Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/343811
13 Collaborative space Another factor that should not be over- looked is the importance of the physical o ce space in terms of building a posi- tive, collaborative culture, said Cassaday. "To me, getting everybody under one roof at our company was really, really im- portant. e signi cant investment that we made in our building… in Toronto has massively increased the recognition of our brand… but, most importantly, it's created an incredibly high sense of pride among our employees," he said. Corus Quay, the organization's To- ronto waterfront headquarters, features a large atrium with a slide, repatriated wood panelling and screens that display photos of the company's talent. ere's also an employee art wall where Corus employees — many of whom are talented artists — can display their work. "We give all of our people an oppor- tunity to post their work. So there are ap- proximately four exhibitions a year — I attend all of them," said Cassaday. Conference and meeting rooms are designed to re ect individual brands such as Cosmopolitan TV and 102.1 e Edge radio. "When we moved in, we moved from 12 di erent locations to one. And we wanted to make sure that we got the Corus brand really prevalent, but we also wanted to make sure that people didn't lose that sense of identity they had in their brand. So each of our meeting rooms has got very, very strong individual brand orientations," said Cassaday. e physical workstations are designed to be open concept to encourage discus- sion and collaboration. "What we did on our workstations just to encourage collaboration and teamwork — everybody has an open o ce concept, but we didn't build big caves with 72-inch (high) walls. All our walls are 36 inches, so that people can see over and you can see over from within." Recognition, recruitment One of Cassaday's core messages — and perhaps the most important one — is to say thank you. "We really reach out to our employees to try to recognize their performance in many, many di erent ways," he said. "I think money is (important), but recogni- tion is the most important thing." Corus has many di erent awards for employees and winners receive a personal call from Cassaday and are invited to an awards luncheon. ere are also monthly birthday breakfasts, training and devel- opment opportunities o ered through Corus University and annual town hall meetings at each Corus location across the country. ey also post every job in the organization externally, to widen the search for the best talent. "It is important to really hire tough and manage easy... you have to get the right people. We've all made mistakes in hiring and then we've spent a lot of time managing tough, trying to make our hir- ing mistakes seem like their failure in- stead of ours," said Cassaday. "So what do we look for when we hire? Obviously — you won't be surprised — alignment with our values. Secondly, I always look for ambition or a burning desire to succeed. ird, integrity, which is I think the governor of unbridled ambi- tion, and then, nally, skills." Once the right people are in place, the focus shi s to how well they work in a team. "We believe the greatest value is real- ized when we work together. And we've had some real rock-star performers in our place that weren't good team players, and they did not survive," said Cassaday. Ongoing talent development is also a crucial focus, he said — and it's not just for high performers. "We've now started to track how we're doing, not only in terms of developing high potentials but what progress we've made in dealing with people we've identi- ed as being a challenge," he said. " is contributes to an environment that is proactive, not reactive. I think this means less stress for everyone." Commentary from SCNetwork's panel of thought leaders How do top-notch leaders develop? By Dave Crisp (Leadership In Action) T he burning questions one asks about top leaders are o en how do they devel- op, and how much is born versus built? ankfully, Corus Entertainment CEO John Cassaday shed light on these questions with his insightful comments. It's obvious he had some instincts that helped him rise quickly from early on in his career. Whether these evolved, or whether he was born with some, it's impossible to tell. A er a rst job painting re hydrants, Cassaday was open to the idea of a temporary assignment promoting cigarettes to golf clubs and their members. What distinguished Cassaday was something that clearly runs through all his career steps — he had ideas and saw them as valuable, like most of us, but he also took the concrete step of putting them in a letter to his bosses, su ciently impressing them so he was o ered permanent employment a er college. Clearly, some of that is luck but a good deal is initiative that many would not have taken. Whether the courage to try was innate is something we can't know and neither, per- haps, does Cassaday. Most of us can trace our own fundamental personality inclinations to a combination of "just how we've always felt" and reinforcing events we encountered along the way. It's probably safe to assume we tend to nd situations and people who reinforce what we're already interested in, but exactly how much of each is involved in developing our skills is moot — we don't need to know. What's more important is the openness to ideas — openness being one of the big ve personality traits many psychological tests measure and suggest are innate. Cassaday was not only interested in his own ideas, he has consistently