For the past 40 years the role of Human Resources has morphed in several different stages. From managing difficult union situations and harsh work places, to firm but fair employee relations and employee friendly human resources – we are fortunate to have someone in our firm who has lived through and managed in all those different environments. Ernie Lebel joined our firm in early 2000 after many years as a successful HR Executive. From small Maine companies to international corporations he worked his way through all the stages of the evolution of Human Resources as we know it today. All those years of experience provides us with the ability to serve our client’s needs in every element of Human Resources. Ernie’s last position as VP of Human Resources at Emery Waterhouse gave him 10 years of dealing with all facets of HR Management – through acquisitions, creation of team based compensation, elimination of traditional supervisory roles, development of results based performance management, management development and extensive employee relations issues. Ernie also spent time with Gates in Auburn in a modern manufacturing environment as well as International Paper in manufacturing and staff level positions. With International Paper he handled wide-ranging organizational development tasks from compensation, to performance management, broad management/supervisory training and staffing for the Northeast Region. When Ernie came to Drake Inglesi Milardo Inc, he allowed us to provide all facets of Human Resources services to our new and existing clients.

Over the past 9-10 years Ernie has served many clients in varying ways. Ernie provides regular and on-going HR services to some clients that have out-sourced Human Resources and have successfully improved their HR efforts and done it more economically than by having a full-time HR person, or Ernie goes into organizations to support existing HR staff. He also has brought a very successful Search effort to the services we provide. After years of struggling with staffing through search and recruiting firms Ernie knew he wanted to do it differently. When we do a search project we utilize all our advantages – we don’t assign searches to entry level staffers, Ernie does all the work from networking, hunting for the needle-in-a-haystack candidate to screening through hundreds of potential candidates, then the rest of our staff is involved in the final assessment of the “right” candidate. We guarantee that when we provide a finalist slate one of those candidates is the ideal one – and the client gets to decide which one best meets their needs. If they should determine the candidate isn’t the right fit we do the search again at no cost to the client.

Whether your HR matters are vast or trivial Ernie can help you make them manageable. His direct and practical approach is working for many of our clients. Ernie does training for numerous organizations, public workshops and made-to-order workshops. His speaking engagements have delighted international corporations, and trade organizations to local companies. Ernie speaks to leadership audiences, staff members and company annual meetings. His style is entertaining as well as very useful.

Whether you need help with staffing, employee relations issues, retention issues, compensation, performance management, organization development, benefits, safety or front-line training we know Ernie will bring it to you in an effective and satisfactory way.