Eileen Fisher employees have confabbed over everything from hiring to Web platforms to finding new ways of producing a pair of pants.
The Irvington-based clothing designer recently “brought 60 employees from across the U.S. together at the (Dolce) IBM Palisades Center to talk visions and priorities,” company Spokeswoman Kerri Devaney said.
From the employees who flew in from the far reaches of Los Angeles and Atlanta showrooms, about 40 business targets were unearthed at the two-day Palisades summit.
“We are given a lot of latitude here,” she said. “It was so interesting to see so many people from this different cross section of the company who had never worked with each other before. We”™re about to launch an internal Internet system to let everyone stay in touch and up to date on these new kinds of initiatives.”
Cheryl Campbell, partner for new initiatives at the Eileen Fisher Foundation, tied the company”™s latest program back to the corporate culture that Devaney detailed.
The Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute”™s “Activating Leadership” pilot program kicked off last week at the company headquarters along the Hudson River.
Born from a melding of brainstorms between several nonprofit organizations, the program was designed for female students entering grades 10 through 12 from the river towns in Westchester County.
The first program accommodated 11 girls, Campbell said.
“Every morning they”™re doing a class, and it”™s more of a workshop that brings in the leadership practices of Eileen Fisher,” said Antoinette Klatzky, program director. “We”™re hoping to draw out their leadership style and alongside that, we”™ll be doing things like yoga, massage techniques and dance, to help them get to know each other better.”
The company has gotten the community involved by bringing in guest speakers and by retaining local restaurants like Lemon Tree in Dobbs Ferry and Chutney Masala in Irvington, to feed program participants.
The purpose of the pilot program is not to give the young women a predefined meaning of the word, “leader,” Fisher connoted, but rather to spark creativity and lay the groundwork for future opportunities.
“We felt we were working on so many initiatives within the company, that we thought, ”˜How can we take it out to the community?”™ ” Campbell asked. “I think it”™s our whole organization. We have a department called learning, leadership and development to help employees find out how they best learn and where they might fit best in the company ”¦ so I think it”™s just another outgrowth of that.”
