Dan Calvert serves as the President of Achilles Group where he offers a wealth of experience in business, human resources and the retail industry. With over 30 years of business experience and over 20 years of HR experience, Dan offers his clients shrewd business acumen and sound advice.
We recently asked Dan to share some information with us on his personal and professional life. Find out here what Dan’s best HR advice is as well as what his day to day might look like!
1) What is your day to day like at Achilles Group?
One of the neat things about what I do is that my Outlook Calendar is more of a general guideline on how the day is going to go rather than anything set in stone. I might get a phone call from a client with a serious issue that needs my help and my whole day can change in an instant. So, my typical day isn’t a typical day, but I do know that on the last Tuesday of the month I’ll be at our staff meeting.
2) What’s your favorite part about what you do?
I have two favorite parts. Externally, I enjoy working with employee relations issues and helping companies deal with employee issues, I took the phrase from David Letterman and I refer to them as “stupid employee tricks”! Internally, I enjoy watching young people come into the human resources arena and working with them, teaching them what HR really is and equipping them with the tools to make a difference in someone else’s world.
3) What’s the Best HR Advice you could give?
– Keep your eye on whatever the government is doing next and work to stay in compliance. Pay attention to compliance!
– HR’s role is to assure that the company treats people as fairly and as honestly as possible. Striving to achieve the goals of the company through its people without an underlying judgement of who and what they are. Bottom line, treat people fairly and squarely. I do what I believe in my heart is fair and honest and at the end of the day “the way I would want to be treated”.
4) What has been your biggest challenge at Achilles Group?
Learning how to be a trusted advisor! I was not a consultant when I walked in here. I was a W-2 Human Resources person. I was not in the mindset of advising and/or helping the owner of a company or the manager of a group of people plan or go through a strategic thought process. I had to learn how to be a consultant and advise clients through the process.
5) When you aren’t working, what are you doing?
I own a beach house down in Galveston and I like everything that goes with it. Fishing, hanging out on the beach or watching the sun go down. I enjoy the outdoors. Whether it’s hunting birds or big game. I also have a grandson, Jackson, that I enjoy being with. You might just see us out at Monster Jam next year!
We hope you obtained some insight on who Dan is professionally and personally. Next time you see him, ask him to tell you his favorite stupid employee trick!
