News
November 4 2009
CAHRS Executive Briefing:
Johnson & Johnson Future Success Tied to Confidence in People
Kaye Foster-Cheek, vice president, human resources, for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) opened the October 15 CAHRS Executive Briefing with a fact and a promise: managing human capital at Johnson & Johnson is not "business as usual." In front of 45 CAHRS HR executives and staff at J&J's corporate headquarters, Foster-Cheek outlined how leadership is the company's strongest enabler of success in a highly complex, every-shifting business environment.
At the briefing, attendees listened to top HR executives from J&J share success stories and progress. As always, the company's long-standing credo—Customers, Employees, Communities, Shareholders—continues to guide business and HR priorities. Those priorities include multiple investments in J&J's future success:
- Developing leaders and preparing them to lead effectively,
- Creating a culture of health and increased productivity,
- Transforming HR into a catalyst for change and business growth,
- Striking the right balance between standardization and decentralization of HR service delivery,
- And creating an employee relations function that consistently partners with the business and provides value-added guidance.
Key HR executives from J&J spent the day presenting each of these issues in great detail. Foster-Cheek began with an overview of J&J's leadership and business transformation. At J&J, developing leaders is a major business priority, and something on which the CEO spends more than 50 percent of his time. As Foster-Cheek explained, J&J has a decentralized management approach and structure that fosters an entrepreneurial spirit and prudent risk-taking. However, as Foster-Cheek says, "at J&J, we expect leaders to grow their business and, at the same time, to make us proud of the way they grow it."
Presenters at the briefing described the company's HR transformation journey and lessons learned, as well as the on-going process of developing HR functional talent and capability. They outlined how employee relations has been transformed, the path to creating a culture of health using J&J's model for wellness and prevention, and how the company is addressing the preventable healthcare crisis—internally and externally.
CAHRS executive briefings are one-day sessions hosted by partner companies selected for their demonstrated excellence in human resources. Briefings provide a unique opportunity for HR executives from CAHRS companies to learn emerging and best HR practices directly from those charged with developing and implementing them.
The Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) is an international center serving corporate human resources leaders and their companies by providing critical tools for building and leading high-performing HR organizations. CAHRS' mission is to bring together partners and the Cornell ILR School's world-renowned HR Studies faculty to investigate, translate and apply the latest HR research into practice excellence. For more information, visit www.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrs.