Name: Brian Boylan
Title: Senior Vice President of Human Resources
Company: JDA Software
Years with company: 4
Years in current position: 2.5
Company established: 1985
No. of employees in AZ: 360
No. of employees in HR department: 12
www.jda.com
Someone must be doing the right thing when a company’s own employees are its most effective tool for recruiting new talent. At JDA Software, that someone is Brian Boylan, senior vice president of human resources.
Boylan is praised for helping establish a culture at the Scottsdale-based technology company that allows employees to succeed professionally and earn recognition for their accomplishments through extensive award programs. Although JDA uses recruitment and assessment tools, ultimately job candidates who interview are impressed by JDA’s culture and the collaboration among its staff members. Employees feed the candidate pipeline by offering referrals for openings.
JDA’s culture is in part created by a performance-management program strongly supported by Boylan. The program emphasizes continuous learning plans, 20 hours of professional development annually and 360-degree reviews centered on leadership skills. Boylan also developed an emerging-leaders program that brings potential company leaders together for development and pairs them with senior-executive mentors.
Boylan and his staff understand that well-rounded employees need balance in their lives. Employees may work from home to take care of personal matters. The human resources department also offers FranklinCovey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People seminar to give employees the tools they need to find a balance between work and home. Onsite, JDA provides a wellness program, yoga and a Nintendo Wii game room.
Diversity is another hallmark of JDA’s culture. As a global company, JDA has a presence in many countries with varied cultures, all of which are reflected in the company’s workplace.
Name: Tina Huff
Title: Executive Director of Human Resources and Organizational Development
Company: Pro’s Ranch Markets
Years with company: 3
Years in current position: 3
Company established: 1992
No. of employees in AZ: 1,945
No. of employees in HR department: 24
www.prosranch.com
As a growing upscale Hispanic grocery-store chain, Pro’s Ranch Markets takes extra steps to create diversity within its employee ranks and Tina Huff is deeply involved.
As executive director of human resources and organizational development for the Ontario, Calif.-based company, Huff works out of the regional office in Phoenix. Her department coordinates with several nonprofit agencies to provide work opportunities for refugees the organizations resettle in the United States. Huff’s department also offers jobs to Central and South American college students who work summers in the U.S. on visas. Onsite English-as-a-second-language classes are offered through Scottsdale Community College.
With more than 20 years of human resources management experience in several industries, Huff has a variety of responsibilities with Pro’s Ranch. This year, she directed development of the Ranchie Steps Program, which provides job-training modules and establishes compensation structures for each department companywide. This program shows how employees can grow professionally within Pro’s Ranch. In Arizona this year, Huff rolled out a retail management certificate program, tuition assistance, an apprenticeship training program for bakers and the ESL classes.
Pro’s Markets has been growing the past few years, opening two new stores in Arizona and expanding into Texas and New Mexico. Huff worked with the company’s operations and advertising departments to craft a plan for bringing in new staff. An internal talent assessment offers new employment opportunities for existing employees. Job candidates are recruited from local nonprofit and employment associations and through job fairs that attract as many as 5,000 people.
