Interviewer: Mahmoud Mansi

My advice to CEOs would be to do a few simple things to make sure people feel valued. Recognise them for the work they do. Help them to align to your goals, to see how their role fits in and how they contribute to your business plan. Let them know what they do matters

Louise Ann Wanless

THE INTERVIEW

Louise Ann Wanless: You will find many of the processes in HR are common across industries with many having a focus on talent management and development, talent acquisition, engagement, organisation design and compensation and benefits. What is critical from an HR standpoint however is to understand your business and know how it works so, as you provide recommendations and solutions to the leaders you partner with, you do so with a solid understanding of what they need and how you can help them improve their effectiveness.

Louise Ann Wanless: I believe that organisations have a responsibility to provide their employees with the training they need to do their jobs effectively and grow both professionally and personally. At GM, we are lucky to have one of the largest internal training resources in the world available to us via our GM Learning platform. We also invest heavily in leadership development. In making an individual investment in training, I think that would depend upon the person’s aspirations and the company’s willingness to support these.

Louise Ann Wanless: I don’t see training as a panacea for all ills. Training has a key role in helping people develop the skills and knowledge to do their jobs and equip them for greater levels of responsibility but the organisation must support them in terms of implementing what they have learned. Also, training is not the only aspect that employees need in order to be engaged.  Leadership plays a key role, as does fairness, recognition, trust and teamwork.

Louise Ann Wanless: I have always had a great love for people and I think there is a great deal of personal reward in being able to support others to achieve their potential. We know the great impact that leadership has in terms of the work environment they create and we also know that strong leadership is critical to success. So being involved in leadership development ultimately means you are both helping to create  a positive business culture and impacting the bottom line, that’s why I love it.

Louise Ann Wanless: I’ve actually lived in Dubai since I was child. It’s more like home to me than England where I was born. I choose to stay here because it is an extremely dynamic environment and so culturally diverse.

Louise Ann Wanless: General Motors strongly values HR and HR has a seat at the table in terms of determining the business direction. People factor very strongly into the way we do things here and we have very strong processes that allow us to ensure that we are considering the right talent for the right roles to equip the organisation to be successful. We also place a very strong focus on culture and creating a culture to win is imperative to our business. HR plays an instrumental role here in driving employee engagement, supporting leadership development and managing change.

Louise Ann Wanless: Studies have shown that companies with higher levels of engagement consistently outperform their competition in profitability, revenue growth and customer satisfaction. In fact, studies show that organisations with engagement levels above 72%, show up to 50% higher shareholder returns than those with average engagement. So there’s a direct correlation between engagement and business success.

The Workplace of Choice survey is the primary way GM checks in with its employees to ask how they feel about the company as an employer and learn what they need to perform at their best to drive business success. We run our Workplace of Choice survey every 18-24 months and open it to all GM employees to hear directly from them what it is we need to do as a business to create an environment where people feel valued and do valuable work. Workplace of Choice is not just an employee engagement survey, it’s all about acting on what people tell us and building culture.

At GM, we have higher than average participation from our workforce on this survey. We believe this is a reflection of the fact that our employees are committed to supporting the business to build a culture to win and believe that the feedback they give is heard and acted upon. In our last survey, in 2014, we surpassed the global average for engagement. Our next survey is currently underway and we are expecting to see even better results.

Louise Ann Wanless: It’s really all about people and the environment you create. My advice to CEOs would be to do a few simple things to make sure people feel valued. Recognise them for the work they do. Help them to align to your goals, to see how their role fits in and how they contribute to your business plan. Let them know what they do matters. Allow them to provide input to help you to drive your business forward.

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