I had the opportunity to assist a Corporate Mix at Cetys Universidad yesterday. And boy was I happy I went.

The focus of the talks were about exchanging best practices about how to best develop human capital inside organizations.

One talk stood out from all the rest. Eduardo Salcedo, Sr. VP of Operations of DJO Global and his exciting ideas about developing human capital. DJO Global manufactures rehabilitation products. It has about 5K employees around the world and generates 1 billion dollars in annual sales.

Here are a few takeaways from Mr. Salcedo:

Giving time back to the employee

With the goal of creating a more engaged and happy workforce, Mr. Salcedo’s team asked themselves: What does an employee do in his time-off?

With the goal and question in mind, they started writing down a list of things employees do in their time off like buying groceries, paying for utility services, exercising, etc. As they were creating the list, they started thinking that if employees do all these activities in their time off, then they really “have no time-off” from their work. And with that though, came another question: How can we help employees have real time-off?

One idea they came up with was to bring the supermarket to the office. So, that is what they did. They brought the Tianguis (open air market) to the plant. That way employees don’t have to drive, or take the bus to the supermarket and waste precious time-off from work.

DJO Global, gives back time to their employees.

Rewarding employees like Hollywood Stars

Another story Mr. Salcedo told was about how they honor their employee of the month. Again, they looked beyond the traditional way of doing things. So instead of putting pictures on a wall behind plexiglass (disposable material = disposable people as he explained) like they do at Walmart, at DJO Global they embed a star with the employee’s name onto the factory floor. Just like they do in Hollywood!

As you might imagine, the people who were listening to Mr. Salcedo were highly engaged. This is not common. And compared to the other presenters, Mr. Salcedo put on a passionate display of leadership.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, it might not come as a surprise that I’m sharing this with you. At Game-Changer, It is our modus-operandi to be unconventional.

But, I was surprised to hear these types of stories from a company in Tijuana. Like everywhere else in the world, technology gets all the attention. Rarely does speaking about innovative ways to develop human capital get attention.

And, I was even more surprised to learn that DJO Global is #2 on the “Best Companies to work for in Mexico” (yes, all of Mexico) behind Plantronics. Also from Tijuana.

It seems to me that Mr. Salcedo wrote the “Delivering Happiness” book before it ever came out. A Game-Changer to say the least.

There were other ideas Mr. Salcedo talked about, I will try to contact him and get more formal insights for you. To be continued…