workforce by writing a weekly update about anything and everything, and I allocate dedicated time to sending birthday wishes and congratulatory messages in person or virtually. While I am clear on how our business works and how we measure our financial success, as corny as it may sound, being accessible and building real connections is the most important thing I do each day.
What metrics or indicators do you use to evaluate the success of HR initiatives related to culture and leadership at G&A Partners?
As a business discipline, HR is naturally full of great metrics. To assess where we are, and look back on where we’ve been, our HR team publishes monthly scorecards that measure five key areas: employee attraction, employee development, employee retention, employee protection and leadership effectiveness.
The most impactful metrics center around our employees and help us to promote a collaborative environment where every voice matters. In fact, every two weeks, we actively solicit feedback from our employees through employee Net Promoter Score surveys, so we can address issues and create an even better place to work.
Through these eNPS scores, stay interviews, exit interviews, Glassdoor reviews, biannual employee surveys and annual leadership assessments, we can keep our finger on the pulse of how our employees are feeling, what we should continue and where we can improve. We also believe it’s imperative that we share those results and provide updates on what’s being done based on the feedback provided. We find out what we need to know, and we hold ourselves accountable to follow through.
