HR CONSULTING CASE STUDY
CHRO
For nearly a decade, my client has been a trailblazer in the field of visual computing. Their groundbreaking work lies at the forefront of the most significant technological trends including virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The employees who drive these innovative concepts forward are rewarded with engaging work and competitive compensation. While recruitment tactics may initially attract top talent, retaining these exceptional individuals in the long-term requires more than just promises; it necessitates a genuine display of appreciation and support. My client demonstrates their commitment to their employees by offering a range of benefits including health and financial perks that go above and beyond. Central to the company’s ongoing communication of these benefits is their dedicated benefits website. This platform, accessible to employees and their families around the clock, serves as the cornerstone of the company’s year-round benefits strategy. Located outside the firewall, it ensures easy access to important information and resources for all members.
We collaborated to launch an innovative open enrollment marketing campaign for a new suite of benefit perks tailored to appeal to employees in all stages of life. This campaign utilized striking design and bold messaging specifically crafted to captivate the predominantly male demographic of engineers, scientists and other tech professionals. The comprehensive benefits package offered by this campaign included a range of robust and often unique offerings. These included student loan debt repayment, identity theft protection, a subsidy for public transportation, adoption assistance, enhanced care for individuals with special needs, seniors, and pets, tutoring and housekeeping services as well as increased company contributions to health savings accounts.
In addition to the benefits website, posters, emails, digital displays, on-site meetings and unique media like stand-up displays and cafeteria placemats were implemented to enhance the communication of information regarding open enrollment. The success of the campaign was attributed to the decision to avoid using typical HR and benefits terminology in favor of using clear, engaging language and simple English. We even went a step further by removing ambiguous terms such as “Platinum,” “Elite” and “Supreme” from medical plan names and instead renamed its high-deductible plans as “HSA plans.”
The engaging benefits campaign successfully captured the attention of employees as intended. Participation in High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) saw a significant increase from 20% to almost 40% with all individuals enrolled in an HDHP taking responsibility for contributing to their Health Savings Account (HSA). During a year of passive enrollment, 90% of employees actively enrolled. Employees praised the communication efforts as innovative and engaging using terms like ‘fresh’ to describe the approach. Enrollment meeting attendance reached an all-time high demonstrating the success of the communications. Website traffic surged to over three times the normal levels during the enrollment period surpassing the numbers seen during any previous open enrollment period.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY
Chief Technology Officer
Facing the challenge of an aging data center and an expiring long-term lease, a multi-regional IT company set out to establish a cutting-edge data center to support its operations and facilitate future growth. With $5 million in funding secured and a 6,000 square foot facility identified, the company found itself in need of an experienced project manager to oversee the 12-month undertaking. Recognizing the importance of this initiative as a cornerstone for future consolidation and infrastructure modernization efforts, the company sought a skilled individual to manage the high-visibility data center move.
I was tasked with assembling a team of technical IT and engineering experts to collaborate with external resources to ensure the success of the program. My first step was to break down the 12-month timeline into four distinct components each with specific objectives: (1) Establish a state-of-the-art 6,000 square foot facility. (2) Transfer 200 physical and virtual servers along with network infrastructure to the new data center. (3) Enhance the existing office space and relocate 50 employees to the company’s main campus. (4) Decommission the old data center.
I held a direct reporting relationship with the head of the company’s Program Management Office (PMO) and collaborated closely with the Chief Technology Officer as the project sponsor of the initiative. A crucial aspect of my role was the ability to effectively engage with various groups ranging from construction trades to union staff to senior executives demonstrating a deep understanding of each group’s contributions towards achieving the program’s objectives.
The successful completion of the new 6,000 square foot data center was achieved within the allocated $5 million budget and delivered on-time. All project objectives were accomplished without any business disruptions throughout the entire 12-month duration. As a result, the company now possesses a state-of-the-art data center with the capacity to expand by an additional 30% enabling further operational consolidation in the future.
MARKETING CASE STUDY
Chief Marketing Officer
My client had a well-established brand presence particularly known for their external hard drives and gaming hardware. However, with the recent launch of their cloud wireless storage product, they sought to reposition their brand to encompass cloud services alongside their existing product lines. This required entering a highly competitive keyword market to shift Google’s association with the brand to include cloud computing.
In order to establish a strong presence in the cloud computing keyword competition, I began by focusing on the basics. This involved developing a content calendar, streamlining workflows and obtaining necessary approvals. The editorial workflow was continuously refined to optimize content production and publication processes.
Through in-person workshops and collaboration with the internal team, we were able to generate content on a monthly basis. By taking a more proactive approach, we successfully increased the volume of published content. A streamlined process reduced friction and improved workflow efficiency resulting in the publication of 60 pieces in a single quarter.
In order to accurately attribute increases in website traffic to specific pages and keywords, I segmented the traffic into three distinct categories: cloud, mobile and blog. Regardless of the type of content being published, I made sure to direct the call-to-action towards a unified goal of driving traffic to landing pages promoting the new cloud-solution. This strategic approach allowed to track the effectiveness of content in increasing awareness of cloud-based offerings among users conducting cloud, mobile or direct blog searches.
In the realm of SEO, achieving results requires both time and consistency. Throughout this process, it was crucial to have confidence in the impact of the content and its ability to deliver significant returns. By refining the content strategy to focus on cloud-related keywords and optimizing the content queue, positive results were seen in terms of increased traffic and engagement with an 80% increase in organic traffic to the blog, 60% improvement in search engine rankings and 50% increase in targeted organic traffic.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE CASE STUDY
Glenn Abood, CEO, rfxcel
rfxcel is the first company of its kind to focus on the safety of the pharmaceutical supply chain and bring advanced track and trace software to manufacturers, repackagers, wholesalers, distributors and dispensers. In 2018, when initially reaching out to Stark Accelerators Commercial Real Estate, rfxcel was headquartered in San Ramon, CA. Ken Stark leveraged his working experience in the Bay Area and high tech industry to quickly create a trusting relationship with rfxcel’s co-founder and CEO, Glenn Abood, whose goal was to relocate company headquarters to Reno.
Moving a company’s operations is no small feat and there are multiple factors to consider – minimizing downtime, ensuring consistent access to clients and providing employees with a smooth transition, to name a few. Because of rfxcel’s tremendous growth at the time of their move, turnkey space was necessary to allow them to settle in quickly. With even more growth projected, the location needed to also be able to accommodate. The Stark team delivered on both fronts, securing commercial real estate and then negotiating flexible terms that helped rfxcel meet their short-term goals and be solidly positioned for the future.
Beyond assisting them in securing an ideal physical space, Stark Accelerators made sure rfxcel was connected to resources that would allow them to take full advantage of Nevada’s corporate tax benefits and incentives. Introductions were made to EDAWN (Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada) and to Nevada’s governor, allowing rfxcel to quickly establish itself in the business community. Stark also made sure rfxcel hit the ground running by connecting the company with IT vendors and other service providers. To note, Glenn believes his decision to move to Reno has been wise and he will continue to partner with Stark to locate an even larger space in the future as well as other projects.
CONTACT
RENO OFFICE9855 Double R Blvd.,
Suite 200 Reno, Nevada 89521
BOISE OFFICE3100 North Lakeharbor Ln.,
Suite 166, Boise, ID 83703
