Anonymous

Stevens, Roy

English

eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

University of MississippieGroveHaskins and Sells Publications Deloitte Collection1971People in H&S: Dorothy WendelAnonymousRoy StevensFollow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/dl_hsPart of the Accounting Commons, and the Taxation CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Deloitte Collection at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Haskins and SellsPublications by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu.Recommended CitationH&S Reports, Vol. 08, (1971 spring), p. 18-19PEOPLE IN H&S On a chilly December morning in 1948, a tall, blue-eyed young lady from Ann-ville, Pennsylvania, emerged from the Lexington Avenue subway in the New York financial district. She was new in town and was somewhat confused by the rush of the crowds, but she inquired her way to 67 Broad Street. An em-ployment agency had directed her to Haskins & Sells ("the name didn't mean a thing to me at the time") where a receptionist was needed. After an interview with Wilmer Green, and an-other with Harry Earl, the office man-Dorothy Wendel ager, Dorothy Kreamer got the job. Now she is known by her married name, Dorothy Wendel, to many hun-dreds of H&S people in all parts of the country who have met her at meetings, or talked with her on the telephone or exchanged letters with her. In her time she has in some way had a hand in hiring or processing the personnel rec-ords of the vast majority of people now connected with the Firm. To all who have come into direct contact with her, the essential Dottie Wendel is compounded of a gracious manner, a pleasant, sympathetic voice and a winning smile. Yet for all her warmth she is a thorough professional, who can make the yes-or-no decisions with dispatch. As several people close to her attest, if anyone was born with the right temperament for personnel work, Dottie Wendel is one. Among the partners responsible for personnel ad-ministration who have seen her develop have been Ed Lang, now in Newark, Robert Steele, in the Executive Office international department, and Larry Walsh, now partner in charge of the Philadelphia Office. Since last October Dottie has taken on new duties as an assistant to Irwin C. Rust, EO partner in charge of per-sonnel administration. She relieves him of much of the work in executing per-sonnel policies, especially where an eye for detail is critical. Her present posi-tion represents a logical progression from the duties she had been handling since 1952, when she left her EO re-ceptionist's post to go into administra-tive work. Through the years since that time, Dottie's responsibilities steadily grew with her capacities. Among other things, she has interviewed hundreds of applicants for clerical positions with the EO, and made the first determina-tion as to whether or not they and the Firm would do well together. She has administered typing tests, followed up references submitted by applicants, seen to the administration of salary in-creases, collated the reports from all states on CPA examination results, and in general followed up the paperwork relating to hundreds of human beings. Through it all her watchwords have been: Get It Done, Do It Now, Keep It Current and, above all, Get It Right. She has always kept in the front of her mind the fact that there is a human be-ing represented by a record on paper, and that record therefore deserves her best effort. In a position where so many separate transactions would drive a less collected administrator wild, Dottie has done it all with cool efficiency. "She just never made mistakes on a payroll letter," said Emmett Harring-ton recently, in thinking back over Dottie's work in past years under his supervision in the Executive Office. "She is the kind of person who is best suited to meeting and talking with peo-ple. As an interviewer, she has had very good judgment. She has hired a great many of the people here, and it would be the end of the line if you didn't pass her." In her new post, Dottie has taken on new administrative duties dealing with Firm-wide personnel administration. But she continues to interview appli-cants for employment in the EO. "I am mainly a screener," she says, explaining that the agencies through which she works are by now accustomed to the Dottie Wendel-H&S hiring style, so they also have performed a certain amount of screening on their own be-fore they send a candidate to her. Dottie realizes that when she re-ceives an applicant in her office she is acting, in a sense, like the hostess for Haskins & Sells. She tries to put the visitor at ease in order that the inter-view can produce as fruitful an ex-change as possible. Exchange rather than one-way communication is impor-tant, she says. "I want to find out about the person, but I also want to let her know about Haskins & Sells. I try to get across the idea that we are a very human firm, where we care about in-dividuals. After I have got some idea about this person, if I am still inter-ested, I have her talk directly with the individual who would supervise her, so she can learn exactly what the job is about. After all, I can't know all the details of every position." When Dottie Wendel is "still inter-ested" the term implies that the appli-cant has passed her scrutiny on a number of important points. Education and previous work experience are right for the position to be filled; tests are satisfactory; and, very important in the Wendel method, the applicant gives Dottie the right degree of confidence that he or she will fit into the EO staff and grow with the job. This involves some subtle judgments of personal qualities—of which appearance, voice and manner are only the most obvious. Dottie herself passed this kind of scrutiny years ago, back in the days when she sparkled in the reception area of Haskins & Sells, which served as entry for both the Executive Office and the New York practice office. In that earlier time she added an air of gracious welcome to everyone who telephoned or who first set foot in what was then a somewhat austere place. It was at her suggestion about twenty years ago that the reception area was brightened up, with the addition of new furn i ture and be t t e r l ight ing . When the leading partners from the London firm of Deloittes came to New York in 1952 to discuss the impending merger of international practice with Arthur B. Foye, then the H&S man-aging partner, they were so much im-pressed with the change that they decided to follow the H&S lead at Deloittes. Sir Russell Kettle even joked with Mr. Foye about possibly borrow-ing Dottie to serve as Deloittes' advisor in interior decoration. At one point in her receptionist career Mr. Foye suggested to Dottie that she might want to qualify in short-hand and typing so that she could serve as a secretary in the Executive Office. For some months she worked hard at her shorthand in the evenings under the tutelage of Margaret Canny, secretary to John W. Queenan. But in the end she decided that secretarial work would restrict her too much to working for one man. Regular contact with a variety of people, Dottie con-cluded, was of more importance to her. So she told Mr. Foye of her deci-sion, and he acquiesced. She thrived then on personal dealings with others, as she does today. Her temperament, as they say in advertising, is that of an "outside man," a mixer, as opposed to one who likes to work alone. Dottie's professional bent toward working with people was manifest early. Shortly after she graduated from Lebanon Valley College she served during World War II with the Ameri-can National Red Cross on Saipan in the Southwest Pacific. Her success in direct ing recreat ional programs for servicemen, both overseas during the war and afterward in Veterans Admin-istration hospitals, pointed her in this direction. And when Dottie was mar-ried, it was, appropriately enough, to the music director of a summer resort where she went for a vacation. In her home hours in New York City she and her husband, Paul Wendel, have less time than they would like for their favorite outdoor activities—walk-ing, horseback riding and, for Dottie, golf. But they do have time for music, which is Paul Wendel's vocation and avocation. An accomplished composer, professional singer and radio an-nouncer, he has conducted Dottie on a Cook's tour of the classical operas, either in their seats at the Metropolitan Opera, or on Saturday afternoons by the radio, with opera score in hand. Summing up her experience with the Firm, Dottie says: "My only inter-view for a position in New York was at Haskins & Sells, and I consider myself most fortunate to have been accepted as an employee of H&S. Not only do I enjoy my work but I like the people with whom I have been associated dur-ing these past twenty-two years." Despite the demands of her work, Dottie Wendel keeps her sense of humor sharp. Like all people who resist taking themselves too seriously, she can tell a joke on herself. She admits, for instance, that when she first came to H&S she almost panicked on the subway when she saw the station sign Brooklyn Bridge and thought she had left New York behind and had been carried on into the hinterland from which she might not find her way back. She was reassured by a fellow-passen-ger, who told her that she should sit tight for another three stops. And when Dottie conducted her first personnel interview at H&S, she found herself facing a candidate for a job as a statistical typist . She remembers groping her way through that con-frontation, and confesses now: "I didn't even know what kind of typist that was!"—She has come a long way from Annville, and she knows now. • 

People in H&S: Dorothy Wendel

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People in H&S: Dorothy Wendel

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