HR Companies & HR Consultants in Ankeny, IA

Overview

Based in Des Moines, Iowa, HR Hotline Associates offers workforce-focused training and advisory support. Julie Caspar founded the business in 2001 and remains its President. The firm centers on the human side of organizations, and it builds tailored training programs intended to close skill and performance gaps wherever they appear in a company. Its mission is to raise the worth of what it calls people capital, which it considers an organization's most important intangible asset.

Anyone considering the firm should know that its direction has changed. It started as a human resources consultancy with a broad menu of services and a client base that reached well beyond Iowa. Caspar built a team over the years, but she now works alone, and the business is concentrating solely on training.

Sessions are mostly scheduled for the summer, since she also teaches at Iowa State University. Parts of the website still describe the earlier consulting services, so it makes sense to check what is actually offered now.

Services

The training and development programs cover several areas of human resource management and a range of leadership themes. Workshops are interactive and are pitched at different employee levels, at HR practitioners and at leaders, and most are eligible for SHRM recertification credits. The site describes these areas of activity:

• Training on talent management, talent acquisition, total rewards and leadership
• Compensation advice aimed at attracting, keeping and engaging employees
• Help with hiring, including building and putting a hiring strategy into practice
• Programs for developing and managing performance
• Employee climate and engagement surveys, paired with focus groups that uncover the reasons behind the results
• Conference talks, event appearances and guest speaking

Client comments illustrate the work. A chief financial officer at Proteus, Inc. noted that Caspar's candidate screening and initial interviews spare hiring managers time so they can focus on the strongest applicants. A human resources vice president at Central Iowa Power Cooperative said she has supplied dependable compensation support for many years, helping keep pay competitive externally and fair internally.

Hubbell Realty Company said she contributed significantly to its 2018 supervisor training series, where she ran the session on recruitment and selection covering the recruiting process, interviewing, selection criteria and the manager's influence on the candidate experience.

Leadership and associates

Caspar has spent more than 35 years working across several areas of HR. Earlier in her career she held roles from professional to executive level in a variety of sectors, in the eastern United States and the Midwest, with both domestic and international responsibilities, in unionized and non-unionized workplaces.

Her graduate studies at Loyola and Drake led to a master's degree in Learning and Organizational Performance, and she taught in Drake's graduate Leadership Development program for more than a decade. She now teaches in the business college at Iowa State.

Her other involvement includes serving as membership vice president for the Central Iowa SHRM board, volunteering through Heart of Des Moines, and sitting on an executive advisory council for Iowa State's management and entrepreneurship department. Her writing has appeared in the Des Moines Register and in professional HR outlets. She wrote two books on boosting hiring success, and she co-hosts a weekly podcast, The People Side of Leadership, with Ann Wright.

Two associates have also been part of the firm. Laura DeBartolo-Tow has more than 20 years in HR, most recently leading human resources at a technology company, and her interests include engagement, hiring, performance and benefits. Mollie Frideres-Smith runs MFS Consulting, LLC, has 25 years in the field, and teaches an HR course as an adjunct at Des Moines Area Community College. Combined with Caspar's own record, their experience gives the firm a practical, teaching-minded character.