MAXON Lift Corp

Raymundo Sidon

Workforce Culture Champion

Raymundo Sidon is Senior Vice President of HR Operations at MAXON Lift Corp, overseeing talent strategy, culture and organizational development across a multi-generational, privately held workforce.

Core Principles for Building High-Performing Teams

Given that we are a privately held company, we value and continue to promote and create a culture of unity, trust, commitment and significance. Approximately 80% of our employee population has been with Maxon for over 5 years, and our turnover rates are in the lowest single digits. The HR role within Maxon is not your traditional recruitment, benefits, compensation and employee benefits, or succession planning. The role requires much, much more.

As an HR business partner, we are involved in every aspect of the company that involves human resources; as you can imagine, that is every department and just about all decisions. This helps foster a strong culture of being and belonging. In addition, recruitment plays a significant role; depending on the opportunity we have, hiring the right collaborator is key to building a long-term value-added team.

The Most Significant Challenge Facing HR Leaders Today

In today's rapidly evolving workplace, there are a few significant challenges. For starters, we have the generational change which encompasses new generations, while in most circumstances, Gen X are managing the businesses, the challenge is the flexibility and or the AQ adaptability IQ, not only to understand the workforce, but also to embrace it and succeed alongside them. We should welcome it as an opportunity rather than a challenge.

Another challenge and or opportunity is the ability to use artificial intelligence as an effective tool, rather than consider it a replacement for employees. This is a tough one, especially with the hype that supports most of it. We must embrace it as a tool, rather than a replacement. Lastly, flex work schedules and all that come with it, some employees welcome it, others cannot and are more present-based. Using the tools necessary to create a win-win in most scenarios will most likely be the solution; it will need some give and take.

How the Role of HR Has Transformed

The HR role has now become what I like to call an operational role, that is to say, "Human Resources Operations." This role allows the business partners at all levels to be involved in every aspect of the business, including working side by side with CFOs and COOs, as well as having a key number of HR background individuals sitting on boards of directors.

Why? We start the process from the beginning, with newly hired employees, for the right fit and then set the structure for the company culture as it is rolled out by top management. As strong as the company or industry leaders are, having a capable, adaptable and well-rounded HR business partner is key and helps ensure the most favorable business decisions to value the business.

A Leadership Lesson From Rolling Out AI and Automation

One leadership experience that is currently ongoing is the introduction of AI and automation to our corporation. At first, employees thought it would eliminate their employment. We quickly rolled out a plan to show the workforce how this would help long term, and let them know employment would not be affected, rather job functions would change, some became technicians rather than welders, others became programmers rather than maintenance techs and given we have a large number of employees that have been with us for over 10 years, we parlayed that into hiring some of their children who graduated as engineers.

We have multi-generational employees at our facilities. Lessons, the rollout is key, as the rollout occurs, the company as a whole has to be on board, provide the same message, and be flexible to let the people management side of it evolve as we adapt to that evolution. In closing, all that comes with this type of change has to occur as well, succession planning, leadership evaluations and so on.

Workforce Trends and Advice for Emerging HR Leaders

Short-term meaning now, we will all have to up our EQ, AQ and AI literacy and digital fluency. Considering all tools, we will have to learn to utilize them to ensure high-value productivity and ensure our teams are trained and developed to ensure the value add is optimal.

I would encourage future HR leaders to gain a decent understanding of the business they target as future leaders, understand every aspect of how the industry succeeds, learn about the supply chain, learn about quality, safety, environmental, shipping and receiving, logistics, engineering and risk management, every aspect of the business, so that they can add value in all areas where a human resource is needed.