What You Need to Know
It can be very challenging to quantify the results of efforts in human capital management (HCM). This is of course one of the contributing factors to the unfortunate but common view of human resources (HR) departments as cost centers, when in fact they are assets—when allowed to function properly and in pursuit of their potential. Given the necessary resources, a good HR team, or even a single HR manager, can transform an entire business’s employee experience and, therefore, its workforce.
Every workplace has a culture. There is no such thing as a lack thereof. Like an individual’s health, an organization’s culture exists by default; it does not need to be introduced through effort. There is, however, such a thing as poor culture, just as there is such a thing as poor health. What requires effort, then, is not generating the culture but nurturing it, shaping it into a strong, effective version of itself—one that is capable of achieving its goals. And it does take a strong employee culture for an organization to achieve its goals. This is why HR is so critical. No other team has the know-how to shape employee experience, or the expertise to promote engagement. Yes, they need buy-in and support from organizational leadership, managers and staff, but HR teams wield much power to mold an organization’s culture into one that can attract, retain, and empower top talent, and to align an entire workforce with a business’s strategy.
About Valet Living
Valet Living is a United States–based company providing amenity services such as package delivery, waste removal, and dog walking to the residential communities with which it partners. The company operates in more than 40 states, serves 1.8 million homes, and employs approximately 10,000 associates (the term Valet Living uses for employees). The vast majority of this workforce, around 8,500 people in total, comprises W-2 part-time workers. Much like independent contractors participating in the gig economy, many Valet Living associates work for the company on an as-needed basis. Their hours may differ from one week to the next, and they tend not to see their managers in person over the course of day-to-day work. In fact, many associates report to managers who live in other states.
3Sixty Insights spoke with Nicole Davies, Valet Living’s vice president of talent optimization. As head of this department, Davies oversees the company’s learning, talent, and performance management functions, what she calls “the really fun and exciting side of HR,” — i.e., in the 3Sixty Insights parlance, the empathic, abstract side of HR.
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