Alice Dendinger, SPHR
HR Alchemist
Alchemizing HR is an integration of people, purpose and process. The first ingredient is always people who define and deliver on purpose and process. It always comes down to people who significantly help or hinder progress and workplace productivity. Alchemizing HR is finding the perfect blend of solutions generated from the talent, wisdom and resources of the people involved.
As a Lifetime Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and Human Resource (HR) Alchemist, Alice Dendinger has collected or developed several tips, tools and techniques customized to meet the very unique needs of people in the workplace. In sharing her knowledge, skills, abilities and talents with you, she helps you reflect on your own and those of the workforce. Through consultant/client collaboration, the gap between desired and actual people performance is analyzed and solutions integrated.
Group culture is what drives, derails or transforms organizational culture. After 40 years as an HR Professional, Mediator, Communication Strategist, Public Speaker, and Coach, Alice joyfully collaborates and serves a select number of clients in an effort to create the outcomes you envision.
of employees are engaged.
Employee engagement is a strong predictor of organizational performance. It impacts everything including customer loyalty, profitability, sales productivity, production, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism, quality, employee wellbeing and participation in the success of the business. In a highly engaged workforce, employees feel valued intrinsically and extrinsically.
of employees are actively disengaged.
These employees may even be sabotaging your business. Certainly, they create a “social contagion” whereby their unhappiness is spread like a virus to others in the organization. These employees are your contrarians who have miserable work experience and show it in what they say and do – or don’t do.
are not engaged.
These employees are psychologically unattached to their work and their company. They are also on the lookout for better employment opportunities and will quickly leave their company for a slightly better offer. Studies also say that psychological attachment is directly related to the degree of psychological safety which is grounded in mutual trust.
We Know the Impact of Employee Engagement and Group Culture in the Workplace
Alice Dendinger and her team of very capable consultants know the critical relationship between employee engagement, group culture and organizational culture. HR Systems significantly impact the life cycle of every employee within the organization. The level of employee engagement is in direct response to the success of the HR Systems. You put a bad system against a good employee and the bad system will win every time and the good employee leaves.
HR Systems provide the foundation of whether or not employees at every level are engaged. Since 2000, the Gallup organization has been surveying thousands of US employees. If your business is in the higher quartile, you will have nearly five times the success rate of those at the 1st percentile.
Gallup research has shown that employee engagement is very changeable inside organizations when leaders focus on the right practices. In our opinion, those right practices begin within an HR department that is credible, trusted and collaborative with employees at every level.
If you wish to elevate employee engagement, begin by looking at your HR Systems and group culture and how they fit into your organizational culture. Begin by examining the individuals who comprise the group culture to understand their informal combination of behaviors, values, and attitudes. The HR Alchemist will support you in discovering the many important and unique priorities, needs, goals, fears, emotions, and behaviors in your workforce that all contribute to the level of employee engagement. To improve your organizational culture, you must begin with looking at the individual and group culture.
Engagement is just the beginning of transformational change. However, it does not stop there. Engagement will soon disintegrate if you do not have a meaningful long-term purpose and direction for the company, and your employees know where the organization is headed. Engagement means nothing if employees are faced with chaos and confusion in your systems, structure, processes, and values. If there is no employee alignment, and a universal lack of feeling regarding ownership, commitment and responsibility, your organization will become stagnant and obsolete. Sound HR Systems contribute to elevated employee engagement and group culture which is the catalyst of a strong organizational culture.
Our Approach
Alice Dendinger, SPHR, collaborates with a talented team of seasoned consultants who have unique knowledge, skills, abilities and talents in all areas of business and HR Systems. We work a bit backwards as we start by discussing your vision and desired results instead of what we have to offer. We may customize a blend of solutions to meet your needs. We see everything as part of a system that has a direct or indirect impact on the other systems within your organization. Our approach is fluff-free and direct. We have fun with a purpose and a passion for your employee well-being and business results.
Our approach is built upon mutual respect and value for each other.
Step One – Your Vision and Goals
We work with individuals and organizations with an insatiable curiosity about who you are and understanding your vision and goals.
Step Two – Digging Deeper
We dig deeper into discovery about what is hindering your people, work processes or organization from getting the results you want.
Step Three – Implement Solutions
We support you as you implement appropriate solutions to bridge the gap between current obstacles and needed results.
Our Services
Since our work with you is based on your needs, our services can vary. The following is just an overview and provides an idea of where we are best noted for excellence. If you need a service that is not mentioned here, please contact Alice Dendinger as she is eager to talk with you about your unique needs, and how she or one of the members of her network can support you in success. In general, we work with strategic management, organizational development, employee relations, team cohesion, mindful communication, mediation and conflict resolution, performance management; and assisting the leaders, managers, supervisors, and direct reports at every level to work better together within your desired culture.
Strategic and Implementation Planning
We often start here with a spirit of inclusion, collaboration and creativity. We support you in writing or clarifying your vision, identifying your values, prioritizing your goals, and establishing an implementation plan of who will do what by when and why and how it will be measured.
Training, Facilitation and Action Planning
We are not “off the shelf” trainers. We customize every session based on your targeted needs. The goal of training and development is to achieve permanent measurable improvements in performance that have a positive impact on the business results.
Mediation and Productive Conflict in Organizations
The HR Alchemist is a mediator with 25+ years of experience in facilitating the resolution of workplace disputes. Introducing the concept of Productive Conflict into organizations is a passion and purpose. Without conflict, organizations stagnate and there is no creativity.
Words of Wisdom
“Employees who take 100% responsibility of their task and work relationships actually get more done with less effort.”
“Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.”
“If leaders and managers would look first at themselves when searching for the origins of a problem, the organization moves forward at an accelerated rate.”
“There is no use in trying, “ said Alice; “one can not believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“Good to great companies first got the right people on the bus – and the wrong people off the bus – and then figured out where to drive it.”
“We can not solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
“I came to see in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it IS the game. In the end, an organization is no more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.”
‘Creating a positive future begins in human conversation. The simplest and most powerful investment any member of a community may make in renewal is to begin talking with other people as though the answers matter to them.”
“Cultures can have powerful consequences, especially when they are strong. They can enable a group to take rapid and coordinated action against a competitor or for a customer. They can also lead intelligent people to work, in concert, off a cliff.”
Definition of Culture:
“A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems that has worked well enough to be considered valid and should be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel.”
“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”
“Members of great teams trust one another on a fundamental, emotional level, and they are comfortable being vulnerable with each other about their weaknesses, mistakes, fears, and behaviors.”
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones.”
“We tend to judge others based on their behavior, and ourselves based on our intent. In almost all situations, we would do well to recognize the possibility – even probability of good intent in others…sometimes despite their observable behavior.”
“In God we trust, all others bring data.”
“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
“The only difference between men and rats is that rats learn from their mistakes.”
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
“Management gets the workforce it deserves.”
“We cannot drive people; We must direct their development.”
“A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.”
“It is not enough to change strategies, structures, and systems, unless the thinking that produced those strategies, structures, and systems also changes.”
“Even with our best efforts, however, we cannot get it right. The source of the problem is not the people involved – it is the appraisal system itself, its very nature and its unseen, underlying premises.”
“Effective organizations are those, which produce excellent results by any measure of costs, quality, or efficiency while simultaneously enhancing the energy and commitment of organizational members to the success of the enterprise.”
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”
“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did. They will remember how you made them feel.”
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”