Why do you want me in HR? That was my first thought but like Ive said a bunch of times on this show and with the clients that I work with, that was a gift that I didnt see coming when my career turned to HR. from 8 AM - 9 PM ET. endobj I can show you hypertext from Windows and other things from the 1950s. We changed the way we interview. Every single person that works for me, every time I interact with them, Im always thinking in the back of my head, She wants that job. Youre not going to keep them. I remember you were telling me about the people that I was going to interview. They used to track that and give a lot of credit for that. What do they want to be?, Its not what they want to be when they grow up because its not about a specific job, Do you want to be a senior leader? Im on my bike on Saturday on the soccer field. Email . The one that Ive landed on that works best is I start the question by describing a failure that Ive had. Congrats Don way to lead in a tumultuous time !!! Phone . Get Contact Info for All Departments Northwestern Mutual Org Chart by Seniority Marketing (509) Lee Hurley Nothing fuels business more that highly engaged people who support it. Don Robertson EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual 1 semana Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. For whatever reason, all of my seniors that were supposed to present to the generals were absent that day when I had to brief a three-star general. Schlifske joined Northwestern Mutual as an investment specialist and later led a variety of the company's investment operations as well as different parts of its business operations. Robertson will. >> One of the most difficult things to help businesses understand is that the faster you can recognize what you need from a talent standpoint and put your talent on that, the faster you can accelerate your priorities. Samuel Pudenz. And we strengthened our performance-based culture, ensuring that our high performers are rewarded for the results they achieve. Its incredible to me how often companies dont think about that and how often they dont spend time with their people managers, helping their people managers understand what theyre expected to do, what they need to do and spend time talking to them. Mpb4 The biggest lesson I would tell you is to get to know the people that think differently than you and that disagree with you often. /Type /Action A member of the company's Senior Leadership Team, he leads the Finance and Risk function responsible for the company's financial management and planning, budgeting, actuarial, investment risk and operations, enterprise risk management and resiliency. Did anybody come to mind who invested in you and your career and giving you good advice? This includes overall leadership of product development and innovation, product line performance, risk selection standards, and underwriting. There are a number of factors that come into play. The mechanisms to create that in how we promote, retain, acquire and develop are all consistent. You also have to be thinking about it from a development, growth and retention standpoint. Previously Don was the Chief People Officer of Apttus. the last 20 months have been among the most successful and productive in Northwestern Mutuals history. endobj Email . We reconfigured our leadership structure. Phone Email. If you could become good at understanding different perspectives, peoples points of view and approaches, its going to make you more effective later on in life. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. Youre leading, guiding, coaching and mentoring how you develop, attract and source talent. Reggieyiane Robertson. Legal Assistant . He works with enterprise partners to maintain a healthy and strong field system delivering comprehensive plans that combine life insurance and investment solutions in support of clients' financial goals. How can you assure that you have the best talent for your company? . << >> >> Do you think I show five slides to Tracy, Meg or whomever? I was like, No, Caroline. /Type /Annot Best Talent: Diversity and inclusion cannot be a hobby. << /Type /ExtGState Most recently, he headed HR at Apttus, a Silicon Valley start-up firm that provides software solutions for mid-sized and enterprise companies, Sutherland Global Services, and start-up firm TrueCar. Those are the things I look at. "Don is a seasoned business leader who has delivered strong results at . I know your schedule is busy. Don J. Robertson is responsible for the company's employee experience and he leads the Human Resources organization, as well as teams that manage the company's campuses, events and employee digital experience. Im going to give them both to you in advance because its not a got you. I misread the situation. Im not talking about, I missed the deadline by a couple of days. Im talking about, especially in our function, you completely blew a tough conversation or you got yourself in trouble with somebody and ended up suing the company and you didnt handle it well. M@bp6VCcT$*%R #006: How Can We Bring People Back into The Office? Northwestern Mutual is part of the Insurance industry, and located in Wisconsin, United States. I wanted to soften the blow of that failure in my answer. /Contents 12 0 R I wish I could remember but it was like, They need to see the authentic me. I feel its my responsibility to help prepare them for what theyre trying to achieve in their career and create an environment and experiences that give them the opportunity to hone those skills. I said, Okay. She was like, I want to see this. I gave it to Caroline. That was a big support. Measured by 2020 revenue. When typing in this field, a list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type. Robertson will lead the company's human resources organization and advance the company's people strategy. Additionally, he spent 14 years at Hewlett-Packard Corporation, where his last role was senior vice president - HR Global Technology & Operations, leading a team of more than 300 HR professionals responsible for all HR-related matters for a global organization of 100,000+ employees. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. m+LbPcByzbZ8&@eZre|(wa"A+mc1aDM~_Y#]l$0h+4qm{=9,s}sa^o{{sx]%6\pltk[;:ca$-`\k=O>+Ists:R.xesO{N'Z^5 P`lWwliLi8 7|Oj"4O 0`x >YLAep)^/Y=6P c j.qA\90jV!!`X fx?"$XN 8 . When we started to put in place a lot of these mechanisms around talent management, talent development and career path, what wonderful talent we had that was down in the organization that we probably didnt know as well as we should have known. Thats the context of the question. One of the first things I did when I got here was put in place metrics that we would put in our bonus programs to make sure we achieve our diversity goals. How do you look at diversity for the benefit of all of the people, both at work for you and the millions of clients that you have? When I look at the percentage of people that are top talent and at certain levels, everything we do is directionally to try to make sure that our workforce is consistent with the diversity goals that we have. Robertson joins Northwestern Mutual after serving in human resources leadership roles at companies ranging from Fortune 50s to maturing start-ups. Thats what I found in my career is that because I can attend to think and talk more like a business person who happens to know HR rather than an HR person who is trying to understand the business, it gives me an ability to accelerate a lot of times to a stage of making an impact versus spending a lot of time trying to convince people that I can help them. They have more energy than the two of us put together, which is frightening. /Title ( N o r t h w e s t e r n M u t u a l A p p o i n t s D o n R o b e r t s o n t o S e n i o r V i c e P r e s i d e n t a n d C h i e f H u m a n R e s o u r c e s O f f i c e r - A u g 2 1 , 2 0 1 8) Leaders need to hold themselves accountable to develop the future leaders of that company that that company is going to need. Did you have to start to change mindsets about how they looked at great people? The first half of my career was not in HR. We need to figure out a way to get you this experience. D6T P}] 2 Ranking for Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC. /Subtype /Link Retired Chief Executive Officer MicroTek, Inc. Chairman, President and CEO The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. I have tried to model that from all of the leaders like you and the generals, Tracy, Caroline, Tom and a whole bunch of people that Ive worked with over the years. It has to be threaded in your mainstream of what you do for talent. Grateful for the opportunity to discuss Northwestern Mutual's historic year at the Chicago CHRO Executive Summit last week. Dont shortcut how transparent you need to be with your employees about why youre doing what youre doing and as quickly as you can. Products and services referenced are offered and sold only by appropriately appointed and licensed entities and financial advisors and professionals. The team that youve got there, I know its Kelly. Extremely gratifying to see Northwestern Mutual selected by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers. I did this thing and I screwed up. I love that because when I looked back and I came out as a fresh newly-minted officer, I went to Berlin. You cant ignore any piece of that. For some reason, the more senior I got, it finally clicked in my head. Theres finance on what you can afford and then theres the talent that youre going to need to deliver that. Heres the first thing for leaders to keep in mind: if you want to grow employee engagement and organizational health in a short time, start with a great company and a virtuous vision. When I went in to present to him, he would be like, What slide do you care about? I would be like, Slide four. He said, Lets go to that. I learned from there on, slide 4 became slide 1. I remember I was a young officer. The one thing Ive learned is if you dont give them the information, theyll fill it in with things. Robertson earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from California State University, Fresno where he currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Craig School of Business. When you get to work for great leaders, its a real gift in your career, and I certainly got to do that. This is a people business, and I can't think of a | 17 comments on LinkedIn Don Robertson on LinkedIn: Northwestern Mutual Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Large | 17 comments Don G Robinson Financial Representative . Lets turn it into that. About Northwestern MutualNorthwestern Mutualhas been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for more than 160 years. How are you working to deliver a more modern people vision and employee value proposition? We had pages and pages. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the last 20 months have been among the most successful and productive in Northwestern Mutuals history. You have your best personality on and your right smile. Thats true but I dont ever remember sending you an email or a text that wasnt instantaneously received and I was anywhere on the globe at that time. The people leaders have to be an extension of the leadership teams. Its either you have it or you dont. Christian's accountabilities include shaping and guiding the company's planning philosophy and experience, the digital products that support our customers and field force, and the customer analytics that inform our strategies for improving their experience. With Karen Clark, #039: Interviewing Candidates Without A Resume. There are investments the business wants to make. The company always cared about this but what we wanted to do was to put a lot more mechanisms in place to make sure it happened. Ive been asked it in so many different ways. The company manages more than $125 billion of client assets through its wealth management and investment services. The number one thing I would leave you with is diversity and inclusion cannot be a hobby and a separate thing. To me, if you dont have your people managers on board with what youre trying to do, if youre in any kind of company where youve got a large organization, youre not going to communicate effectively to the people on the ground. There are the talent strategies in between those two of how youre going to address it. What is your best advice to the leaders and managers that are coming up to retain and develop those people? Neal Sample is now chief information officer. 9 0 obj Two more things before I finally get to the wrap-up question. We have a great company driving unprecedented results with exceptional talent who are deeply engaged in our mission. Email . Thanks, George. Its just leaders are leaders. I interviewed you. /URI (https://news.northwesternmutual.com/2018-08-21-Northwestern-Mutual-Appoints-Don-Robertson-to-Senior-Vice-President-and-Chief-Human-Resources-Officer) In this episode, George Randle sits down for an insightful interview with EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual, Don Robertson. /Length 13 0 R Its going to be much more applicable to whats going to be difficult at work. Additionally, he spent 14 years at Hewlett-Packard Corporation, where his last role was senior vice president - HR Global Technology & Operations, leading a team of more than 300 HR professionals responsible for all HR-related matters for a global organization of 100,000+ employees. /SA true In this role, Sippel leads an organization of more than 1,700 employees that are responsible for the company's technology architecture, infrastructure and cloud services, reliability, service support, and information risk and cybersecurity. Youre right. Unbelievable. Jonathan Robertson works at SLB, which is an Electricity, Oil & Gas company with an estimated 34755 employees. I cant thank you enough for all that youve done for me, helping us with the book and then taking time out of your day-to-day. Tracy taught me a lot about interacting with boards at the board level and those levels. /Pattern << %PDF-1.4 First and foremost, make sure that you spend a lot of time with the people that manage your people. One thing I would tell you is to be a lot more humble and willing to listen to other peoples points of view. Ideally, what you will do over time is build your organization to be a talent engine so that it becomes second nature, but there are foundational elements that you have to put in place around talent succession planning, rising star analysis, talent management to career growth and career development. There are a lot of different levers you can pull. 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