Design of a Decade

Inside Business Magazine (September 2008)

The NorthCoast 99 awards have evolved over the past 10 years, along with Northeast Ohio’s business community.

Ten years ago, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire broke baseball’s single-season home run record, formerly held by Roger Maris (and no one said a word about steroids); a search engine called Google set up shop in a Menlo Park, Calif., garage; Indiana University student Jared Fogle embarked on his Subway sandwich-only diet and, in Northeast Ohio, the ERC staff was busy calling area organizations encouraging them to apply for a new award honoring the region’s best places to work.

“Many organizations viewed NorthCoast 99 as a human resources award. And 10 years ago, HR and having a great workplace were not as important to companies as they are today,” recalls Pat Perry, president of ERC. “Many executives were more focused on how much the company was going to grow that year.”

In 1999, the NorthCoast 99 awards yielded just 102 applications. Today, ERC receives more than 300 nominations and applications. It has transitioned from an award recognizing the area’s best places to work to one that honors the best workplaces for top performing employees. “NorthCoast 99 has become the pinnacle in terms of recognition of what an organization should be about,” Perry says.

The value companies place on the NorthCoast 99 award today also reflects the evolution of human resources during the past 10 years, says Carmella Calta, founder and CEO of Staffing Solutions Enterprises.

“In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, HR was viewed mainly as a service arm of the organization. They were required to do administrative functions like interview candidates and handle medical benefits,” she says. “But today, CEOs recognize that the attraction and retention of top talent contributes directly to their bottom line. HR directors are now required to understand the steps that should be taken to foster the growth and success of the organization. That requires a lot of creativity and courage because they must be advocates for improvement and change.”

Martine Scheuermann, HR director with CSA International and a 27-year veteran of the HR industry, recalls that her first title as “personnel,” meant she was just a “paper pusher” and “file keeper.” “Today, [HR managers] are required to think strategically along with operations managers when we’re discussing new business ventures, because we need to know if we have the right talent in the company or how we go get that talent,” she says.

During the past 10 years, there has also been a paradigm shift in the type of employees companies are recruiting. Instead of looking to hire someone with experience, the focus is now on hiring talented candidates, Calta says. “Often, companies have a talented candidate who may not have the exact experience the company is looking for, but if he or she has the capacity to learn, the right attitude and the company believes that candidate will add value to the company’s growth, they will hire him or her,” she says.

At The Reserves Network, candidates with transferable skills such as communication and strategic problem-solving are considered even if they do not have prior staffing experience. “Ten years ago, we may not have considered someone with a background in banking to have the right customer-service skills. We viewed it as a much more rigid environment and the staffing industry is all about having people-skills and the ability to interact well with customers,” explains Amy Gerrity, president of The Reserves Network. “But we’ve realized that banking is very much a business that relies on customer service, and they can be a good fit for our company.”

Another difference between 1999 and 2008: Employers are not always in the driver’s seat when it comes to the job market in Northeast Ohio. Layoffs at some of the region’s biggest companies, the lack of new job creation, a foreclosure crisis and the dwindling population have prompted many qualified candidates to search for greener job pastures. In other words, it’s a seller’s market.

“Even the great workplaces face challenges when recruiting if a qualified candidate does not believe the region is economically viable,” Calta says. “Top talent is always difficult to attract, so any negatives pose challenges for the employer.”

What’s more, today’s top performers want more than just a paycheck; they want a better workplace, Scheuermann says. “They’re concerned about the company’s social responsibility, ethics and work-life balance,” she says. “They’re looking for a career at a company they feel good about, and they want to know what companies can offer them before they even consider sending a resume.”

As a result, many companies are using new avenues to hire that top talent. They’re doing more direct recruiting and holding networking events and job fairs. Many companies, including CSA International, rely on the eyes and ears of its own employees to refer potential candidates. “We offer incentives through our employee-referral program,” Scheuermann says. “Once the referred employee has been with us, we then ask him or her to refer an employee. We want to keep the pipeline filled.”

Organizations are also revamping company Web sites to attract higher caliber candidates. Along with job postings and descriptions of benefits packages, company online career centers may detail the company’s culture, mission, community involvement, charitable giving, office tours, videos of company events and, of course, awards such as NorthCoast 99.

“We use the NorthCoast 99 award as part of our branding. It’s such an honor to win, and we believe it’s a benefit to our talent acquisition,” Gerrity says. “When a candidate looks at our company’s Web site and sees that we’re a NorthCoast 99 winner, it sets us apart from our competition.”

Often the focus on attracting top talent also inspires organizations to create better workplaces for their current employees — a trend Perry hopes will continue and may help improve Northeast Ohio’s economy. Organizations are dumping traditional HR policies such as use-it-or-lose-it vacation and probationary periods, because they’ve realized it won’t attract top performers. “What we need is for Northeast Ohio’s business owners to treat their organizations as a professional sports team. They need to invest in talented players so they can put together a strong team to win the championship,” he says.

While HR and hiring practices have evolved during the past decade, what hasn’t changed is that NorthCoast 99-winning organizations remain workplaces that support the attraction, retention and motivation of employees in the region. And as Perry says, “the proliferation of great workplaces will be the driving force of economic development in Northeast Ohio.”

For additional information on The Reserves Network and its affiliates,  please contact: Brandon Thimke, communications manager, at bthimke@thereservesnetwork.com.