Why do you want me in HR? That was my first thought but like Ive said a bunch of times on this show and with the clients that I work with, that was a gift that I didnt see coming when my career turned to HR. Are there certain things that you hold dear that are in your muscle memory that, If Im developing somebody, these are the things Im going to do?, Its something that a lot of people leaders could benefit from understanding. I got an Accounting and Finance degree. /Pattern << "He understands the importance of the employee experience to our company strategy as we work to transform the financial planning experience for our clients.". To me, if you dont have your people managers on board with what youre trying to do, if youre in any kind of company where youve got a large organization, youre not going to communicate effectively to the people on the ground. What are some of the things you wish you would have knocked out of your head much earlier on that you would share with people who look at you, look at me and look at a lot of the people on your team and my team and say, I want to rise to that level at some point. Through a distinctive, whole-picture planning approach, we empower our clients to make the most of every single day and plan for important moments in their future. Northwestern Mutual Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers I know that you and I have sat through enough QVRs that we probably have DNR on the back of our badge, in case youre suffering death by PowerPoint, If I die, just let me go.. You have to realize that you own a tremendous gift of their career in your hands. << endobj Don understands how to meet the needs of a diverse workforce while employing strategic thinking to deliver real results for Northwestern Mutual, its workforce, and its clients. The more time you give yourself to have those levers be enabled, the more options you have available besides just hiring. How did we do it? Therefore, you become an environment thats known as developing talent. /Rect [34.5000000 120 553.500000 142.500000 ] I was like, I dont have to worry. << Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. Youre leading, guiding, coaching and mentoring how you develop, attract and source talent. Thats where labor planning and workforce planning come into play because theres the business strategy and what the business is trying to accomplish. Youre right. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. We had pages and pages. Its going to be much more applicable to whats going to be difficult at work. Thats true but I dont ever remember sending you an email or a text that wasnt instantaneously received and I was anywhere on the globe at that time. Its the one thing that we have done well. Your job is to develop the next generation of not just leaders but of talent.. I spent a number of years in what I would call the finance organizations, GE Capital is the name that most people would recognize, and then Stanford Research Institute, which was one of the great research institutes on tech. Ill put it that way. I knew you were like this with me. Maybe it might be good to pick their brains for some ideas as well. Northwestern Mutual ranks 104 on the 2018 FORTUNE 500 and is recognized by FORTUNE as one of the "World's Most Admired" life insurance companies in 2018. /Pages 2 0 R Get Contact Info for All Departments Northwestern Mutual Org Chart by Seniority Marketing (509) Lee Hurley Select KiwiSaver Scheme is part of the Finance industry, and located in New Zealand. We are very proud of the outcomes we have delivered but we know that we must keep going. The third thing is to try to give your employee base as much context as you possibly can. John M. Grogan is responsible for the strategy and performance of the company's insurance businesses. Don Robertson (March 21, 1929 - March 21, 1999) was an American novelist. Northwestern Mutual and its subsidiaries offer a comprehensive approach to financial security solutions including: life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability income insurance, annuities,lifeinsurance with long-term care benefits, investment products, and advisory products and services. I did this thing and I screwed up. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Whats your particular view? Don Robertson. This is a people business, and I can't think of a | 15 comments on LinkedIn Don Robertson on LinkedIn: Northwestern Mutual Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Large | 15 comments Ep146: Reshaping Talent Strategies With Northwestern Mutual EVP and CHRO Don Robertson Watch on Maintaining Engagement Through the Pandemic During the Great Resignation or Great Reshuffle, engagement for many companies significantly dropped. Mike Carter is the Chief of Staff to the CEO. /Border [0 0 0] Measured by 2020 revenue. You mentioned diversity. I appreciate it. /Type /Annot I could give you the standard things with leadership, Be honest and humble, but I thought I would try to give you things that were a little bit unique, maybe to some of the experiences. Don G Robinson Financial Representative . /Length 13 0 R Thats what I tell leaders. Don Robertson. Thats when our teams got to work. I interviewed you. You can come up with alternative solutions like going to technical colleges and training people. You can start to build internal processes so you can develop. Give my best to the family. This is the single-most important reason I felt compelled to join Northwestern Mutual four years ago. MILWAUKEE, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual today announced the appointment of Don Robertson to senior vice president and chief human resources officer. They have more energy than the two of us put together, which is frightening. You have some people reading and I know they do want to read. Were very data-driven. Weve married up, which was not expected of us. When I was working with you, talent was always on my brain, How are we doing it? Thats the one advantage of not being with a crazy tech company. Therefore, its things like enabling your employees to have a career and achieve their lifetime dreams. To be able to support as an HR leader for a function that you come from gives you an innate ability to understand the function in a way that, frankly, if you had never been in it, you wouldnt understand. 3 0 obj Ideally, what you will do over time is build your organization to be a talent engine so that it becomes second nature, but there are foundational elements that you have to put in place around talent succession planning, rising star analysis, talent management to career growth and career development. About Northwestern MutualNorthwestern Mutualhas been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for more than 160 years. 6U.r6F(>9lf1Q())#eyj_]5wjwikOQ16~FT39SlQPPG1F~F ix`1OgM I+;|m7F3'GWWuVG oDFky>F b9"xl|O Its a long story how I got into HR. Nothing fuels business more that highly engaged people who support it. endobj They wanted somebody with that kind of experience. It has got to be in the right location. MILWAUKEE, March 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual, a leading financial services company, announced today that it was selected by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers. You know how to drive the car that youre driving. Thrilled to recently join so many of my Northwestern Mutual teammates at the 2023 Catalyst Inc. It gave me more credibility with them in terms of the ability to build that trusting relationship so I could have more of an impact as an HR leader. You must have had an entirely different eye on that talent as compared to your normal recruiting talent acquisition and HR business partner. You cant ignore any piece of that. MILWAUKEE, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --Northwestern Mutual today announced the appointment of Don Robertson to senior vice president and chief human resources officer. Youve had some amazing insights. Theyve been great. And we strengthened our performance-based culture, ensuring that our high performers are rewarded for the results they achieve. See Profile. I answered the questions, gave my pint of blood and got off the stage right. It has to be threaded in your mainstream of what you do for talent. /Type /Annot /A << About Northwestern MutualNorthwestern Mutualhas been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for more than 160 years. RTS Financial. Don Robertson is now chief human resources officer. One of the most difficult things to help businesses understand is that the faster you can recognize what you need from a talent standpoint and put your talent on that, the faster you can accelerate your priorities. One of the things when I came here, I was good at what I did but when I got here, I realized that there are still probably some smart people here. 4 0 obj If people were going to tap dance on a question, its usually the weakness question, the failure or whatever form that that comes in. >> How do I get there faster, better and easier? What would you tell yourself? I remember that one of the things that imprinted on me early in my career was they used to evaluate senior leaders not just by the business performance but also by how many people are now in leadership positions across the organization that used to work for that person. We put in a whole new talent management process and offered coaching for each of our managers on how to have effective career and development conversations with their team members. Because so many people invested in me, Ive got to pay it to others twice as much. I said, Okay. She was like, I want to see this. I gave it to Caroline. Copyright 2019 The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI. Best Talent: Businesses have large appetites for things they want to do, but oftentimes then they dont think about the talent thats going to take to deliver that. #G0,qG0'Pcy Pc9NrQZcZ;Dgg;Q:!~0rrZ\ The next thing you know, theyre jumping at something when you probably could have had great opportunities for them had you been intentional about it. I havent stopped counting yet. The more window you have that you allow yourself to have to what youre going to need from talent, the faster you can start to deliver on your business strategies. /Subtype /Link Ive been doing this for many years and last time I checked, I still havent cornered the market on all the great ideas. I used to teach something. You cannot townhall your way to change management. M@bp6VCcT$*%R Don Robertson is the Chief HR Officer for Northwestern Mutual. Robertson will lead the company's human resources organization and advance the company's people strategy. I know its got to play in how you approach things. Its the ultimate compliment. I had a major pull me aside and he said, Be good, be brief, be gone. That was it. I have failed numerous times in my career. An example of that is sometimes how it can be difficult. Its okay that youve had those kinds but what did you learn from it? /Parent 2 0 R Phone . { d[-Xy7bx"zIuQ6MnCFk?0n^t0nV0}P\wT+1p;{nu(Vo,.e+!ajAu \vj3Y'#Tqf$i8wy_mn-gKU>$rY_ lBQ#qz5g:0|v64Ia\q(CA2`m=D^"aDtG)1c/d,XW3j"2 ciQgyIRbJQ)U#K&m2j[va /MediaBox [0 0 612 792] Schlifske joined Northwestern Mutual as an investment specialist and later led a variety of the company's investment operations as well as different parts of its business operations. The reason why I ask a lot of different questions in a lot of different ways is Im trying to understand your intellect. If youre in the business of constantly having to acquire talent because youre losing them or youre not attracting them, youre going to eventually fall behind, whether its in how quickly you do things, the quality of what you do or the ideas you come up with. m+LbPcByzbZ8&@eZre|(wa"A+mc1aDM~_Y#]l$0h+4qm{=9,s}sa^o{{sx]%6\pltk[;:ca$-`\k=O>+Ists:R.xesO{N'Z^5 P`lWwliLi8 7|Oj"4O 0`x >YLAep)^/Y=6P c j.qA\90jV!!`X fx?"$XN Fortunately, I got a chance to work with probably what I consider one of the greatest HR people Ive ever known, Marcela Perez De Alonso. Thats what I try to get to, is get people to not give me those pat answers but they have to think from their experiences how they would operate. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and its subsidiaries. In addition, she leads teams that oversee more than $570 billion in company and client assets. Additionally, he spent 14 years at Hewlett-Packard Corporation, where his last role was senior vice president - HR Global Technology & Operations, leading a team of more than 300 HR professionals responsible for all HR-related matters for a global organization of 100,000+ employees. Investment advisory and trust services are offered through Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC), Milwaukee, WI, a subsidiary of NM and a federal savings bank. << Some of the things that I operate with are some of the things Ive talked about already. When I first went in, it was more of theyre loaning me into the function for a period of time to help grow and develop the sales organization. This goes without saying, Whoever has the best talent is generally going to win. We are in a talent war. Somebody asked me, We talk in general terms about developing talent but do you have any specific tips as to how they would develop that talent? One of the things is we put such an emphasis that you have to develop your talent but many times, they dont see it from great leaders. There was nothing about the companys mission helping Americans make smart financial choices so their goals arent left to chance that needed to be fixed. On the contrary, a strong foundation was already in place one built over the companys storied 164-year history. I didnt get to work with some of those leaders that you mentioned. 7) What would you say to companies that dont put talent first? You can always hire externally but you also can build internal marketplaces. I tell people Im getting better every year. The gist of it was this was right around the time when the HR function was starting to realize as a function that they needed to have people that understood the business as well as understanding the domain of HR. We'd love to learn more about you, your team, and your challenges.Talent War Group is ready to help. 1 of the 2 of them was incessant. As a result of that, we need to do a lot of technological builds and other things client-wise. Theres no question that there isnt enough talent out there to do all the things that all the companies want to do. When you use that as an example of what youve done and thats where you failed on something and its real, profound and authentic, I found that it tends to draw people out. If you didnt come from the business, you would better be a student of. You have to approach the folks that youre privileged to have worked for you. We changed the way we communicate with our employee population. During this Great Reshuffling era marked by workforce shortages across industries, its never been more important for leaders to deliver on their companys employee value proposition. x][~s]^}lCHAC~)qH}CpIs9;;;||G]y,ySg7v'_h?,M7u&U)iPO4_jm~nA You got to go back and tell Don, 22 years old, after so many years of great wins and failures that you learned from, all of those things. /Type /Action >> /Creator ( w k h t m l t o p d f 0 . There are a lot of different levers you can pull. A key strategic advisor to the CEO, Mike is chair of the company's Senior Leadership Team and has oversight of the enterprise Quarterly Business Review (QBR) and Sustained Funding process. Northwestern Mutual sells two types of term life policies: Annual renewable term life and level term life. subsidiaries. In this episode, George Randle sits down for an insightful interview with EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual, Don Robertson. Congrats Don way to lead in a tumultuous time !!! I dont know why Caroline is in my head to this day on that one particular term. In this episode of Redefining HR, I spoke with Northwestern Mutual Executive Vice President and Chief HR Officer Don Robertson. MILWAUKEE, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual today announced the appointment of Don Robertson to senior vice president and chief human resources officer. /A << This includes overall leadership of product development and innovation, product line performance, risk selection standards, and underwriting. I feel its my responsibility to help prepare them for what theyre trying to achieve in their career and create an environment and experiences that give them the opportunity to hone those skills. Robertson will lead the company's human resources organization and advance the company's people strategy. Did they have to twist your arm or were you like, This is the next new challenge and frontier where I can impact? What was it for you? The failure could be as simple as, I did this decision. /CreationDate (D:20230418075228-04'00') Only those representatives with "Advisor" in their title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of NMWMC are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide investment advisory services. ES had $22 billion annual revenue and 110,000 employees. Don J. Robertson is responsible for the company's employee experience and he leads the Human Resources organization, as well as teams that manage the company's campuses, events and employee digital experience. 12 0 obj Northwestern Mutual is part of the Insurance industry, and located in Wisconsin, United States. "Don is a seasoned business leader who has delivered strong results at . Don Robertson is an Executive Vice President and the Chief Human Resources Officer of Northwestern Mutual a $30 billion in revenue, Fortune 90 financial services company; the largest U.S. provider of individual life insurance; and manager of more than $290.3 billion in policyholder assets. She came from the business and then went into HR. Im looking for someone who has a good attitude because nobody wants to work with people that are negative, especially in this day and age. Extremely gratifying to see Northwestern Mutual selected by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers. 5 0 obj The one that Ive landed on that works best is I start the question by describing a failure that Ive had. You have your best personality on and your right smile. Were going to focus on the defense and the offense. One of the biggest challenges that businesses that Ive been associated with always have been challenged with is businesses have very ambitious agendas and strategies. I was always picking up something good. The products and services referenced are offered and sold only by appropriately appointed and licensed entities and financial advisors and representatives. Im not going to give you the background on this amazing leader that he is the CHRO. The more of those experiences that youve had, especially unconventionally, the more that I can get confidence in how youre going to think and operate. Ray also oversees the Northwestern Mutual Foundation and strategic philanthropy efforts. She is also accountable for NM Future Ventures along with digital disruptor, Wyshbox. In fact, one of the things about the chef versus the baker is Bina was a great example of that. One of the reasons that I have the attitude about is because I was fortunate enough to work with one of the great talent multipliers of all time in business, Jack Welch in GE. Georgia Public Defender Council. It has to be threaded in your mainstream of what you do for talent. It can aid individuals and businesses to. I used to ask myself, Why do you think that is?, Ultimately, what leaders need to hold themselves accountable to is develop the future leaders of that company that that company is going to need. We took those precious pillars of our company off the table. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, draft status, bats, throws, school and more on Baseball-reference.com >> Extremely gratifying to see Northwestern Mutual selected by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers. Businesses live and die on the quality of their talent. The people leaders have to be an extension of the leadership teams. Here at Northwestern Mutual, we built and now consistently maintain 80%+ employee engagement levels across all our business units, across genders, across race, across tenure and more. /Rect [34.5000000 465 129 475.500000 ] For example, our company here now, weve got significant investments were making in technology, particularly significant investments were making in business initiatives to drive a better client and advisor experience. Change led us to where we are today and a continued commitment to innovation and adaptability will ensure an even stronger future. [ 8 0 R 9 0 R 10 0 R ] Lets turn it into that. The first half of my career was not in HR. They used to track that and give a lot of credit for that. /ca 1.0 You think youve got it all figured out. 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