The Human Factor: Jami Schultz Unlocks the Power of People at Canon USA

This episode features an interview with Jami Schultz, Senior Director of Employee Relations and Development at Canon USA. Canon is a leading provider of consumer, B2B, and industrial digital imaging solutions. In her role, Jami makes sure employees love their jobs, and she solves people problems every day. In this episode, she’ll share what tools, ideas, and programs set her, the company, and employees up for success.Quotes*“Employee Relations is really the employee's first go-to person for any issues, questions relating to their employment experience. Whether it's about their career, their performance, if they're having issues with their manager or a coworker. That all comes to their HR business partner first.”*“One of our strongest assets in our culture is the people. So many people at Canon, if you ask them what's one of the things they love most about their job, it's the people. It's the relationships that we have with our colleagues, with our management team. And that's definitely what I have found, too. It is just such a collaborative, collegial environment.”*“I've always said, ‘If you are gonna spend so much of your day to day in a job, you better like the people that you're spending all that time with.’”*“Now we've really settled into what we call a hybrid work style for the majority of our employees, where we are all in the office together two days a week on the same two days, and then we're able to work remotely three days a week. So I love to say I think it's the perfect balance in terms of time together in the office to be collaborative, to have that experience of connecting with each other, but also having the flexibility to work from home.”*“One thing that has been very important to us for a couple of years and became even more so coming out of the pandemic, was doing our employee engagement surveys… That's really important because that gives us direct feedback from the employee population as to things that they think are working, things that may not be working as well. It's listening to that feedback and actually making meaningful changes as a result of that feedback.”*“Sometimes it's those cross-divisional recognitions that mean so much because it's wonderful to know that your manager or someone in your management chain is recognizing your work. But to hear that someone else in a completely different division is recognizing your contribution and thanking you for that work is very, very meaningful. So I think that was a big strategy for us, was finding a way to give employees on the spot recognition that they were looking for.”*“A lot of times HR will help almost serve a mediator function. We will help the employee and the manager find a better way to communicate, make sure that the manager is properly communicating the expectations to the employee, and making sure the employee fully understands the expectations.”*“The big lessons learned for the future are definitely communicating. Giving as much advance notice of important things as possible, and just being able to react and respond quickly to changing outside circumstances.”*“Always listen. Listening is so, so, so important. If you really listen, first of all, it lets the person that is coming to you with an issue feel like they're being heard. And that's often what an employee needs, just as much as anything, is to be heard.”Time Stamps[00:00:00] Jami’s start in HR[00:02:30] How HR can problem-solve[00:04:56] Maintaining positive relationships with employees[00:10:16] How Canon uses engagement surveys[00:17:36] Celebrating employees for a positive company culture[00:24:27] Navigating the hybrid workspace[00:30:34] HR as a mediator[00:37:47] Listening as the end-all, be-allLinksConnect with Jami on LinkedInCheck out Canon USAThanks to our friendsThis episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io