Kenneth Quidgley

▶0:00IntroWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce.

▶0:38HostKen, thank you so much for joining us today. And as a starting question, I always like to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:45GuestWell, you're very welcome. I am very excited to be here. Thank you for contacting me for this. So I guess my journey started in human resources almost 30 years ago. When I first started to get into HR was at a manufacturing company in Melrose Park, Illinois. That was union-based and non-union-based at the same time because we had different locations. From there, I ended up relocating to Tampa, Florida, where I became an HR generalist at a food service distribution company where we had about 400 employees at the time. So that exposed me to different aspects, such as distribution of food service and safety concerns regarding OSHA and things like that. From there, I went to a construction company where I also worked as a human resources manager. That one was a little bit short-lived, but I still gained a lot of experience because it introduced me the first time ever that I did an affirmative action plan and drove a workplace program. After that, I went to a hospice institution over in Clearwater, Florida, and that was one of the key turning points for me in my career because through that experience, that's when I started to apply what I call the hospice approach when dealing with employee relations, just because there's a dynamic that happens when you take holistic care of a loved individual who's going through end-of-life crisis. From there, I went to Human Development Center— oh, I shouldn't say the company name. From there, I went to a social service institution that focused on helping individuals with emotional disabilities. And after that, I went to a healthcare institution where I was in charge for 7 years of different departments that exposed me to the different dynamics that can happen all throughout healthcare. I did from recruitment to employee relations to training and development for employees and managers. And after that, I ended up coming to where I am at now, which is Symphonic Distribution, where I actually have for the first time, and I'm very excited to say, a global HR type of position.

▶2:41HostCan you share a specific example of how you've implemented a more human-centered approach to HR at Symphonic that contributed to your low turnover rate?

▶2:50GuestSure. We take employee engagement very seriously, and it is important to Symphonic that employees have a positive experience from the moment that the person completes an application for employment to the moment that they actually stop being part of Symphonic and go back to being part of the community. To us at Symphonic, treating employees with dignity and respect has always been part of the foundation of our culture. And to give you an example, we actually had an employee some years ago that was in a very dark place, quote unquote, and it started to affect the employee. We ended up speaking to the employee and we designed a program that made the employee extremely difficult not to get any help that the person needed. This included paying for the time that the individual had to use to go seek therapy, the therapy assignments, biweekly one-on-one sessions with HR outside of the employee's regular duties to basically just walk the employee through the process. Eventually, the person was able to work through the things that needed to work, was able to get out of the dark place, and improve certain approaches that were affecting in his life. The employee eventually, I'm happy to say, turned it around to the point that he's still an employee with us, has received a promotion, and to be honest, this is one of my favorite stories to share with everybody out there.

▶4:06HostKenneth, what strategies have you found most effective when helping HR professionals think more strategically about their role, especially considering the high failure rate in HR certification classes?

▶4:17GuestThis is interesting because I actually have a lot of people reach out to ask me questions. I have actually taught HR certification in the past, but what I, what I like to do is look at situations from what I call a deconstructing type of process while maximizing the knowledge of applicable HR laws and then working the solution backwards. As an example, there is a law in the United States that is called the WARN Act. It stands for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Long story short, by law, organizations with 100 or more employees have to give a 60-day advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs. The idea under the law is to give the affected employees, the families, and the communities that are going to be affected by the people who are losing their jobs to basically just get ready for it. There's actually some states that may have state laws that may have some additional guidelines or even different requirements. So I am in the state of Florida, and years ago when I worked at the healthcare institution, there was a shortage of registered nurses. I would actually go into the state of Florida's designated WARN website. I would look at the notices and search for the healthcare organizations that were specifically laying off registered nurses, because by law they have to state the positions that are being affected. I would then actually jump into LinkedIn, search people who work there, and I would reach out to them talking to them about the benefits and the positions that we had open. And I am happy to say that there were at least twice in which I was able to fill positions because people who were affected were interested in finding employment.

▶5:49HostKenneth, how did you develop your philosophy that the HR industry has gone too far from treating people like humans? And what challenges did you face when implementing that approach?

▶6:00GuestWell, that's a good question, and I love it because throughout my career, not only have I heard this from HR professionals, But I have also heard it from department managers outside of HR making comments such as, oh, we don't want to be asking anything related to, insert whatever sensitive situation this may be happening, whether it's somebody who's being affected by domestic violence, death of a loved one, a critical illness diagnosis, just because they think that it's illegal to do so. First, that may not be the case in every situation because many laws and depending by state, you are not to take any adverse action based on the sensitive information. And the keyword here is adverse action, which can be termination of employment, demotion, disciplinary action, et cetera. What I don't understand is why would we not want to understand what the employee may be going through to see if we have benefits, resources, or processes designed to support the employee in those type of situations? Most employees appreciate the effort of HR trying to fully understand their situation. By knowing certain details, an employee can then receive the support that they need, correct the situation, and go back to meeting expectations.

▶7:11HostKenneth, could you walk us through a situation where treating employees with dignity and respect directly impacted your company culture or the business outcomes?

▶7:20GuestSure. Actually, it's interesting because due to recent changes in the administration of immigration-related situations, we realized that there was a lot of uncertainty on who may be negatively impacted by these changes. Confidentially and respectfully, of course, HR reached out to those employees we identified as being potentially impacted by these changes. The focus here was to explain to them that should anything negative happen to them due to their immigration status, no adverse employment decision was going to be made until after we first had a discussion with them. Barring, of course, any immediate loss of the right to legally work in the United States. We actually had open discussions with these individuals and discussed different scenarios so they would know what to expect from Symphonic should something happen to them. These are very hardworking, dedicated individuals, and they're dedicated to our mission. The last thing they should worry about is an immediate loss of income when their lives could be potentially turned upside down.

▶8:18HostKenneth, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶8:22GuestWell, this is another interesting one because with the world of AI looming in this new era of artificial intelligence, there are a lot of unknowns on how the workforce in any part of the world is going to be impacted. What we do know is that people will continue to be human, and I think we should maximize those opportunities where we can treat people as humans.

▶8:45HostKenneth, thank you so much for joining us today on the Built By People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶8:51GuestYou're very welcome. Thank you for having me.