Crisis? What crisis? HR at Dell

When asked at a recent new hire induction at Dell why he'd remained with the company for so long (nine years and counting), Karl Solomonson had to think quickly before responding. "No one had asked me that question before," he says. "It's obviously an amazing company to work for, but for me personally it's about my career. I can't count how many different roles I've had in the organisation. I've had roles spanning the Australia-New Zealand business, senior HR roles looking after HR for South Asia, looking after different segments of the business through Asia-Pacific and Japan, through to my current role as HR business partner for our public sales organisation in Asia-Pacific and Japan. My message to the new hires was this: Anything is possible in this company, and there are no barriers to your success. Dell paves the way but it's up to you as individuals to go wherever you want to go."

Early career
Solomonson has been a passionate advocate of the HR profession for many years, yet his career could have easily taken a different path. Despite leaving school with the intention of becoming an accountant, a switch towards organisational behaviour/personnel management and IR subjects while undertaking his Bachelor of Business put HR firmly on his radar.

Solomonson's first job out of university was a cadetship with diversified manufacturing company CSR. His primary focus was industrial relations. "I found myself partnering with the senior IR team and being an advocate in front of the industrial tribunals and commissions. I really enjoyed the thrill of putting the company's position forward in an industrial tribunal and negotiating with unions. That's where I learnt my bread and butter, and it's carried me all the way through my career," he says.

After a six month run in CSR's IR team Solomonson was encouraged to move into the broader field of personnel management. Through the company he moved to Adelaide and spent the next six years in a variety of roles, including heading the personnel management function for the sugar refinery. "That was a heavily unionised environment but I learnt that it wasn't just about having a win, it was about win-win. I discovered how people could contribute to the overall success of organisations and we did some remarkable things back then in terms of working with the unions for a common cause. The factory was targeted to be shut down but by working with our people and the unions we extended the life of that factory considerably. I found myself using those skills not in opposition but in alignment with the leadership of the organisation," he explains.

Over the following years Solomonson moved onto HR roles in manufacturing, stevedoring, IT distribution, and finally tech with Dell.

HR at Dell
Globally, Dell is segmented into four businesses: large enterprise, public sales, small-medium business, and consumer. HR is aligned to those four business segments. In keeping with this global approach to HR, Solomonson currently holds duel roles at Dell. In his regional role as a HR business partner he supports the vice president of public sales for Asia-Pacific & Japan. He's also the site leader for the Australia-New Zealand business. As head of the HR function for public sales Solomonson does not have any direct reports but he does work with the HR field services team in each country to roll out initiatives developed in consultation with the company's 'centres of excellence'. The APJ public sales role entails responsibility for some 2,000 employees, while the Aust/NZ role includes responsibility for 1,000 employees.

"As a support function we're aligned very closely with the four global entities. The reason for that is we're a customer centric organisation. This structure allows us to work directly with our customers in those areas of business. Each of our respective HR organisations partners with each of those businesses. We develop strategies, solutions, programs which are aligned internally and externally to our customers. It's not a one size fits all approach for HR in Dell; it's based on the requirements of each of those business units. However, there are core programs, and underpinning everything is our strategic plan for the corporation," he says.

A key HR strategy
For the second year running Dell Australia has been recognised by the EOWA for driving change towards a more equitable workplace. Joe Kremer, CEO and MD of Dell Australia, is a particularly passionate diversity advocate and was recognised as the Leading CEO for the Advancement of Women in the 2009 citations.

Solomonson recalls sitting down with Kremer not long after he joined the Australian team to discuss talent requirements: "At the time we were in growth mode and needed to make sure we were bringing in the right level of talent into the organisation. We realised that we could continue to develop our diversity program to bring the best talent into Dell - whether that is male or female talent. That started the journey and I now look at this as the key strategic item in my people plan."

Kremer has also been instrumental in setting up Women In IT Executive Mentoring (WITEM), which is positioned around accelerated development of senior women within the IT industry. Since establishment four years ago, over 100 pairs of mentors and mentees have taken part, hailing from the IT industry (including vendors like Dell), as well as IT executives and CIOs from different industries including financial services, manufacturing, and legal. The 12 month program consists of senior level executives volunteering to act as mentors to upcoming senior managers. The mentor is able to nominate one senior executive from their company to be mentored, who is then matched with a CIO from an alternate company.

"WITEM is the external arm of our executive women in mentoring program, but parallel to that we built our internal strategy around diversity. We've built career development programs and also reassessed our employee benefits. We've introduced workplace flexibility such as job sharing, part time hours, work from home options and greater leave allowances. Whatever we do we're focused on equal opportunity. Predominantly these programs were designed to further the careers of women, but it also benefits the entire employee population," says Solomonson.

Indeed, Solomonson confirms these initiatives form a key part of the company's branding and EVP. "I have to say it's a strong selling point for us. Candidates do look for it. We've hired countless individuals into the organisation, male and female, because the values of Dell fit in with their values."

Perhaps even more crucial, Solomonson has found the flexible work options contribute to overall employee engagement. The company's internal 'Tell Dell' culture surveys and three successive Hewitt Best Employer awards confirm this, but so do the financial results. "It's clearly working for the company. We've hit our targets for the last 12 quarters in Australia and New Zealand. We haven't missed a beat," Solomonson says.

"Over my nine years at Dell one of the key priorities has been maintaining employee engagement. That's part of the reason why we introduced our family friendly policies and started to emphasise how people could make a career in Dell. We introduced our annual HR planning session with not only our local leadership but also our regional president, who set aside two days of his time to come to the Aust New Zealand operations to speak about people issues. We really put people on the agenda."

Still hiring
As for the future, Solomonson maintains there are two key areas to focus on: attracting talent and building leadership capability. To the first point, unlike countless other organisations, Dell has had stellar performance over the last 12 months and has in fact been hiring.

"The key focus area for me in 2010 will be to continue to attract talent to our organisation. That's why our equal opportunity strategy is so crucial. We also need to build our leadership capability by not only bringing in external leadership talent but also developing talent within the organisation."

Does Solomonson believe the last 18 months has only been a brief reprieve in the talent war?

"I believe so, yes. I was at a senior HR networking forum recently and the two areas of concern for just about every HR professional at that event was talent attraction and talent retention. The problems all organisations faced 18 months ago with talent attraction will return before too long."

In his own words...
What do you consider to be your biggest greatest career achievement so far?
For me it's about flexibility and adaptability. In a previous company I worked for I was recruited into the organisation to close down and relocate one of its manufacturing facilities. That's not a fun thing to do. We had almost 100% success rate in finding roles for the majority of people in that facility with other manufacturers in the area. I also had to put myself out of a job as well. I took on a different role in that organisation and that role was to become the training director. Part of that role was technical training, not training in leadership, etc. I had to learn how to engineer a paper manufacturing machine and then I had to teach that to engineers. What that means is in order to be successful in HR you've got to be able to get to know the business - whether that's becoming a subject matter expert on a particular piece of engineering equipment or understanding the finances of the organisation.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in your career?
This is a word of advice to other HR practitioners or just people in general. A long time ago I was asked to do something by my then current manager which I felt was not in keeping with my values. In my view I felt that potentially that request was in violation of the company's ethics and code of conduct, but as a young HR practitioner I was under a lot of pressure at the time to do as I was told. I thought about it, but at the end of the day I felt if it meant my job, it meant my job. I stood up and said no. At the time I didn't have the leadership capability to draw upon to help manage that situation so I just followed my judgment - and my judgment was correct. That person left the organisation soon after. I didn't compromise my values and I didn't put the company at risk.

Where do you see HR as a profession heading?
It's all summed up in my current title. I'm called a business partner. Quite often I will be called into a discussion with my VP which has nothing to do with HR. I'm always in conversations regarding all sorts of things, whether they're to do with the way in which we compensate individuals through to the way in which we approach a customer issue. The reason for that is all HR practitioners are able to take a different perspective on things. The days of HR demanding a seat at the table are long gone. We have to be able to deliver value to the business. For me that's delivering value through people based strategies that are aligned to our company strategies. I realise I would never be asked back into conversations if I could not demonstrate that value add.