TJ Londagin, Co-Founder and CEOCould you give us an overview of Totem?
Leveraging more than 20 years of management consulting experience in various sectors, Jen and I built Totem's foundation, to address human capital needs. We worked together in a small firm for about five years, with Jen leading the health and life sciences industry, while I worked across federal civilian agencies. We soon found our shared interest in the human capital space and decided to branch out and start our own firm. Totem delivers change management, project management, organizational development, and many other human capital solutions, focusing on the intersection of people, change, and measured impact. Our goal is to work hand-in-hand with our clients to help teams make long-lasting changes. Most consultants offer a silver-bullet solution to solve every problem, but we believe otherwise. We develop tailored solutions for clients and help build their workforce capacity that sustains over time by closely analyzing their specific requirements and using data to show progress toward desired outcomes. We embed solutions and knowledge with our clients so they can build capacity in their teams, rather than relying on consultants to continue to solve emerging problem. We help teach clients to utilize our solutions, methodologies, and strategies to drive change in the organization creating continuous improvement even after Totem completes the project.
What are the challenges that your clients face, and how do you help them mitigate those?
The biggest challenge that pertains to the human capital space is the use (or lack thereof) of a one-size-fits-all model for managing and developing talent. Employee expectations in terms of support, engagement, retention, monetary or non-monetary compensation and skill development, has changed over time. These days, talent joins an organization to obtain specific experience and skillsets. We help our clients understand this shift and assist them in segmenting their workforce based on their interests or preferences. We assist leaders and HR professionals in designing various solutions that motivate the millennial generation and candidates looking for part-time work. By extrapolating HR and human capital solutions across a diverse set of needs, we help organizations with everything from onboarding and performance management, to creating alumni groups to build a recruiting pipeline based on a strong employer brand. Additionally, there is now a trend of working remotely that demands new engagement and collaboration solutions. Helping organizations identify and understand their remote workforce's needs from a human capital perspective, we encourage them to quickly adapt to the changing needs of employees to keep them satisfied and committed to their teams and organizations.
What is the methodology that you follow while delivering your solution?
Taking a unique approach, we first understand the organization's culture and goals. We review previous efforts to identify which strategies and solutions worked well and which didn’t. Then, by working together with the client's team and utilizing the information collected through analysis, we develop customized solutions to meet the organization's particular needs. Secondly, we encourage firms to continuously implement small changes over time as abrupt changes often overwhelm the workforce. Therefore, we help organizations take an iterative approach to implement new programs and initiatives and build a continuous improvement mindset that sustains over time.
We create an environment where the clients and employees have a sense of belonging and feel free to explore and grow
Could you give us a customer success story?
We helped a Fortune 500 company in the hospitality industry that has offices around the globe. The organization values its workforce and focuses on collaboration. They wanted to collaborate their workforce in a way that employees working in Southeast Asia and Washington DC feel that they are just a couple of offices down from each other. We started working with them to adapt to their environment and deliver adoption solutions for collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams. However, soon the workforce was forced to work from home due to COVID-19 and we had to change our plan accordingly. Within three months, we could get more than 10,000 of their workforce on to a collaborative tool where they can work remotely. There was a considerable change from a human capital perspective to help people understand and manage them remotely. The organization needed to stay engaged with the workforce many of which were working remotely for the first time. We put tools in place and immediately trained the workforce to understand the new norms. We successfully got that workforce ready to work in the new environment by quickly adapting to a new plan.
What are the key factors that differentiate your company from the others in the market?
Totem's core values of authenticity, curiosity, balance, collaboration, and belonging, sets us apart from other market players. Organizations around the world have realized the importance of diversity and inclusion for better productivity. As a Native American and LGBTQ owned small business, we create an environment where the clients, employees, and even the public have a sense of belonging. Focusing on our core value, we create an environment where everyone feels free to explore and grow. We work hard to find the right fit for a project as every consultant has unique skillsets. We look for talent that can learn, ask tough questions, think analytically about a problem, and bring value to the client. TJ and I worked at different companies and managed teams from 5 to 80 business units for more than 20 years each. Most team members still remember working with us and appreciate our style of making people feel comfortable, bringing their authentic selves to work every day, and encouraging them to ask questions or challenge assumptions. They still reach out to us, looking for opportunities to work with us.
What does the future look like for Totem?
We have made a significant difference across various industries, including government, medical, public services, hospitality, and aviation. Currently, we are focusing on establishing ourselves in the federal landscape as a niche human capital and change management provider to assists organizations deal with issues, such as diversity, inclusion, workforce development, and leading significant change initiatives. We understand the federal government needs to attract a younger generation to its workforce. We want to assist our government partners by establishing agencies as an employer of choice and appeal to millennials and future generations. We are helping the federal government to re-establish its value proposition and spread awareness amongst millennials about the significance of contributing to public service. We are building federal presence by making younger employees realize the positives of public service and contributing back to the community. Moreover, we are continuously growing our team and building new partnerships for overall growth and development.
