E96: Empowering the Workforce: Insights from an HR Leader

• Employee support exceeds the punishment.
• Self-care as a personalized strategy.
• Diversity fuels organizational success.
• Addressing trauma in HR practices.
• Communication key in HR development.

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• 00:45 – We embed self-care in everything that we do. So including our supervision. So we’ve created policies and procedures that have helped to set up success for our full team. And as part of embedding self-care and everything we do, including supervision, if we’ve noted a slip in a performance, we’re not quick to sort of penalize someone or assume that someone is being lazy.
• 6:30 – I encourage, you know, our staff, you know, whether or not they’re here to take actual, take a break, walk away, you go for a walk. And we have about 60% of our staff are school-based. So they are, their offices are in Buffalo Public Schools because they’re doing a lot of support for the students in Buffalo. And so, you know, I encourage, you know, those individuals, whatever you need to do in order to sort of take some time away during your day, at least do at least take them 30 minutes.
• 10:41 – We all are committed to the vision of our organization and our missions of our organization, really all about sort of helping to support students in Buffalo to be able to reach their full potential, whatever that looks like. And because we are all committed to that mission, it doesn’t matter that we are, you know, that we’re different. We all are working towards that mission and we’re able to be successful because we have these different perspectives but we all have that same goal. And how we get there may differ, but we all have that same goal. We’re all gonna reach it.
• 25:05 – It really fascinates me with these organizations that are so punitive towards their team, you know, where they just, they try to do things based on fear or  you know, when someone says, you know, they’re, look, they might be looking for another opportunity, they get all upset. And I’m like, why?
• 13:13 – That was a surprise. Someone that I had done a presentation to a class at a local university like five years ago. And this person reached out to me and said, I remember when you gave your presentation, I had, would you mind allowing one of my students to shadow you for a day? And I said, sure, sure. You know, send him in. And he came in, he just love say Yes, he loved the vibe. And he was like, oh, I would love to like stay, like, do you have any openings?