Brian McIntyre is an energetic executive, but he has taken time out of his busy and successful life to give back to the community.

As the CEO and founder of WorkStrategy, McIntyre helps guide his Columbia-based human resource management consulting firm in its mission to help clients improve their workflow. But he recently made news due to his philanthropy. On Feb. 3, McIntyre announced a pledge of $100,000 to the Howard Community College (HCC) Educational Foundation in the names of George and Joan McIntyre, his parents.

The funding, which will be provided through a series of grants and endowments, will support the development of HCC's emerging Entrepreneurial Center, is targeted to help design, launch and provide an operational budget for the new program. This initiative will offer local entrepreneurs a unique chance to enroll in a well-planned curriculum focused on providing mentoring, guidance and educational assistance.

Giving Back

"I was looking for a way to help build the entrepreneurial sprit in Howard County," said McIntyre. "Through this program, we hope to link education to the existing community resources. The donation is designed to help kick start the program."

McIntyre says he is familiar with the program's background. "HCC has a number of highly effective continuing education classes focusing on various aspects of the business world. We have seen the benefits of the coursework HCC provides with our own employees and found it to be very effective."

"We have a very detailed plan which we have been working on for six months," said Ron Roberson, vice president of academic affairs at HCC. "The first piece is a web site that connects all the resources in the county. We will have links to the college as well as to county services, such as the Neo Tech Incubator and Project Vision Share."

McIntyre's donation will fund the development of several education programs. One will be a core course on entrepreneurship and creativity that will give every student, regardless of major, the chance to take a course in entrepreneurial achievement, Roberson said, adding that an Associate Degree in Entrepreneurship is being developed that will "be great for students working on a two-year program."

In The New College Catalog

The funding will also help make a variety of continuing education courses available, including "Entrepreneurial Boot Camp." Non-credit courses will be available by summer and core courses will be included in next fall's schedule, Roberson said.

At his "day job," McIntyre leads WorkStrategy in providing human resources management consulting services to mid-sized and larger companies that are looking to become higher performing organizations. These services help companies to "connect the dots," said McIntyre, "between corporate vision, productivity issues and user technologies."

That may seem to be a mouthful, as defining "high performance" and measuring "productivity" can be difficult. To put what WorkStrategy does into perspective, McIntyre used the example of hiring a new employee.

He explained that a company might choose to use a recruiter to scour the talent pool or use some form of web-based screening tool, depending on the nature of the new hire or the size of the talent pool. Both approaches may result in a more productive hiring process, but process improvement doesn't stop when the employee is hired.

McIntyre explained that bringing a new hire up to speed as quickly as possible helps impact productivity as well as reducing the stress level of a new team member. "Employees get frustrated when they can't do their jobs," he said. "Our systems and technology solutions help familiarize them (new hires) with the organization by providing access to information."

In the example, providing better or quicker "on boarding" helps new employees become more productive more quickly. Another example of where WorkStrategy's impact can be seen is in the open enrollment function of some benefits programs.

Getting With the Program

"Many companies still use a paper-based system," noted McIntyre, but "putting information and enrollment forms online, via the Internet or an intranet, helps employees get their questions answered and their benefits updated faster, while producing less work for the company's human resources department."

WorkStrategy specializes in providing these types of services and technologies. "We look to impact hard dollar costs and help define real returns in investment for companies," he said.

Of late, WorkStrategy has partnered with human resource software developer Kronos in a joint seminar series designed to help organizations leverage human resource technology and improve enterprise performance. The half-day workshops will outline methods for utilizing human resource technology to streamline business processes and increase workforce productivity.

The series began in February in New York and will continue through June in various cities. For a complete listing of cities and a seminar schedule, interested parties can contact the company at www.workstrategy.com/news/kronos.html or by calling Marina Sander Trosman at 410-715-1020. The seminar will feature leaders from WorkStrategy and Kronos, who will examine current trends, define traits of a high performance organization and outline steps for achieving operational efficiencies.