She holds a Bachelors degree in consumer sciences and a minor in business administration from Illinois State University. Pille is also a Certified Association Executive, a Senior Professional of Human Resources, and a graduate of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce Community Leadership School.
Among her community involvement, Pille is a board member of the Peoria Area Economic Development Council, serves on the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce Education and Workforce Development Committee, was a co-champion of the Talent Force 21 initiative, and is a member of Downtown Rotary.
She and her husband have two children.
Tell about your background, schools attended, etc.
I was born, raised, and have lived in central Illinois my whole life. I’m the youngest of three children. I graduated fifth in my class from Illini Bluffs High School at age 17 and attended Illinois State University, where I graduated in three-and-a-half years at age 20 with a degree in home economics and business administration. I was very anxious to get through school in order to make my mark on the world.
My husband of nearly 24 years is Steve; we actually dated for seven years prior to getting married, so we’ve known each other for 31 years. Steve teaches in the Industrial Technology Department at Limestone Community High School and also is a partner in the family farming operation.
Steve and I have two very active teenagers who keep us busy running from one activity to another. We both firmly believe they’re our most important priority; it’s our responsibility to teach them well and help them become the best they can be. While I’m very career focused, I’ve never lost sight that family comes first. I’ve been very fortunate to work in an occupation that’s afforded me the opportunity to be involved with my children and their activities. I believe it’s important to serve as a role model; when they see me volunteer, bring work home, take classes, and study alongside them, it’s sending the message that learning and giving back is a lifelong endeavor. Both kids attend Richwoods High School. Our eldest is Anna, a senior who’ll attend Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Alex is a sophomore and next year will be participating in the pre-engineering program called Project Lead the Way.
Tell about your responsibilities as CEO of Employers’ Association.
Being in the leadership role at the EA has offered me the opportunity to utilize my cumulative professional and life experiences in a very rewarding job. I see my primary responsibility at the EA as ensuring that we are focused on our mission—to help employers maximize their human resources. Everything we do must pass through the mission filter. It’s also my responsibility to set the stage for creating a positive work environment for our staff. In other words, to practice what we preach. In addition, I’m responsible for creating the roadmap for achieving our vision of being the organization employers turn to in order to achieve their business objective through their people practices. And, it’s my pleasure to work with a 21-member board that represents the EA geographically and by industry to drive both the mission and the vision strategically. Finally, it’s my responsibility to represent the EA in the communities we serve.
What unique benefits does the EA provide small business owners?
The EA has members of all different sizes, from high-tech start-up businesses to Fortune 100 international corporations. EA offers solutions for both small and large organizations, and each can be distinctly different. The common denominator between the small, large, and somewhere in between is the employer’s commitment to creating great workplaces, which, of course, starts and ends with people. We’re especially beneficial to small employers because most don’t have a dedicated human resources professional on staff, so we serve that role as a trusted resource they can count on to assist with myriad issues that arise on a daily basis.
One of the services many small employers utilize is our Human Resources Response Team. It’s a free HR hotline with unlimited access to experienced human resources professionals. Practical answers are just a phone call or e-mail away with this valuable service; we do the research and provide members with the answers in a very timely fashion. In addition, in 2004 we added a robust research tool from BNA to the members-only section of our Web site for members who’d like to find their own answers 24/7.
The EA advantage is that we’re comprised of Illinois employers creating a sense of community for our members to share best practices. Other beneficial services EA provides for small employers include our free monthly management newsletter, wage and salary surveys, policies and benefits surveys, and monthly legislative update—all free to members. We also assist small employers through our open-enrollment educational programs offered on a variety of human resources, customer service, management, supervisory, and personal development topics.
You began your career in 1993 as a part-time clerical assistant. Did you imagine at the time working your way up to CEO?
Not in a million years. My goal in coming to the EA was to embark on a career change. Prior to coming here, I’d spent 13 years in retail management with Bergner’s, and my last assignment was store manager. While it was an exciting career path, at that particular point in may career, I was seeking a change to one that had more flexibility. In my personal life, I was spending a great deal of time helping my mother, who was very ill, and raising my two young children. When I first came to the EA, it was very humbling to learn how to run a copy machine, coordinate bulk mailings, and even type an invoice without making a mistake. These were all tasks others had done for me in the past. I can truly say I learned our business from the ground up. My timing was very good because just about the time I came to the EA, their long-time office manager, Sharon Durst-Fender, had made a decision to retire. I applied for the position and got it. That’s how my managerial career began at the EA. Little did I know that my passion for helping employers would lead me to where I am today.
How have EA services changed to meet the needs of members in the last decade?
We’re constantly scanning the environment to identify trends that will impact our members and, thereby, directly impact the delivery of services. I’d say in the last couple of years we’ve become much more focused on “what can we do to help you” versus “here’s what we have to offer.”
Specifically, we’ve implemented tools so members who choose to can help themselves. For example, we added the BNA research tool for members to research state and federal law, as well as have access to sample forms, policies, and checklists.
We’ve added more training curriculum for supervisors, customer service, and administrative professionals. These programs are developed and delivered by our own training professionals, who are subject matter experts.
We’ve become a comprehensive resource for employers through our HR solutions partners’ initiative. Through these partnerships, we can stay focused on what we do best, and, for the other needs in the management and human resources continuum, we’ve partnered with other experts for services such as reference checking, payroll services, posters, voluntary insurance benefits, health management, and many more.
We’ve enhanced our surveys to be more robust through our software capabilities, and our members still tell us how they value the quality of the surveys we conduct.
What changes do you envision for EA in the future?
We have a responsibility to keep our eyes and ears open to issues on the horizon so we can inform and educate our members so they can be proactive rather than reactive. Examples include the looming labor shortage, generational issues, legislative issues, globalization, technology, mergers and acquisitions, and more.
Technology enhancements are at the top of the priority list for us. If we are to remain a viable organization, we must be able to integrate technology into all of the services we deliver to our members. Technology won’t take the place of the relationship experience, but it will enhance it. One of our current endeavors is to upgrade our Web site and make it more interactive and user-friendly. Our members are becoming younger and younger, and this is how they like to learn and communicate—online.
We envision having a membership base that’s less manufacturing-oriented and geared more toward the smaller employer. This means we’re looking at services important to small employers in the area of people practices. Services such as payroll, part-time human resources managers, and benefits solutions are just a few of the services we’re exploring.
There may come a time when we get even more involved legislatively to assist our members. With the current climate at the state level, employers need all the help they can get to help them maintain their Illinois operations.
With regard to the looming worker shortage, we believe there’s a role for us to play in assisting employers as a workforce development intermediary. While we’re serving that role right now in a small way, I can see that becoming more important as time goes on.
I believe we’ll look a lot more closely at strategic partnerships where they make sense—for example, partnering with a statewide trade association to be the service provider for human resource support services of their members.
What are the greatest challenges to employers in Illinois today? In central Illinois?
For Illinois as a whole, clearly the answer to this is the legislative climate and the impact it’s had on doing business in Illinois—rising health care costs, doing more with less, recruitment and retention of qualified workers, and globalization.
As for central Illinois, we’ve done a fairly good job of diversifying our industry clusters such that when there’s a downturn in the economy, we aren’t as negatively impacted as regions that rely heavily on any one given industry sector, such as manufacturing or hospitality.
What’s being done to help address those issues?
From the EA perspective, we’ve implemented solutions for each of these issues through our whole product solution model. Whatever the issue is, we address it from an information, education, assessment, and product/ service solution approach. In other words, our solutions are centered on how to overcome the issue through our competencies of informing, educating, and assessing for results.
What are some of the misperceptions you’ve run into about what EA does?
The greatest misperception is really a lack of understanding of who we are and what we do. I can tell you we aren’t an employment agency, which is what most people who aren’t familiar with us think. There are also misperceptions or a lack of awareness of all we do. We also run into those who think we’re just for small organizations or those who believe we primarily serve large organizations. Our name is a bit ambiguous, thereby making it necessary to explain what we do.
As a female executive, have you encountered any gender bias?
Not to my knowledge. If there’s been any, I don’t see it as a roadblock—only as a hurdle that has to be overcome.
What percentage of female executives make up the membership of the EA?
EA members are organizations, not individuals. We usually work with the person responsible for handling the human resources function of the organization. Of those folks, roughly 57 percent are female.
What’s the biggest mistake you see business owners making today? What should they be doing differently?
Many don’t pay enough attention to the people side of their business, and it’s the people side that drives everything. It’s an overused term, but if employers want to be successful, they should strive to be an employer of choice. In the 21st century, they need to focus on their people and view them as an asset—not a liability. They need to invest in their people practices because, at the end of the day, it’s the people who will differentiate them from their competitors.
How have you balanced your career and family?
For me and for our family, it isn’t really a matter of balancing one over the other, but more how we’ve been able to integrate them into each other. For example, I may share with them an experience from my day at the dinner table and use it as an opportunity to teach a lesson in life. I have a very supportive family; without them I wouldn’t be where I am today.
What piece of advice has helped you most in your career?
After giving this question some thought, I couldn’t come up with one piece of advice, but what I did realize is how my life experiences at overcoming adversity have helped me most in my career. By adversity, I don’t mean anything catastrophic. What I mean is you can take a bad situation and make the best of it by exhibiting the “glass half full” view versus the “glass half empty” viewpoint. I believe it’s up to each of us to analyze a situation and then make a choice: to either become part of the problem or part of the solution. I also believe in surrounding yourself with people you can learn from because there’s always an opportunity to improve. Lifelong learning is what keeps us young, and I’m all for that.
Is there anything else you would like to discuss?
I believe EA brings a tremendous amount of intrinsic value to the organizations and to the communities we serve. In the big picture, when larger companies support the EA, that gives us the opportunity to deliver cost-effective solutions to the smaller employers. This helps the smaller employers improve their people practices, which, in turn, helps improve their bottom line. And that, in turn, helps the economy.
EA also delivers tangible and measurable value to the organizations we serve. Our attorney friends tell us we’re the first line of defense for employers. We provide them with the tools they need to stay compliant with employment law and best practices for achieving the employer of choice status. Those who take advantage of our services stand a much better chance of avoiding the risk of employee lawsuits or agency audits, which can save employers thousands of dollars and lost productivity. TPW
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