By Stan Alleyne

We’ve all heard the phrase “diversity matters.” We’ve read articles, attended training sessions and asked friends of color uncomfortable questions about their beliefs and backgrounds. Without a doubt, understanding and embracing different cultures, races and beliefs enriches our work and should add value to what we offer our clients or companies.

For many, the challenge is figuring out how to go beyond periodic insightful conversations and annual training sessions and conferences. How do you embed diversity and inclusivity into your daily workplace practices and culture?

Click here to read the full O’Dwyer’s article.

The post Tunheim’s Stan Alleyne Featured in O’Dwyer’s June Diversity Issue appeared first on Tunheim.

InsideOut Public Relations

Founded in 2005 by Nicole Reaney, InsideOut, with its extensive in-house experience, offers clients a refreshing take on what they look for in an agency. The team has wide-ranging experience and contacts across Consumer, Lifestyle, Health, Technology, Food & Beverage, Construction/Design/Property, Mining/Infrastructure, Finance/Insurance, Entertainment/Sport, Travel/Tourism and Retail/FMCG.

InsideOut has worked with some of Australia’s most recognized brands and has an outstanding reputation for exceeding client expectations, tapping into technology and forging long-lasting relationships with the media.

Current clients include Top Juice, InterRISK, Supercheap Storage, Professional Bull Riders, Daughterly Care, Redbelly Citrus, Injury Treatment and Gemma Kirby.

In Sydney, InsideOut joins existing IPREX partner Liquid Ideas, the creative lifestyle agency.

Nicole Reaney, Director, InsideOut Public Relations

“Nicole and her team know what it’s like to be on the client side, and their working methodology reflects that,” says IPREX Asia Pacific President David Croasdale, (Newell PR, Hong Kong).

“Their insistence on a deep understanding of corporate cultures enables them to create and integrate internal and external communication programs to maximum effect for their clients. With such an approach they are a great addition to the IPREX team in Asia Pacific and worldwide.”

Nicole Reaney comments: “We’re looking forward to working closely with IPREX and its partners. This global alliance will be valuable for our clients looking to expand their operations.”

About IPREX
IPREX is a $250 million network of communication agencies, with 1,800 staff and 115 offices worldwide working across the spectrum of industry sectors and practice disciplines.

About Tunheim
Tunheim is a Minneapolis-based strategic consulting firm that works with clients navigating complex change. Operating under the fundamental belief that well-informed people make good decisions, Tunheim uses research, strategic insights and communications expertise to drive transformational change and help clients capitalize on their most important opportunities. Learn more.

The post Tunheim Welcomes Sydney-Based InsideOut Public Relations to IPREX appeared first on Tunheim.

“We don’t need to own all our talent, but we do want access to the right talent when their expertise is essential,” states Kathy Tunheim, principal and CEO of Tunheim, a strategic communications consulting firm with a global reach based in Minneapolis.

This talent philosophy, which has remained constant since Tunheim’s inception 25 years ago, is our company’s mantra for recruiting and retaining talent. Internally branded “Collective Best,” it gives Tunheim employees the opportunity to work on various accounts and industries that interest them. “Collective Best” believes that the right talent will perform better when they are passionate about an area or subject — never more true than now, as millennials move into the mainstream of the workforce.

At Tunheim, we customize teams, unifying intrigued individuals to solve a client’s challenge. This is yet another innovative approach to client work, as many communication consultancies silo employees to one account or sector for their tenure.

To lead our book of business, we have a bench of 20 full-time staff members. When recruiting and retaining talent, our consultancy aims to employ individuals with unique backgrounds who can help clients rethink what is possible and solve business or communication issues.

However, now that more than a third of the U.S. workforce freelances or chooses to work as independent contractors, Tunheim also employs ACEs – affiliated consultants and experts – who bring a unique skill, like graphic design, or subject-matter expertise, like health care, to a specific client challenge.

“We augment our team with subject-matter experts to deliver the best results for clients, every time,” says Lindsay Treichel, Tunheim’s chief talent officer, in reference to our ACE model.

For example, when deep sports marketing knowledge was vital to attracting the 2018 Super Bowl and 2019 NCAA Men’s Final Four to Minneapolis’s new U.S. Bank Stadium, an ACE with extensive events experience was brought on to manage the clients and the projects. Both efforts were successful in securing the events for Minnesota.

The benefit: Outside talent allows Tunheim to adapt as the work of strategic communications consulting continues to transform.

To give this model scale and offer employees global access to assignments, more talent and their own growth opportunities, our company has led efforts since 2007 to create a seamless global service delivery model within the IPREX network of independent communication firms. Recently named one of the fastest growing global networks by the World PR Report, IPREX has a talent pool of more than 1,800 communication professionals in 74 offices across 31 countries.

Think of it as “Collective Best” on a global scale.

Agencies from across the IPREX network come together to bid on business, exchange best practices and discuss where the industry is headed, and better yet, how they’re going to get in front of it. Kathy Tunheim was president of IPREX for four years, guiding the network toward this approach. Employees of IPREX agencies greatly benefit as well.

Consultant Danielle Pierce, who had a noted interest in building her experience in multicultural consumer communications, completed an IPREX exchange – spending three-months working with a multi-cultural partner agency in Chicago. Learning best practices there, Danielle then brought her knowledge back to Tunheim, energized by the experience and the chance to explore other workplaces.

We are proud to continually shift our staffing dynamic as the business world changes, both to Tunheim’s and our employees’ benefit. How is your company adapting as the job marketplace evolves? Have you adopted similar philosophies or new working styles?

Share your thoughts in the comments below or on social media.

The post Tunheim: A Different Approach to Building a Talented Team appeared first on Tunheim.

Losing one’s job is difficult — especially for people who have long enjoyed gainful, traditional employment. And after the disbelief, fear, anger, and final acceptance stages, what does a person do next?

Most people start to look for another job — but that paradigm is changing.

Many people are creating their own new reality. They are finding “work,” harkening back to the pre-job state of the economy. With skills and ambition, you find ways to make a living doing work that others value — and do enough of it to achieve the quality of life to which you aspire.

Looking around I realize that it has become the norm for talented people in our industry to leave their “jobs” to create new collaborations that take on the most innovative assignments. Traditional agencies full of “jobs” aren’t nimble enough to be the leading edge, and increasingly the talent inside them doesn’t value the historic preoccupation with structures, hierarchy or control enough to stay.

In our business of strategic communications consulting at Tunheim, we have a flexible view of talent that we call “collective best.” It includes a core of colleagues in Minneapolis (some employees, some independent) who have built a global consulting business partnering with talented professionals who work independently or within other small consultancies.

As I’ve watched this trend and experienced it within our company, it has caused me to revisit some great work charting the changing reality of “having a job.”

In his breakthrough 2005 work, The World is Flat, Tom Friedman speculated about the consequences of globalization on jobs in the United States. While he predicted that many jobs would go overseas, he also recognized work that would be “untouchable”:

• Those special people who have a world market for their goods, including celebrities and high-demand knowledge workers in medicine, law, business or academia.
• If you can’t be special, Friedman recommended being anchored: work that must be done in a specific location. Barbers, hairstylists and appliance repair are all examples of professions that can be successful as globalization occurs, and skilled trades can compete for a new generation of talented people.
• If not special or anchored, Friedman observed, U.S. workers need to be adaptable: constantly acquiring new skills, knowledge and expertise to avoid being vulnerable.

A decade earlier in 1994, William Bridges wrote a book called Job Shift about the then-coming phenomenon of a post-job world. As Bridges predicted, these changes in the world of work must be addressed:

• As individuals, we must begin to conceive more innovatively of our potential to do valuable work — maybe without the illusion of security in a “job.” Now think about the growth of 1099 filers (self-employment).
• As organizational leaders, we have to build and adapt our companies with new ways to get things done. Now think about companies’ increasing reliance on contractors and contingent workers.
• As a society (and reflected in public policies), we must prepare for the economic and social consequences of this evolution. We’ve already de-coupled pensions from most employment, and the Affordable Care Act has now de-coupled health insurance, too. Next big step: finding ways to measure economic activity beyond traditional “job creation.”

Fact is, the speed of adaptability necessary today is faster than most traditional employers can handle.

So it is increasingly up to talented people themselves to be the leading edge — and then to find the work opportunity that delivers the value they deserve. (And THAT is how we will begin to see wages in “jobs” rise, as we employers compete for talent that increasingly pursues independence as a viable path.)

Scary maybe, but I confess I am an optimist and enough of a history student to know that change and disruption have been happening forever — this is just our time.

In our firm, we think we’ve found a successful path. We’ve learned that our clients don’t care who employs whom — they want to know we’ve organized the right talent for their assignment. The talented people have the confidence to work in this evolving, less traditional “job” model — and are increasingly good at ensuring they are fully valued in terms of compensation. They take on projects for which they are particularly well-suited, with opportunities to work with other motivated colleagues around the world.

We’ve learned that old-fashioned team building still matters, so we invest a lot in connecting and enabling people to build professional bonds with virtual colleagues. This pattern not only serves our clients and company, but also prepares professionals to thrive in the increasingly flat, interconnected world that will become the norm for Millennials and those who will follow them.

If you are navigating how to best manage your workforce in an increasingly flat business world, get in touch with Tunheim. We excel in helping clients work through complex challenges by delivering strategic management counsel that offers a smart, effective path forward.

The post The Future of “Jobs”: The Evolving Definition appeared first on Tunheim.