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#WeAreGreenKey: Spotlight on Katie Kressel

06Jun
Green KeyGeneral Interest, Green Key News, Human Resources, Leadership + Management, Professional Support, Worklife

Welcome back to #WeAreGreenKey, where we shine a spotlight on our powerhouse recruiting team.  

We chatted with Katie Kressel, Director of Professional Support/Human Resources in New York. With previous experience in sales, Katie was able to translate her skills into a strong business development practice at Green Key. She emphasized the importance of building strong client relationships, her experience as a working mom, and specific trends she is seeing her clients shift toward in 2023. 

What is the benefit of being on the client side at a firm like Green Key? 

Client relationships require you to break down doors, which can be difficult at times. But once you get to know a client, you start to form a strong relationship where you get to know about their family lives, their children, their vacations. That’s the best part of it for me, even if it can often be challenging to get to that point. The missteps make the relationships stronger. 

What is the importance of building and sustaining strong client relationships? 

There are so many firms out there, so you have to make yourself stand out as a salesperson. The only way to do that is to build these relationships, so your clients remember you and return to you for the business. For instance, if a candidate didn’t quite work out, the client might not have continued using us going forward if we didn’t know each other so well. 

This is the year of business development. How do you build your book of business? 

When I first started, I was cold-calling and looking around LinkedIn to see who was hiring. I was also connecting with other divisions at Green Key. It was a great way to use internal relationships to build my client base. Almost every industry needs administration, Human Resources, and receptionists. This is a huge benefit of working at a firm like Green Key, where we support a wide variety of industries. 

How did you translate your sales rep experience into recruiting? 

I came from the fashion industry, where I was very burned out. When I started working in business development, I wasn’t afraid to pick up the phone and call somebody. For me, it was an easy transition, because I was used to having those conversations on the phone, especially once I became familiar with the staffing and recruiting lingo. 

Are there any trends you’re seeing with your clients right now? 

This time last year, I was mostly working on perm roles. Now I am seeing a shift, where it’s more 50/50 with temp and perm admin roles. There are a lot of law firms, accounting, hedge firms seeking temp roles. So, it’s balancing out from last year. I think the economy is shifting and clients are assessing whether they over or under-hired last year and pivoting accordingly. 

What has your experience as a parent been like while working for Green Key? 

I can’t imagine working anywhere else as a working mom. I’ve made more money than I ever thought possible with three kids at home. If I had still been in the fashion industry, I’d likely be a stay-at-home mom. Green Key has always been family-first. I can pick my daughter up from school during my lunch break and wrap up work later in the day. It’s given me the best of both worlds. 

What are your goals for business development this year? 

I want to break into new clients and focus on bringing in new business. I also plan to dabble more in LinkedIn Sales Navigator and adopt some different sales approaches.  

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Skills Are HR’s Biggest Post-COVID Priority

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Skills Are HR’s Biggest Post-COVID Priority

Driven by changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, human resources leaders have a full plate of priorities going into 2021. Topping their list is building the critical skills and competencies employees need to be successful at their job.

“Traditional ways of predicting skill needs aren’t working,” says the global research and consulting firm Gartner. “Employees need more skills for every job, and many of those skills are new.”

Presented in HR Leaders Priorities for 2021, an international survey of some 800 HR leaders, 36% of whom are CHROs, Gartner found reskilling the workforce was by far the most important issue for HR professionals. Almost 7-in-10 listed skills and competencies as their most important priority far exceeding the 46% who saw organizational design and change management as a top priority.

That training new skills should have emerged as such a critical issue is hardly surprising given that three-in-10 learning and development specialists said more than 40% of their workforce needs new skills because of COVID. In fact the rate at which the need for new skills just to do the same job is growing so fast that 31% of the HR leaders say they can’t create skill development solutions fast enough.

Leadership and the way the organization is structured are challenges both to the reskilling of the workforce – 36% admitted they don’t even know what skill gaps exist – and to the agility organizations need to be successful.

“Work design, focused for years on efficiency, has left many organizations with rigid structures, workflows, role design and networks that don’t meet today’s needs or flex with fast-changing conditions,” Gartner says. Citing another, smaller survey, Gartner said only 19% of HR leaders are confident their workforce can effectively shift direction to meet changing needs or priorities.

One reason: “Our managers aren’t equipped to lead change,” the Gartner survey found. A second reason: “Our leaders aren’t equipped to lead change,” 28% said.

Gartner identified three other priorities shared by the largest percentages of the HR respondents:

HR priorities - blog.jpg
  • Current and future bench strength (44%): “Our leadership bench is not diverse.”
  • Future of work (32%): “We do not have an explicit future of work strategy.”
  • Employee experience (28%): “Our employee engagement and employee experience strategies.”

Gartner says that in the post-COVID world, where remote work is common, disruption is to be expected and the expectations of employers have changed, it will be up to HR “to develop and evolve critical managerial and leadership roles and responsibilities, new organization structures and virtual HR strategies.”

HR leaders, concludes Gartner, “must navigate the new realities of the labor market to meet their talent needs and the expectation of their employers.”

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

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Worklife
Jun 6, 2023

Here’s How to Tame Those New Job Jitters

Worklife
Jun 6, 2023

Here’s How to Tame Those New Job Jitters

The first three months of the year are when more people start new jobs than any other time. That’s when new budgets kick in for most companies and when workers most feel the urge to change jobs.

If history is any guide, then about 16 million people will start a new job by the end of March. Most of them will experience the new job jitters, worrying if they made the right decision, anxious about making a good impression and wondering what it will be like leaving the familiar behind to venture into the unknown.

If you’re one of them, take comfort in knowing that what you’re feeling is common. LinkedIn recently noted that 80% of professionals admit to being nervous before starting a new job. (That other 20%? We suspect they just didn’t admit it.) Feeling that way is natural and no amount of advice is going to change that. Preparation and taking small steps will tamp down the jitters and help you fit in more quickly.

LinkedIn advises newcomers to ask questions instead of jumping in with ideas. You may indeed know a better process, but before you go suggesting it, observe. There may be good reasons why something is being done the way it is, so better to find that out and avoid being shot down.

A Fast Company article puts it this way, “Show respect for and follow your manager’s and coworkers’ advice, even on little things. Check out how your colleagues tackle workplace culture and politics, to get a vibe from the environment.”

However, if you know how to unjam the copier, by all means volunteer. That will make you an instant new friend.

Fast Company also recommends you begin building relationships as soon as you walk in the door. The busier the office, the more people you’ll meet those first few days, which makes remembering who’s who difficult. So adopt that time-honored networking technique by using their name immediately — “Pleased to meet you, Debra” not just “Pleased to meet you.” If you can associate the name with a personal characteristic, it will aid your recall.

Later, make an effort to strike up a conversation with your new colleagues. Asking questions about office procedures is an obvious and innocuous way to start one. If you’re invited to lunch, go.

Another tip is to meet with your new boss as soon as possible for a one-on-one. You want to find out what’s expected of you, where you can go for help and support, and how you’ll be measured. You may have asked some of these questions during the interview. But that was then. Now you’ll need to get more specific and detailed.

There’s no question starting a new job is stressful: 42% of us worry we won’t like; 32% worry our new boss or co-workers won’t like us; and, 55% of us worry we won’t be good enough fast enough. But taking small steps at first, asking questions, rather than showing what you know, and letting your manager know you care about doing the job they expect will earn you respect and support and get you started off on the right foot.

Image by Werner Heiber

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