John is a much sought after workforce management speaker and has authored numerous whitepapers and articles including the Overtime Lie and the 11 Keys to Strategic Scheduling. His strategy papers have twice been awarded the Leading Idea of the Week by Booz Allen. He has given speeches at Reliant Energy Stadium, home of the 2004 Super Bowl as well as in other locations around the world. Previously of Merrill Lynch, he is uniquely versed in the economic modeling of flexible schedules within seasonal environments and how to minimize adverse costs through performance management. He is a graduate of Wake Forest University where he received a degree in politics with a focus on the political economy.  When it comes to labor strategy, John is the person to call.

Representative Experience:

Manufacturing

• Kraft Foods
• Dannon
• BMW
• Sargento
• Pella Windows and Doors
• Nestle
• GM
• American Axle

Call Centers

• General Electric
• AT&T
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
• Bell Canada
• Research In Motion (creator of the Blackberry)

Utilities

• Commonwealth Edison
• PECO Energy
• Reliant Energy
• Atlanta Gas and Light

Mining

• INCO
• Saint Lawrence Cement
• ICG
• BHP

Distribution

• Canadian Tire
• Academy Sports and Outdoors
• BILO Supermarkets

Contact John Frehse

John’s office can be reached via phone  at 212-534-0539 or email at jfrehse@corepractice.com.

Ethan Franklin
Managing Director, Core Practice

1996 – 1997                 PACIFIC BELL

Capital Programs Manager

Managed overall corporate capital plan, consisting of 23 reporting units, with an annual budget in excess of $1.6 billion.  Led business operating units to explore all possible alternatives while insuring a viable technology platform for the future. Developed unit cost model to enable marketing to target high margin products.

1995 – 1996                 KIRK’S SUEDE LIFE (International Specialty Chemical Manufacturer)

General Manager

Responsible for day-to-day operation of business, including extensive client contact.  Negotiated licensing and purchasing contracts with prospective users.  Aggressively pursued secondary market to increase sales and diversify customer base.

1989 – 1994                 AMERITECH (now SBC)

Rotational Management Development Program

Interoffice Planner – Integrated Implementation Planning

Designed and maintained interoffice telecommunications network for downtown Chicago offices. Monitored existing equipment and made economic recommendations to replace obsolete technology.  Extensive project management.  Led multi-departmental team to meet demands of a deregulated market, reduced service installation intervals by 60%.

Fundamental Planner – Network Architecture Planning

Chaired and led interdepartmental engineering teams to study priority areas.  Insured alignment of corporate technology strategies with marketing initiatives.  Developed economic analyses of technology alternatives.  Headed task force that studied selling, buying or trading geographic markets.

Manager – Pay Phone Channel Management 

Monitored, analyzed and focused regional effort supporting Illinois unit (overall market revenues in excess of $100 million).  Directed new product implementation team (annual market revenue $12 million), responsible for timely customer deployment.

Manager – Maintenance Center

Negotiated service restoration time with customers, from basic residential users to interexchange carriers.  Coordinated work effort between departments to ensure high customer satisfaction while minimizing service interruption.

Special Projects Manager – Network Exchange Planning

Benchmarked cost, customer service and performance parameters to increase efficiency.  Performed extensive economic studies with cost and technology drivers to determine feasibility of introducing new technologies into the telecommunications network.

Who Should Participate?

Everyone involved in HR should participate in this session. The panel of experts will help you get an edge that will drive cost savings and better organizational strategy.

Key Learnings:

1. How to be an HR Powerhouse through better HR strategies?

2. How have other HR professionals driven operational behavior?

3. What costs can HR professionals help contain and what profit making opportunities should they drive?

There is still time for your company to make adjustments and start capturing some of these opportunities, so do not miss this chance to learn new strategies.

Key topics will include: overtime optimization, HR policy alignment and employee morale correction through benchmarking. The group will review actual employee benchmark data from our database of over 100,000 shift workers and see why management teams must have clear answers to specific employee morale questions. Participants will see why sticking to traditional 8 hour shifts is not just bad for business, it is also bad for employee morale in many cases.

Everyone will learn how to calculate the True Labor Cost for his or her own environments. This means that all participants should be ready with a calculator for this session. We will be doing a small amount of math.

The common misconception that overtime is bad and extremely expensive will be proven untrue during this section of the meeting. The group will leave the session armed with both real data and a new outlook.

Who Should Participate

Participation should include core plant management teams including Operations, HR, Finance, Quality, and Maintenance groups. Executive level Operations, HR, and Finance staff will also find this session valuable.

What You Will Learn

Participants will learn the following three strategies: 1. How to properly calculate labor costs including the adverse costs of overtime and idle labor time which are critical to making staffing decisions. 2. Common HR errors that costs millions and do little if anything to motivate employees. 3. Employee benchmarks specific around how they feel about management and their current work environment.

Remember, the most effective HR professionals not only understand corporate policies, but they also know what motivates the workforce. In this way, they can be the most powerful and influential part of the organization. They can drive productivity and performance. Conversely, getting labor strategies and policies wrong can demotivate the workforce and cost companies millions. This session will focus on 4 areas of concern and offer solutions.

Who Should Participate?

Participation should include core plant management teams including Operations, HR, Finance, Quality, and Maintenance groups. Executive level Operations, HR, and Finance staff will also find this session vaable.

What You Will Learn

Participants will learn the following three things: 1. What are classic reasons why employees break their current schedule. 2. What are policies that encourage employees to stay out longer 3. What are strategies to minimize sick leave and absenteeism abuse

View the Webinar

The costs associated with making a mistake in the life sciences industry can be staggering. Remember when one of the world’s pharmaceutical giants recalled 100,000 bottles of its popular medicine, costing the firm more than $50 million? Or when another company withdrew its pain medication from circulation and watched its stock price collapse, wiping out more than a quarter of the firm’s market value in a single day?

Product recalls, returns, and expirations are estimated to cost the pharmaceutical industry $2 billion a year.

In most commercial enterprises, eliminating errors from the R&D and production process is a goal. But in life sciences – when you consider the human health and financial risks at stake – eradicating errors is an imperative.

VIEW COMPLETE WHITEPAPER HERE

VIEW COMPLETE WHITEPAPER HERE

Recently, I stood before a plant management team sharing labor strategies that could help resolve some serious cost problems associated with inefficient shift schedules. The plant manager talked about some of their greatest achievements. Number one was keeping their overtime below 5 percent. Corporate listed low overtime as a key performance indicator, and minimizing it was critical to plant bonuses.

In environments where demand is flat, overtime is rarely used, typically only to fill vacancies. However, seasonal and variable- demand profiles present a very different problem. Customers want their product or service on demand. However, the fear of excess overtime has led management teams to overlook this mighty tool and make less-strategic decisions. In today’s world, cost competitiveness has magnified the impact of these shortsighted tactical decisions as more management teams are forced to reduce every unnecessary cost. The three most common errors are:

VIEW COMPLETE WHITEPAPER HERE