"Maximizing Workforce Assets" was the title of a recent NIBA CEO and HR program held on February 19 at Trackside, Arlington Racecourse.

Forty member companies were present to hear Raymond Kedzior, President and CEO of LoDan Electronics, along with Danielle Rossini, Vice President Human Resources at LoDan and Kathryn Myers, President, First Word Learning Systems, present their ideas and a case study on how the concept of the learning organization resulted in an increase in sales and an environment of continuos improvement.

Kedzior began by giving a brief history of how the company expanded from being in the manufacturing reps business to becoming a manufacturer of connecting and interconnecting solutions with over 200 employees.

Kedzior sees three key elements to a learning organization. 1) that people need to constantly readjust 2) that change is continuous and 3) people must adjust and adapt to change or they will soon be gone. In order for your employees to embrace this continuous change there needs to be a forum in the company to explore these changes and that management needs to give up control to the employees.

It is very important that the company become proactive, especially when it comes to the customer. When your company is proactive you become the expert for the customer, you are able to anticipate what the customer needs and you are able to tell the customer what to do and where to go. It is very important that your company is continuously preparing for where you're going and what you're doing and to become curious so that you will seek out results.

Danielle Rossini explained the 5 disciplines of the learning organization. These include:

1. Personal Mastery. Creating an environment of people that will look at themselves and their goals and by doing this, expand their contribution to the organization.

2. Mental Models. Good mental models help shape ourselves and company to create a more positive environment.

3. Shared Vision. Everyone needs to know the goals and mission of the organization.

4. Team Learning

5. Systems Thinking

Kathryn Myers tied the presentation together by giving examples of how she has seen the learning organization concepts modeled at LoDan Electronics.

CALLING ALL MEMBERS

NIBA would like to have several representatives from our member companies participate in several new committees we are setting up. Committees include Education, Membership/Marketing and Technology. Please call us at 847-963-9860 if you are interested.

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH

Employers trying to find cost-of-living comparisons between two cities are finding that many job applicants have already done the math. The reason is an increasingly popular section of The Homebuyer's Fair web site. It's called the Salary Calculator and its located at:

http://www.homefair.com/homefair/cmr/salcalc.html

Users simply give the city they now live in, the city they want to move to, and their current salary. The calculator then determines the salary needed in the new location; that is, it calculates the income in the destination city which is equivalent to the salary in the city of origin. The data is collected from a variety of local, national, and governmental sources, including real estate boards, Chambers of Commerce, economic development centers and other sources. While it may not be scientific, the site has received a lot of publicity and is "linked to" by more than 2,000 other web sites.