10 November 2014
HR LearnAbout visits Provide Commerce and the Padres
HR students and professionals alike enjoyed the sunshine and sweets that highlighted Extension's HR LearnAbout program on October 22. Attendees first visited Provide Commerce, a premier gift company comprised of several brands including Shari’s Berries and ProFlowers.
After an information-packed session of presentations from VPs and HR veterans and supplemented by chocolate-covered strawberries, the LearnAbout continued to the home of the Padres: Petco Park in downtown San Diego.
Attendees pose on the field during the Fall 2014 session of the HR LearnAbout.
At Provide Commerce, attendees received a thorough background on the company’s culture, history, onboarding processes, and wellness and leadership initiatives. Provide carried its “WOW” Candidate Experience practices into the presentation by serving chocolate-covered berries from Shari’s Berries and truly demonstrating the company’s HR cultural beliefs and thoughtful approach to culture and staffing.
After a bus trip downtown, the LearnAbout gathered at Petco Park for a panel of Padres executives and staff members. Padres representatives educated attendees on the different dynamics of a professional sports organization and how staffing and talent acquisition are highly integrated into overall operations and company-wide initiatives.
The day of experiential learning reached its grand finale with lunch on the field and a tour of the facilities, including the visitors’ locker room and the Lexus Home Plate Club.
On behalf of our attendees and our staff, we thank Provide Commerce and the San Diego Padres for making our HR LearnAbout a successful event.
Takeaways from the HR LearnAbout
Provide Commerce
- Uses social learning network such as Yammer to share and store ‘institutional knowledge’
- Leader Power Hours: an initiative focused on business acumen and creating learning moments for participating employees
- A unique ‘spot reward’ whereby the employees get 'WOW' thank you cards from their managers
- Wowzers: a team of volunteers that contribute to employee engagement ideas (a self-reinforcing system)
- Diversity initiative: a women’s leadership network that promotes deserving female talent to C-suite
San Diego Padres
- Wellness programs that include health screenings and in-house flu shots
- Reward & Recognitions: ‘Pony Award’ for solution-oriented ideas
- Leveraging use of technology by conducting digital interviews, online open enrollment, and on-boarding
- Meeting needs of a unionized workforce
A room packed with attendees listens to HR executives and staffing professionals at Provide Commerce.
The HR LearnAbout happens twice per year, once in fall and once in spring. For information about when our next LearnAbout will happen, please log in to MyExtension, visit the Preferences tab, and subscribe to emails from HR Management and Organizational Development underneath the "Business" category.