LEADERSHIP CORNER
Sense of 'ohana helps at work, Sprint vice president finds
Interviewed by David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Title: Vice President, General Manager
Company: Sprint Hawaii
Age: 45
High school: Maryknoll School
College: University of Hawai'i
Q: You have worked in executive positions on the Mainland and in Hawai'i. Do you find the workplace in Hawai'i has a stronger family atmosphere?
A: Much stronger in Hawai'i. It is probably the values that we are brought up with in Hawai'i. People who you work with become your friends. I think some of it is the geography. On the Mainland where people work is not where they live. When I lived on the Mainland I commuted an hour each way. I lived in the Bay Area. I had to go across the bridge. Here you see them (co-workers) at the grocery store. Often they are connected: friends of fiends or friends of relatives. There is a sense of community.
There are initiatives that the staff takes on to do things outside the workplace to have fun. There is a golf group (at Sprint) that has formed. There is a spring break picnic, not sponsored by the company, that is being done by employees.
On the Mainland I would see people try to organize under a common cause. Here it is much more impromptu and much more genuine.
Q: Does that make your job easier?
A: Much easier. I know there is always this spirit of cooperation going on. There is not the conflict of different objectives.
Q: And there is more food?
A: There is a lot more food, and not just during holidays.
Q: Sprint is moving toward bundling services. How will that work for the customer?
A: They would experience a bucket of minutes for long-distance, local and wireless service, where voice mail would be integrated. No matter where you are — at home or on your cell — the caller could find you; where you are leveraging discounts based on total Internet, voice, wireless usage, and where you are dealing with one servicing agent. That's where we are moving to.
Q: How close is Sprint to offering local phone service in Hawai'i?
A: We are piloting that on the Mainland right now. I had beta-tested that back in 1996. We decided then it was operationally unfeasible. We are revisiting that now.
Q: You have cut back staff recently, including 20 at the end of last year. Why is that?
A: All of that has been in our effort to become fully integrated. We are attempting to consolidate our infrastructure, to offer products from an integrated platform.
Q: How does it affect morale?
A: Obviously it is not good for morale. But I think it has gotten to the point where people understand the necessity of it. They also see what we do for the people who have to leave. I believe that the people that continue to work here still truly feel like it is a great company to be with. The hardest part about leaving is the family atmosphere that is here. That culture goes way back. It feels more like it is a team, a family.
Q: Is it painful?
A: Yes extremely painful. Both sides — the party that has to leave and the party that stays — feel a tremendous sense of loss.
Q: Is there anything you can do to ease the pain?
A: As much disclosure as we can. As much notice that we can give, keeping the individual's privacy first and foremost, addressing questions up front, making sure that we have open and honest communication going on with the whole organization helps, helping them understand why a decision was made.
Q: What are you doing with the Internet?
A: A lot of our thrust now is on data, using the Internet to make businesses more productive. As a business community (in Hawai'i), we lag behind in making our operations more Web-enabled.
We are trying to educate customers on what other companies on the Mainland are doing in making their back office operations IT- (information technology) based or Internet-based. With the bust of the dotcom bubble, a lot of companies are shying away from putting resources into making their back office Web-enabled. A lot only view it as selling on the Web.
The big thrust is on making processes more efficient by utilizing the Web. For example, human resources. I remember not long ago everything had to be processed on paper: vacation requests, change of address. Now we have to put everything on our corporate Intranet. You can get all the information, all the forms, your reviews are done online, everything is electronic.
Another area is expense reporting. Management would spend hours looking at expense reports. By automating the process, you spend less time auditing. Trusting and empowering employees. We are not in the business of IT consulting, but we are so passionate about what the technology can bring to the business owner.
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Taking on... Inspiring the staff
Q: About 60 percent to 70 percent of your 280 employees are women and you have some special motivational programs for them. Explain how that works.
A: I originally thought about trying to find a mechanism to give back to women on my staff. The YWCA does a luncheon every year, and we buy a table. They walk away inspired, wanting to do more with their lives. (I thought) how can I help facilitate this feeling. How can I inspire women where they don't feel like there is a glass ceiling and feel empowered. I thought it would be nice to bring in inspirational speakers. A lot of our workforce are women from all walks of life: single women, single moms, married women. The challenge is taking the hourly employee and providing them the opportunity. We designed a series of topics that were relevant to the different demographics. Basic financial skills; juggling it all being a mother in the workplace; how to deal with difficult co-workers; how to get physically fit.
It is for the hourly workers because those are the people who don't have the opportunity to listen to these messages. Their lives are as busy as the manager, but they can't go out.
We have a seminar about every three weeks during lunch in a conference room. We film it and put it on our corporate Intranet site, so if a staff member can't attend they can see it.
