HR Employee Relations retreat – Shark Tank recap

October 28, 2022

The Employee Relations Retreat took place in late September at 221 Whitney Avenue. It was the first in-person gathering for the team since 2020. The retreat’s purpose was to reconnect and clarify areas of continued evolution for Employee Relations (ER) and how it serves the Yale community.

As part of that goal, Georgia Masell and Kristi Gibson facilitated a teambuilding and problem-solving exercise inspired by the popular TV show “Shark Tank,” where members of the HR Leadership Team were invited to act as the “sharks” (investors).

To prep for the meeting, the team took time to consider how Yale Human Resources is changing as an organization and evolving our internal HR practice. The teams reflected on Yale’s HR Framework, including the HR Delivery Model, HR Purpose, and HR Strategic Priorities, then developed a concept card around an idea to advance our practice.

On the day of the retreat, the ER team was split into five groups and given one hour to review the concept cards and develop an idea into a pitch for the sharks.

The teams created their pitches with the idea of “making space” for higher-value work with the HR Framework as overarching guidance. The teams then had 10 minutes each to pitch while the sharks asked challenging questions, were thoughtful about any significant gaps in pitches, and provided feedback before voting. The voting options were as follows:

  • Advance– meaning the idea should move forward, pending appropriate approvals
  • Develop – the idea should be further developed and re-pitched at a future SLT meeting
  • Hold – we shouldn’t move forward at this time for a variety of reasons, such as timing or budget

Below are the pitches and results:

Group Pitch Result
Ingenious Geniuses

ESC Virtual Assistant – add virtual assistant chat box to Yale Human Resources Webpage to answer routine inquires to the ESC

Develop
The Solution Strategists

Designate one Friday a month to focus on ER. This affords everyone dedicated time to catch up on work, focus on professional development, prepare for important meetings, learn from a colleague, etc.

Advance - pilot for 6 months
The Kick Starters

Streamline investigations into a small group of SMEs to create space for HRBPS, reduce bias and ensure consistency of leveling for resulting disciplines

Advance
The Forward Thinkers

Create an Employee Relations Analyst role to increase the capacity for strategic work for HRBPs, provide data driven and high value solutions, and a strategic product for clients

Develop, but Geraldine is supportive if a team wants to pilot within exisiting resources.
The Change Makers Enhance the skill set of our ESC team to resolve requests, reduce low level tactical interactionsn for HRBP’s and provide faster responses for clients Advance the analysis of ESC requests

The ideas presented by the teams were all impressive, and the participants were excited to see their ideas supported and advanced to drive change in our organization.

Keeping with the shark theme for the day, Georgia and Kristi also facilitated a teambuilding activity called “Sneak a Peek,” assembling shark Lego kits. The group was broken into teams and allowed to send a representative to view the pre-assembled Lego set in another room for 10 seconds before returning to the group for 30 seconds.

This process continued as the teams tried to recreate the shark. The activity taught us a lot about how we work as a group, but it also revealed some self-imposed limitations we set for ourselves. During the retreat, we also refined our Employee Relations “Principles of Practice” and worked together to plan our FY23 priorities. It was a fun, laughter-filled, and highly productive day.