Be an Employer of Choice - Reimagine the Chamber Workplace

This article is part of the Fall 2021 edition of Chamber Executive Magazine.

Bringing home a new family member through a birth, adoption or foster care, is a momentous life event. Families need time to adjust to their new reality. But for most people who work, parental leave is at best, a medical benefit that doesn’t apply to those who adopt or foster and at worst isn’t included at all in an employee handbook.

Kelle Marsalis, CCE, IOM, has worked at four chambers over her 16-year career in the industry. When she adopted a baby, she was able to use extended sick leave that had accumulated over tenure. None of the chambers she worked for offered a parental leave policy. Short-term disability benefits aren’t applicable for those who don’t physically give birth. When she was hired as president & CEO at the Plano Chamber of Commerce (Texas), she focused on the culture she wanted to build. “I’m not competing for talent with other chambers,” Marsalis said. “I’m competing with the employers of the future who have amazing benefits to offer."?

Be an Employer of Choice

A quality parental leave policy is just one benefit that distinguishes an employer of choice. Especially in a tight labor market,?employers of choice?are companies or organizations that people want to work for. That can be accomplished in a lot of ways, but focusing on the employee experience is paramount. “When you’re a good chamber and you have a great staff, they get pillaged by our members in the private community that can pay a lot more than we can,” said Eric Godet, Sr., the president & CEO of the Greater Gainesville Chamber (Fla.).

Godet said local businesses are doing better than they were in 2019 except in two areas – talent and the supply chain. He has one member that could hire 40 people with six-figure salaries if they were available. “We’re in a talent war right now, and I don’t like losing,” Godet said. “Don’t lose the war because you’re denying the battle is happening.”

Embrace the Change

In Gainesville, Godet saw his staff struggling as the team returned to the office after the pandemic. He started discussions with HR staff about how they could reimagine the chamber workplace to retain his team. “What happened pre-pandemic is not going to work for us today,” Godet said. “I really look at the pandemic as a catalyst for change. It’s my job to think about, ’How do I empower my team going forward?’”

One way the Gainesville Chamber does that is by allowing employees to choose their schedules. They can work four 10-hour days or five 8-hour days, with the ability to shift from one to the other at the start of each quarter. “We’re really busy Monday through Thursday, but things really taper off on Fridays,” Godet said. “Why don’t we just shift to a?four-day workweek?”

Godet is getting calls from his members to ask about the new policy. He said one of his board members, a young tech entrepreneur, followed the chamber’s lead and implemented the four-day workweek, attracting new employees from competing companies. Godet said he’s embracing being uncomfortable in exploring new opportunities because flexibility and creativity help chambers lead the way for their communities. “We have to be open to these changes,” he said. “So much has been regimented and passed down from generations long ago, and we haven’t really given it the analysis that we probably should have.”

Reimagine the Employee Handbook

After the experience Marsalis had when adopting her daughter, she wanted to make changes at the chamber she was now leading in Plano, Texas. While she hired two people early on, she also inherited staff. “Retention of that staff was very important to me as a new CEO,” she said. Along with retention, she knew she had to be more competitive for talent and wanted the chamber’s policies to be inclusive and fair. “I actually approached it first with the idea that I wanted to blow up the employee manual and see what I could do for my staff,” Marsalis said.

The employee manual she inherited was a long one. It was full of legal speak and concentrated more on what employees could not do. Marsalis was focused on parental leave and paid time off, while also looking at what could be done quickly for employees, without the typical waiting period. In the search for examples, she researched other chambers, area non-profits and ultimately, the benefits provided on corporate campuses.?The chamber’s new manual centers on people, culture and principles.?It is written in a conversational tone and groups the legal requirements in one section in the back.

“We have a three-word policy for just about everything: use good judgment,” Marsalis said. The parental policy provides eight weeks for the primary caregiver, two weeks for a secondary caregiver and three weeks for a new foster parent. The paid time off schedule was shortened to allow faster increases for tenure. “If I get six years out of somebody, I’m doing cartwheels,” Marsalis said. “They deserve more than two extra days of PTO.”?Small changes with zero budget impact, like relaxing the dress code, can also make a huge difference. Marsalis took a three-page dress code down to three paragraphs.

The new employee manual now includes a remote workplace policy, too. While Marsalis encourages staff to work in the office to promote collaboration, it boils down to a discussion and agreement between employee and supervisor. “I want to work with what makes you the most productive,” she said. “I need the best and the brightest on my team if I plan to lead the best and the brightest in my community.”

Make it Strategic

Chris Romer is often asked?how he gets away with it?– the unlimited paid time off, an appointment-only office, 16 weeks of parental leave, no in-office work requirements and extra holidays. “We, with our board, included in our strategic plan, an item as a strategic priority called organizational sustainability,” said Romer, president & CEO of the Vail Valley Partnership (Colo.). “I don’t get away with anything. They built the plan. They built the goal. I outlined the tactics of how we were going to achieve that goal.”

The partnership operates under the?ROWE?strategy – Results Oriented Work Environment. The staff creates individual monthly targets and quarterly goals, with accountability at every stage. Coaching sessions, not reviews, are built around those plans. “We know that everyone has a full-time job,” Romer said. “But we also recognize that it doesn’t mean you need to be always on. That’s not healthy. It causes burnout. I think a lot of it is self-inflicted because we train people how to treat us.” For burnout, Romer offers an unplugged bonus. “I pay people a ten percent kicker on their paycheck for two weeks a year to unplug and not check in at work.”

Before the pandemic, partnership staff was required to be in the office for 20 hours, but that policy hasn’t returned. The staff was as prepared as they could be for a remote-only work environment. The team has laptops, remote access and a phone system that can forward calls to cell phones. The latest adjustment came in summer 2020 when Romer made the chamber office by appointment only. “We’re changing the culture. We’re no different than your attorney or your CPA,” he said. “We are your professional resource for business services. We are a well-skilled organization doing good work and you can make an appointment.”

Shift the Culture

A?shift in workplace culture?is happening in companies large and small, and in order to compete for talent, chambers are changing, too. For instance, an intern at the Gainesville Chamber started his own company through a University of Florida incubator program. The chamber hired him, but his company’s biggest customers were in the Washington, D.C. area. He moved north but continued his work remotely for the chamber. Godet said that wouldn’t have even been a consideration before the pandemic. “It’s really critical to the economic development of your community that you embrace the change that is real,” he said. “I really believe we as chambers need to lead the way.”

If?new handbook items?have?a monetary impact but are included in the organization's budget, Marsalis believes these changes become a CEO decision. She found champions on her board and that shifted the conversation. “I want to hold on to good people,” Marsalis said. “[The board] hired you to run the business. They’re going to oversee the strategy.”

And, by listing organizational sustainability as a strategic goal, Romer was able to work with his team to build the culture and environment that exists today at the partnership. He presented the tactics now outlined in?the employee handbook?and the board agreed that it aligned with the overarching goal. “Every chamber can do that, even the ones who think they can’t,” Romer said. “What board isn’t going to accept a goal of organizational sustainability?”?