Manage HR Magazine: Specials Magazine

Dr. Robert Rustman heads Human Resources at LRS (Lakeshore Recycling Systems), bringing nearly two decades of HR leadership experience, including prior roles at Comcast and Securitas in HR business partnership and DE&I. He holds a PhD and has focused on aligning people strategy with business growth, throughout his career. Improving teammates’ quality of life at work begins with knowing what their working day is really like. Dr. Robert Rustman makes it a priority to be visibly present among workers and understand their experiences first-hand. This presence is particularly significant in the waste and recycling industry, where much of the workforce spends its day on the front line, working in physically demanding conditions. An important part of that effort is ensuring operational leaders can do more than just hear teammates’ concerns. Dr. Rustman wants them to have the tools to respond and make a difference in their teams’ everyday working lives. His goal is to make LRS a place where teammates feel welcome, valued and can see a future for themselves. A Listening Process That Turns Feedback into Action One way LRS understands teammates’ experiences and identifies areas that need attention is through its annual teammate engagement survey. Leaders review the responses, identify actionable goals and share the findings with their teams. Teammates are then invited to contribute their ideas, and leaders work on those priorities throughout the year. Dr. Rustman also values LRS’s partnership with ADP Lyric, an Human Capital Management System that gives operational leaders access to dashboards showing turnover and retention trends. The dashboards help leaders track what is happening within their teams and identify areas that need attention. The improvement is evident in LRS’s retention figures. Over two years, teammate turnover fell from 45 percent to 28 percent, a milestone Dr. Rustman considers significant. The reduction has helped LRS save on r