Steve Glaser is a Senior Implementation Consultant who has been with HRchitect since 2014. He’s helped hundreds of clients successfully implement and support a variety of HR technology systems. Get to know Steve in this month’s consultant spotlight.
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Alma Mater: Sullivan University. While at Sullivan, I obtained my Microsoft certification and a few others that launched me into the technology world that I’m in today.
All-time favorite restaurant: Morton’s. It’s my go-to steakhouse.
Last book you read: Watchmen, the graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.
One song you could listen to on repeat: I listen to a lot of different music, so this is a tough question! I’d say “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears.
What do you do when you’re not working? I like to work on my car.
In your own words, what do you do at HRchitect? I’m a Senior Consultant who supports clients using Oracle Taleo. I also do implementation, optimization and support work for our clients who use the WorkForce Software Advanced Scheduler and UltiPro Workforce Management (WFM) modules.
How did you find out about HRchitect, and what made you join the company? Before I joined HRchitect as a consultant, I was an HRchitect client! I was in a Business Analyst role at Kindred Healthcare and we brought HRchitect in to lead a large Oracle Taleo implementation project. I got to know Tom LaMarre and several other consultants as we worked closely together on that project. We kept in touch after the project wrapped up and a while later, HRchitect reached out to see if I’d be interested in joining the team. I said yes, and here I am over 5 years later!
What’s a typical workday like for you? I wake up as early as possible so I can get ahead of the day. I usually start working around 6:00am. First, I check my email and respond to any messages that have come in from the night before. For the rest of the morning, I’m typically booked solid with client meetings. I try and keep my afternoons free of meetings, so I can use that time to complete configuration and support-related action items from my morning meetings to ensure that each project I’m working on continues to move forward and that my clients have a timely response and resolution to their questions/issues. I wrap up around 5:00pm, once I’ve made sure to respond to all of my client inquiries that have come in throughout the afternoon.
Tell me about a project you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of. I’m proud of the outcomes of all of my projects, but if I had to pick, a unique project I worked on with our client Keeneland comes to mind. I worked with Keeneland to successfully implement Taleo, which they use for full cycle recruiting and onboarding at job fairs all while ensuring a seamless integration into the client’s HR system. That’s a very different use case than my other clients, so this project required a lot of analysis and creativity, and ultimately has been very successful for Keeneland.
You’ve been the saving grace for many of our clients on the ongoing support front, serving as a natural extension of their team. What’s the most common requested task/most frequently asked question that you get from your support clients? Integrations are the area that I seem to get support requests for, more than anything else, particularly for the clients that I’ve been working with for many years. Integrations are complicated, and clients appreciate being able to reach out to the person who initially set up their integration, who knows their business processes and technical setup inside and out because they can trust that we’ll get whatever they need done, and done right. I also get a fair amount of reporting-based questions.
As part of a team that works 100% virtually, what technology or collaboration tools do you use to make your work life easier? GoToMeeting is one – I really depend on that. That’s how I meet with my clients daily and I prefer GoToMeeting over other similar products, like Skype. Slack is also a great tool for internal collaboration. It’s beneficial to get quick questions out to my teammates and it’s a great backbone for communication.
What motivates you to wake up and go to work every day? Honestly, I really enjoy what I do, and that itself is a motivator. I enjoy communicating with my clients and solving issues. A lot of what I do is a puzzle and I like to piece things together and figure them out. I also like to learn new things, so every day I find I’m still learning something different, and I think that is great.
Which employee perk that HRchitect offers do you enjoy the most? Why? I appreciate the quarterly bonuses. I’m a goal-oriented person and I strive to maximize my consulting hours and minimize downtime to make sure I earn my bonus each quarter. It’s a win-win-win situation, too, as the client gets great service, HRchitect knows our clients are getting what they need, and I’m rewarded for that hard work.
Learn more about Steve Glaser