Talent Engagement &Inclusion Quarterly
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Q1 2017 Talent Engagement & Inclusion Quarterly Viva la Difference! Table Of Contents From the Desk of Publicis Groupe’s Chief Diversity Officer pg 3 Thought Leader: Mike Slagh on Recruiting Military Veterans pg 4 Food for Thought: Thoughts, Insights & Advice from Renetta McCann pg 6 News from Across Publicis Groupe pg 7 Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities & Events pg 15 Business Resource Group (BRG) Updates pg 17 Meet the Full TE&I Council pg 30 Raffle: Play to Win an Apple Watch! pg 31 2 From the Desk of Publicis Groupe’s Sandra Sims-Williams Chief Diversity Officer Chief Diversity Officer Greetings! With every new year comes new opportunity, and personally, I have pledged to approach this year with renewed energy, a positive attitude, and a doubling down on my purpose. My purpose has and will continue to be bridging differences by bringing people together in dialogue in both my personal and professional lives. Dialogue helps build understanding and trust and is core to many of the programs offered by Publicis Groupe’s Talent Engagement & Inclusion team. Specifically, our professional development opportunities bring people together from across our agency network for dialogue with the goal of creating ever more engaging and inclusive work environments for all. Much of the same can be said about our business resource groups (BRGs) which have a long-standing tradition of breaking down the walls of agency silos and bringing people together. On the topic of BRGs I am pleased to announce the launch of Publicis Groupe’s newest BRG offering in the New York market. Co-led by Alexa Ciccarelli (Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness) and Margaret Dryden (Publicis Health), GenNEXT is geared toward Publicis Groupe’s young professionals. The group is looking to build a board with representatives from across all the agencies represented in the New York market, so please consider lending your time and your support. For more information about the group and its goals, be sure to check out GenNEXT’s first contribution to the BRG Updates section of this quarterly. As you know from previous issues of this quarterly, professional development opportunities are a core offering of my team. Regardless of where we all fall within the hierarchy of Publicis Groupe’s structure, I am a firm believer in continuing education and idea sharing. This is equally true of me and my colleagues in the C-suite. For this reason, last month I convened the CEO roundtable in New York to provide our agency’s leaders an opportunity to discuss the importance of straight talk in helping to build ever stronger and more inclusive agencies. The second portion of the CEO roundtable provided a forum for CEOs to share what they are each doing in their respective agencies to foster more engaging work environments. Truly the experience was the embodiment of Publicis Groupe’s motto Viva la Difference! and of that I am tremendously proud. May 2017 bring you all things good, and don’t forget to leverage this publication to make the most of your experience working for Publicis Groupe. Warm regards, Sandra 3 Thought Leader Mike Slagh on Hiring Military Veterans Mike Slagh Founder of Shift Shift is a recruiting pipeline that gives companies direct access to exceptional military veterans and helps to translate military experiences into skills and traits that make sense to private sector hiring managers. Mike Slagh, Shift’s founder, was invited to address Publicis Groupe’s Q4 Talent Engagement & Inclusion Council. Afterward, Publicis Groupe agencies signed on to pilot the Shift platform. Through Shift, military veterans were also invited to network with our talent during the Publicis Groupe, SapientRazorfish, and Adobe co- hosted networking event at SXSW in Austin. Below is a thought leader piece written by Mike that also appears on the organization’s website. *** A little over a year ago, I sat in the Transition Assistance Program like many transitioning service members who had gone before me. The program, known as “TAP,” is a weeklong course the Department of Labor provides to 250,000 soon-to-be veterans each year in an effort to prepare them for civilian life. The overall thrust is building a set of core skills like résumé writing and interview tactics, but it’s a one-size-fits-all solution for an incredibly diverse workforce. As someone who lived and breathed technology projects in and out of the military for the past several years, I wondered why there wasn’t more focus on translating skills the military teaches everyone: technical literacy and operational proficiency. Tasks like creating plans to push hundreds of people into foreign countries, driving submarines underwater, and training to disarm nuclear weapons build these skills at breathtaking scale. It’s not really up for debate that every company is becoming a software company — places where technical literacy and operational proficiency are critically important. So why is it so challenging for veterans to find meaningful employment when they take off the uniform? American companies have committed to hiring hundreds of thousands of veterans over the next few years. What can we do to make veteran hiring easier? A couple months ago, we partnered with Expa to help answer this question for the massive scale of service members who depart each year. Expa is building a global network of entrepreneurs, and they identified military service as a compelling background that could be advantageous to fast-growing companies. After interviewing executives, talent professionals, and recruiters at the best companies, here are the most common pain points at companies who want to hire more veterans, but are struggling: • Skill Translation: It’s really difficult to tell what’s going on in a military résumé. Great experiences are often lost in translation. 4 • Access : Direct sourcing platforms like Hired and Entelo are the new workflow for recruiters. They’d rather chat with veterans directly than have to do it via a third party or job board. • Availability and Preferences: A quick search for veterans on LinkedIn yields tens of thousands of results. Who is staying in the military? Who’s getting out soon? Who wants to join my operations team in Austin? It’s impossible to know. Solving those pain points formed the basis of the first release of Shift. “What if opportunities came to veterans, and not the other way around?” When veterans sign up, we start by sending a weekly email with curated opportunities: education, re-training, internships at growing companies, and companies who want them on the team right now. Behind each email are organizations that have expressed interest in sharing specific opportunities with veteran job seekers. When veterans are ready to take the next step, they can “go live” on Shift to send a notification to every employer we work with. We work with 100 new veterans with exceptional backgrounds each month and add them to the direct access area on Shift. A mutual understanding of skills and access to opportunity are the only things standing between veterans and their next great mission. We’re laser-focused on translation, availability, and access. Simple, but powerful concepts! 5 Food for Thought Thoughts, Insights & Advice from Renetta McCann Renetta McCann is the Chief Talent Officer for Leo What did you want to be when you were a child? Burnett U.S. and Publicis A lawyer Communications NA. She plays a key role in ensuring that the What does success mean to you? company retains, attracts, and Doing impactful work and liking how I get that work done. arms the best and brightest minds in business today. What characteristic do you most admire in others? Whatever thing makes them sparkle. You can tell when another Renetta has been recognized as one of the leading person is living their purpose or in their flow or on their game. innovators and most Whoever they are at their best. I can tell and it always inspires me. influential executives in the advertising, marketing, and Has a mistake ever led you to career success? media industries, with a I don’t think so. Have my mistakes (and I’ve made some doozies) global reputation for not only made me a better leader or person? Absolutely! Once I was building brands, but also the negotiating a difficult contract with a difficult client. I expressed organizations and leadership my strong frustration about the terms in response to an internal to sustain them. email, failing to see that the client also happened to be copied on it. I immediately called the client to say I was sorry for how I had She believes that building community into the company communicated my thoughts, but not sorry for what I had said. The and fostering employees’ client was gracious. We had a great conversation about the contract diverse interests bring people and got to a good place. together in new ways and helps them solve problems. In your words, what quote would you want people to attribute A champion for women and to you? the development of minorities I’m not sure I can pick a quote. The ideas and sentiment found in in the advertising industry, That’s the Way of the World by Earth, Wind & Fire work really well Renetta dedicates her time for me. outside of the office to connecting with organizations What is your wildest dream? that serve those individuals Build a super-duper, truly protective shelter or shelters for and interests. endangered species—elephants, rhinos, etc. I think it’s important to protect nature and nature’s intelligence. What does the business world need more of? A better balancing of short results with long-term impacts.