Mohammed Chahdi is the Director of Global HR Services at Dell Inc. and was the keynote speaker for day one of the Canadian Talent Management Summit (CTMS). Right from the start of his presentation, Mohammed captured the crowd with his stage presence and intriguing topic choice – “How Dell’s Flexibility Culture is driving Employee Engagement and Delivering Significant Business Impact.” I had the opportunity to catch up with the keynote genius himself after the conference for a quick conversation.
Working at Dell
Mohammed leads global strategic programs within the Dell HR Services Organization including Talent & Workplace Planning and Dell’s flexibility programs. As the leader of Dell’s work flexibility programs, Mohammed’s focus is to further evolve Dell’s flexibility culture by simplifying the experience, increasing leadership engagement, and continuously demonstrating the value flexibility adds to the business.
Thoughts on Strategic Workforce Planning
“Throughout my career, I was always blessed with roles that included challenging the status quo in some form or fashion, which I always enjoy doing” Mohammed reflects. “The Idea of connected workplace (Dell’s remote work program) in itself is Dell’s way to challenge conventional thinking on where, when and how work takes place”. This program enables eligible team members to work remotely, at variable hours or in other flexible capacities that fulfills both the needs of their job and their individual lifestyle. Connected Workplace has become so successful that work flexibility is now a key pillar of Dell’s culture. “For example, the fact that you are not restricted to a specific location to hire the best talent enables a much more versatile agency” Mohammed adds.
Dell has increasingly found that flexibility goes well beyond traditional remote and mobile status to also include all types of virtual collaborations. At Dell, there is a steady, consistent push to the notion of work life-balance. “We are really trying to open a culture where your work is not determinant on where you live,” he enthusiastically notes. Mohammed is a fond believer in flexibility and believes that more organizations should be too.
Thoughts on the CTMS
“The Canadian Talent Management Summit was fantastic! I really liked how progressive the agenda was.” Mohammed ardently enjoyed the consistent message among speakers of ‘thinking outside the box’ when practicing and applying HR principles within their individual practices.
Mohammed also enjoyed the analytical perspective on strategic workforce planning put on by James Alexander and Rachel Stewart. He believes in rewarding performance, and providing hard workers with incentives to inspire and maintain engagement.
Employee Engagement Perspective
Dell continuously monitors how work flexibility and engagement can work together. In their 2015 engagement survey, Dell has seen a very large support of work flexibility. “93% of our team members indicated that remote work and work flexibility in general helps them be successful at Dell.”
HR Management Trajectory Prediction
“HR is evolving in a progressive way. HR is adding a lot of value over the years that is not so much about process anymore, but more about business results and customer needs.” Mohammed believes that HR is working a lot more with the business to maximize best case outcomes. HR principles are also shifting to match more self-explanatory and intuitive models such as Facebook or YouTube.