112 Atlantic Business Magazine | May/June 2017

leader?A CEO needs more than star power to make its workforce something special By Darren Campbell

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(Starting top left, moving clockwise): Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of iconic computer brand Apple Inc. (d. October 5, 2011); Richard Branson, English business magnate and founder, Virgin Group; American media maven Oprah Winfrey; Sheryl Sand-berg, senior technology executive and women’s leader-ship activist; and, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook. (Google images/non-commercial re-use)

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“A CEO who is charismatic and successful—employees like working for them and are attracted to that,” says Jason McDonald, managing partner of Talentworks Inc., a Halifax-based recruitment company. “But a big part of recruitment is creating the type of culture employees are drawn to.”

So how can a CEO, star power or no star power, help their company recruit the best employees possible?

George Raine, president of Monc-ton-based human resources and labour relations consulting firm Montana Consulting Group, suggests the CEO should make his or her senior managers accountable for the hires they make.

The bigger the organization, the less likely it is that the top executive will have the time to interview every

prospective employee. So a leader must make it clear to the management team what kind of employee the company is looking for and, task them with finding those people and hiring them. “I believe managers should be held accountable for developing and maintaining the team they are given to run,” Raine says. “The CEO has to make it clear to the managers that they must make sure their team is a good team, and if it isn’t, what are they going to do about it.”

Like McDonald, Raine believes having a high profile CEO can pique the interest of job seekers in a company. However, keeping that employee long-term is difficult if the CEO is all style and no substance. “Having a star CEO tends to make people more aware of the organ-ization because the CEO and the brand

While having a CEO with the name recognition of Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs, Microsoft’s Bill Gates or Virgin Group’s Richard Branson will certainly grab the attention of prospective employees, experts says star power alone won’t make new hires loyal to the brand.

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114 Atlantic Business Magazine | May/June 2017

get stuck together,” Raine says. “But whether the enthusiasm remains once they are within the organization will depend on more substantial factors.”

Those substantial factors have a lot to do with the company’s culture, and that’s where you’ll find a CEO’s true value in employee recruitment. Jacqui Winters, principal consultant with HR Project Partners Inc. in St. John’s, says a company that communicates to potential hires that they will be valued, acknowledged and respected is very attractive to job seekers. A 2016 Deloitte global survey of millen-nials (generally considered to be people born since the early 1980s) found that 87 per cent of respondents

felt that the success of a business should be measured by more than just its financial performance. The Deloitte survey also found millennials believe companies should put employees first for the long-term success of the busi-ness.

As baby boomers age and retire and millennials take their spots in the workplace, it seems more imperative than ever that a senior executive has a hiring process that stresses employees are more than just a number. Winters says it’s the CEO’s job to ensure that kind of process and culture perme-ates throughout their company. It’s also important that the company’s top executive lead by example and be visible to both potential and current employees. “The CEO needs to take part in company events and be visible in the communities they live in,” Winters says. “Particularly at smaller companies, senior leaders should be able to reach and touch employees

“ Particularly at smaller companies, senior leaders should be able to reach and touch employees and acknowledge their work and thank them. It can have a huge impact.”

Jacqui Winters, principal consultant HR Project Partners Inc.

“ The CEO has to make it clear to the managers that they must make sure their team is a good team, and if it isn’t, what are they going to do about it.”George Raine, president, Montana Consulting Group

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115atlanticbusinessmagazine.com | Atlantic Business Magazine

Ying, and …CEOs looking for pointers on

how to win the hearts and minds of their employees could steal a page or two from Jim Sinegal’s playbook. The co-founder and former CEO of retail giant Costco (he retired in 2012) had a simple formula for recruiting and

retaining employees, says George Raine, president of Moncton’s Montana Consulting Group. “His culture was to pay employees a fair wage and give them job security,” Raine says.

The culture Sinegal created resulted in Costco’s warehouse store workers getting above average pay for the retail sector, 80 per cent of employees had health coverage, including part-time employees, and the company generously contributed to its sta� ’s retirement savings plans. The result was, as a 2012 article in the Globe and Mail on Sinegal points out, “low turnover, low training costs and a family feeling to the company.”

Sinegal also led by example and remained a man of the people even as Costco became one of North America’s top retailers. At the company’s Issaquah, Washington headquarters, his o� ce was in a hallway—there was no glass wall separating him and his sta� —where anyone could wander by and talk to their boss.

…YangYahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer could be

considered the anti-Jim Sinegal. Since leaving Google to take over Yahoo in 2012,

she’s gained a reputation for being dismissive, self-promoting and clueless about the feelings of her employees—although the same could be said for a lot of famous business leaders like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

It hasn’t helped that Mayer sometimes lacked the common touch that tends to endear a CEO to her employees. One example: in 2013 she had a nursery built adjacent to her San Jose o� ce so she could be closer to her newborn son while at the same time demanding remote employees report to o� ce facilities.

To be fair, Mayer had the nursery built at her own expense. However, this is not the kind of decision that will win over your workforce. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Mayer’s approval rating slipped from 99 per cent in 2012 when she took the top job at Yahoo to 67 per cent in 2016, according to polls conducted with anonymous Yahoo employees.

to her employees. One example: in 2013 she had a nursery built adjacent to her San Jose o� ce so she could be closer to her newborn son while at the same time demanding remote employees report to

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116 Atlantic Business Magazine | May/June 2017

and acknowledge their work and thank them. It can have a huge impact.”

Raine agrees that CEOs can help bring in quality hires by ensuring the right corporate culture is in place and then having the willpower to ensure that culture doesn’t erode in tough times. “The CEO is responsible for backing up that vision of where the company is going with policy, and policy can value or de-value people,” Raine says. Examples of company policies that will entice potential hires to join your ranks even if you don’t have a superstar CEO include emphasizing it’s a respectful work-place where employees are paid a fair wage and won’t be dropped at the first sign of a downturn, Raine says.

Raine notes that CEOs have to be more than big personalities to attract quality employees, and keep them once they get them. He says there’s nothing wrong with having style, but a company’s top executive needs to have substance, too. “I don’t think there is a great correlation between a star CEO and the factors necessary for recruitment and retention,” he says.

In today’s workplace where employees expect more from their employers than steady work and a paycheque, CEOs that ‘get it’ can help their companies greatly in attracting the kind of hires that will take their companies to new heights. For those that don’t, as the saying goes, you reap what you sow. •

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“ A CEO who is charis-matic and successful—employees like working for them and are at-tracted to that. But a big part of recruitment is creating the type of culture employees are drawn to.”

Jason McDonald, managing partner Talentworks Inc.

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