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Susan Weber 00:02
I love sitting down with people and talking about a development plan and helping create the culture around development and really bringing that to the forefront in our organization.

Anne 00:15
My goal is to every day send people home with more energy than when they came to work.

Susan White 00:25
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help HR and business leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting, an HR consulting practice, and with me is my dear friend and co-host JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink and Powered by Purple Ink.

Susan White 00:44
Today’s episode is “Becoming a Chief Human Resources Officer,” and the reason why we’re delving into this topic, it’s really a commonly asked question we get from our listeners. How do I become the head of HR in the organization I’m at? Any tips, advice that we have. So we thought it made sense, let’s devote an episode to it. The CHRO role may be called Chief People Officer at your firm, or HR director, or Executive HR Business Partner, EVP or SVP of HR, Director of People, or… or who knows, JoDee, may be something more unique to your organization.

JoDee 01:18
Right.

Susan White 01:19
What we’ll be discussing today is truly how do you reach that top HR position, whatever you call it in the organization of your choice? Is it best to get a degree in HR or maybe a related major? Do you have a master’s? Is it necessary? Is it best to work your way up in HR at the same company or move to HR roles in other companies, or coming to HR at a later point in your career for maybe a business unit?

JoDee 01:44
Right.

Susan White 01:45
The US BLS – Bureau of Labor Statistics – reports that human resource managers typically need a bachelor’s degree to enter the occupation. The degree may be in human resources or another field, and some of those common other fields that we see are business, communications, and psychology. I’m always happy when someone has psychology in their background. I think, oh, man, that’s got to help us figure out – right? – what makes people tick.

JoDee 02:08
Hey, absolutely.

Susan White 02:09
Yeah. The most senior roles according to the BLS may require a master’s degree in human resources, labor relations, or business administration, such as an MBA. In a survey that Wikipedia cites with top HR leaders, roughly two thirds of CHROs said they worked outside of HR at some point in their career, so staying only in the HR discipline as your career path may not necessarily get you to the top. Having some in-the-business knowledge may give you the credibility when you consult and give advice to leaders, managers and employees.

JoDee 02:44
Right. Both of us have worked outside of HR at different points in our career.

Susan White 02:50
We have. For me, it was pretty early in my career, but honestly, I know it helped give me credibility to come into the HR having been a manager of people.

JoDee 02:58
Right. Myself as well.

Susan White 03:00
36% of US CHROs gained their position through internal promotion, so their staying at the same company did pay off for those people. The same study found that the most common area of functional HR experience that CHROs had on their resumes… actually, let’s give them a list of where people normally came from inside the HR world.

JoDee 03:22
So number one was talent management.

Susan White 03:26
Number two was comp and benefits.

JoDee 03:29
And number three is organizational culture.

Susan White 03:33
Interestingly, CHROs often in the past had really strong, usually labor relations backgrounds, but in today’s world, with unions not being nearly as large as they were in the past, it’s much less likely to be true.

JoDee 03:46
Right.

Susan White 03:47
JoDee, you and I have had senior HR roles in different organizations. What were the titles you had, and how would you describe those roles, and how did you get into them?

JoDee 03:55
So my first HR title, I was an HR Manager, and I… this was… if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you know I’m a CPA by trade and had been an accountant for nine years and then stepped into an HR role in that same firm. So I was… as an HR Manager, I led about 150 people. So I was like the head of HR for that region of the organization. Then I moved to a different firm and I was the Director of HR and then had a short stint for a year as a VP of HR before starting my own business in Purple Ink.

Susan White 04:44
What did those roles entail? When you were that lead HR person, what were you responsible for?

JoDee 04:49
So, a lot of recruiting in every one of those roles. I will tell you in my first role as an HR Manager I had zero experience in benefits and comp, and so it really was not until I became an HR Director that I learned about benefits, and thankfully, our benefits broker taught me everything I needed to know. Very thankful for the knowledge they shared with me. But once I was an HR Director, I really had responsibility for all things. Comp, ben, the performance review system, recruiting, again, employee relations, training – I wasn’t always the trainer, but I would bring in other trainers, as well. And what about you, Susan?

Susan White 05:48
Well, you know, it’s interesting, I worked in a large corporation, so in corporate America, I was not the top HR person of that organization, but for me, I did hit what would be equivalent to an HR Director or Chief HR Officer job. We called it at the time… for about seven years, I was the Senior HR Business Partner Executive, so that was our terminology for, like, Chief HR Officer. And this organization that I led the HR function for was a 5,500 person affiliate of a much larger organization. So we had, like, independent businesses, so I reported to the CEO of that business as well as to the head of HR for all of the retail businesses that… that existed in this corporation. So I reported in to the both of them. It was kind of a dual reporting relationship. For the first few years when I was in this role, it was my dream come true. I truly did want to manage HR from cradle to grave. And I worked my way up in HR through this organization, first as a Campus Recruiter, an HR Generalist, I eventually became a Comp Analyst, I became a Benefit Specialist, which… honestly, we were just bringing in a cafeteria-style benefit program, I did not know a lot about benefits either, and I really learned on the way, and we worked really closely with Mercer at the time, and I… it was just a great learning experience. Anyway, I did that, I became a Training and Development Officer for a period of time, I ended up managing employment and employee relations for a number of years, and then we moved into the HR Business Partner model, and so I became an HR Business Partner with a small team. And then that team just kept growing and growing as our organization kept growing. Then I had the opportunity to be a Head of Staffing for this organization, had 1,000s of branches and call centers and I… I really learned how to take a talent acquisition function and scale it to about 20,000 hires a year.

JoDee 07:37
Oh, my.

Susan White 07:39
Yeah, very large. We created an internal sourcing and executive headhunting function, because we were adamant as an organization that we were done paying headhunter fees. So I did that before I became this Senior HR Business Partner Executive. And there I had the opportunity to manage talent acquisition for this 5,500 person company, HR business partnering, compensation, and training. And so it was super fun. And I did that for a period of time. I really… I think I prepared for that role my whole career by doing a variety of different HR things. I felt very lucky to have grown up in an environment where I could really get different specialties, right? Instead of always being a generalist. Academically, I do have a degree in business with… I had two areas of concentration, management and personnel was what we called it at the time.

JoDee 08:28
Right.

Susan White 08:29
Yes, right? Back in the day. Now, I could not find a job coming out of college directly into HR, so I went into a management training program, and in that organization I worked in… in management, before I moved into human resources. And so again, as you talked about earlier, it was really nice having some line management experience. I think it made me a better candidate when HR management jobs came open, that I had managed teams on the front line.

JoDee 08:53
Yeah.

Susan White 08:54
So I ended up staying at the same company for more than 30 years. We just got acquired over time. And navigating being acquired is kind of another skill set that’s nice to have. I did start my MBA, I never finished it. I guess if you have a regret in life, I really should have finished my MBA. Although I don’t think it hurt me career wise. I just would love to have actually earned it.

JoDee 09:14
Yeah. You know, I don’t have my MBA or a master’s either, but both of us, you know, achieved certifications in HR, which I think is, if you’re not going… I always think education is good, but certifications can be very helpful as well, too.

Susan White 09:34
Yes, I totally agree. Well, to get input from others who have been the Head of HR or the Chief HR Officers, we asked two of our friends who have just recently retired from CHRO positions to share some of their career insights with us. Our first guest is one of my dear friends, Susan Weber, who retired at the end of 2021 from Elements Financial as their Chief Human Resources Officer. And let’s talk to her first. So Susan, tell us about the CHRO role that you just retired from. What was the industry, the size and scope of the business, and the employee count that you supported?

Susan Weber 10:12
I was lucky enough to be the Senior Vice President – or CHRO – of Human Resources and Talent Management at Elements Financial Federal Credit Union, which of course, is in the financial services industry. The organization is just over 2 billion in asset size, and we had right at 200 employees at year end, and still actively hiring as the company continues to grow.

Susan White 10:41
Beautiful.

JoDee 10:42
Susan, was it a long time career goal of yours to be a CHRO?

Susan Weber 10:48
I don’t think I realized early in my career that this is where I wanted to go. I had spent most of my career in retail sales and operations for two different banks, and I had the opportunity in 2004, thanks to Susan White, to move into a role in HR focused on recruiting. I’d done a lot of recruiting in my sales and operations roles. You’re… seems like you’re always filling positions when you’re in that capacity.

Susan White 11:21
And she was very good at it, by the way.

Susan Weber 11:23
[Laughs] Well, thank you.

Susan White 11:23
One of those line managers that was really good at spotting talent – right? – and developing people.

Susan Weber 11:27
And I loved it. I found that I truly had a passion for finding the right person to fill every job. So I was lucky enough to manage a team of recruiters for a while between Indiana and Michigan, and then as Susan had warned me when I went into the position… “you know, we do a lot of reorganization in HR.” And, sure enough, my position was eventually eliminated. We kind of reorganized to a more efficient plan which made a whole lot of sense. I left the company at that time, went to a smaller bank, had an opportunity there to manage HR once again until we were acquired by a larger bank and my position was actually awarded to the acquiring bank CHRO. So I did a couple other things until I left that organization and then had the opportunity to go to Elements Financial Federal Credit Union at the time, interestingly, in an operations role. I didn’t necessarily jump right into HR, because there was not an opportunity there, but I did a little bit of private banking, and a little bit of operations, and interestingly, my position in operations reported to HR, which was very unique, I think, from my perspective in financial services. But that gave me an opportunity to really see what was happening firsthand in the world of HR, and eventually the HR Manager there left the organization, and I made a beeline to the CEO…

Susan White 13:05
[Laughs]

Susan Weber 13:05
…and said “I need that job.” [Laughs]

JoDee 13:06
[Laughs]

Susan Weber 13:08
And really explained my background and what I had done and and the opportunity I was really looking for. And literally I feel like I was handed my dream job. And I… I felt like it all came together – my knowledge of operations, my knowledge of private banking, my knowledge of lending and sales and, of course, human resources and talent management all came together in this wonderful opportunity that I was given. And I have said for many years I got my dream job. It was everything – ensuring that people got paid and they had good benefits, but also the whole development side. I really, really found that I was passionate about that and enjoyed the opportunity to bring it all together in that one role.

Susan White 13:54
Can I tell a quick story? Because you mentioned the fact that you I convinced you to come into HR at this organization and then ultimately we reorganized, your job was over. The fact is, Susan came to me and said, “Susan, I can see the writing on the wall here. You’re going to have to downsize and I know the other people that I would be competing with to stay, and I think I could handle it better than they could. I know that I’ve got talents and skills and this is going to be a tough decision on you. Let it be me.”

JoDee 14:21
Oh, I love it!

Susan White 14:23
You remember that?

Susan Weber 14:23
I do remember that. I’m sure it was because of my… at that point, I had 26 years with the company and I really felt like I knew enough about talent management and development plans that I could kind of reinvent myself, where other people I didn’t feel like had that… that kind of opportunity. So I did have that conversation with Susan and said, you know, “I can work through this mentally. You can tell me today,” because I think if I remember right, I learned in May that the position was going to go away and it didn’t happen until the end of the year. Literally December 31 was my last day with the company. And I did take a couple months off before I went into my next role, but I did feel well-equipped to be able to make the transition because of all the experiences that I’d had up to that point.

Susan White 15:17
Can I just say it was such a gift to me?

Susan Weber 15:19
[Laughs]

Susan White 15:19
Because over the years, I had to do a lot of downsizing, and for… you were just amazing.

Susan Weber 15:24
[Laughs] Well, thank you.

Susan White 15:24
And turned out to have continued wonderful successes in your life. Yes. Hey, Susan, do you mind sharing… we’ve talked a little bit at the opening of this episode about educational background, what is needed, what isn’t needed to hit that top job. What was your educational background?

Susan Weber 15:41
Well, so, interestingly, I… my college degree is in English and journalism. And I have jokingly said for years, you know, how I got into the world of accounting and financial services makes no sense, other than the fact that I can write a great memo.

JoDee 15:57
[Laughs]

Susan White 15:57
Yes you can. [Laughs]

Susan Weber 15:58
[Laughs] I can write a great email, I’ve got a knack for the English language, I can communicate well. And I think literally, the communication skills that I learned through my education really provided opportunities for me along those lines, as well. So that’s really where my education got me. I started back in financial services as a teller while I was still in college, and literally, I’ve just never left until retirement a few weeks ago, so… [laughs] Just loved it. Found I loved it.

JoDee 16:32
You know, our VP of Talent at Purple Ink, Peggy Hogan, she has a degree in English, as well, and leads all of our recruiting efforts, and I think those communication skills that she has, has really helped her be successful in those roles as well, too.

Susan Weber 16:53
I’ve had some interaction with Peggy and I would agree. Her communication skills are outstanding. Yeah.

JoDee 16:59
Yeah. Thinking back during your CHRO role days, what were the best and worst parts of being a CHRO?

Susan Weber 17:10
I would say the best parts of the job for me really go back to my passion around people development. The best parts would be opportunities to coach, to train, and to develop other employees. The fun thing, of course, in my role as CHRO was getting to see the outcome of that coaching. I love sitting down with people and talking about a development plan and helping create the culture around development and really bringing that to the forefront in our organization. When I came on board into the CHRO role, we did not have a trainer other than me. In fact, HR was myself and one other person. And when I retired, right at the end of the year, the team actually now consists of six people. So we had the opportunity to really grow, and with a tremendous focus on talent management and talent acquisition. And we had the opportunity, of course, to, I’ll say, grow into becoming a Best Place to Work in Indiana, which we were all extremely proud of. So that’s really the best part for me, is really the opportunity to see… coach and train and see others develop and actually get to witness that as one of their coworkers. The worst part of the job… I have very little negative to say about being in the CHRO role, but I think one of the most challenging things to deal with is vendor management. [Laughs] That may sound like a unique response, but when a partner or business partner makes an error and it’s up to you to not only resolve the error, but to also explain if it impacts employees, that’s a really tough situation to be in. And for us that… that happened once in a fairly significant way, and it was in regards to our 401(k) plan. So of course, you know, it’s not one or two employees. It’s a whole bunch of employees. And it took several weeks for us to work through the resolution. We actually caught the problem, not the vendor, which, you know, kind of puts a chink in your relationship with with the vendor in particular, but we worked through it, got the situation resolved, had to involve legal counsel to work through some things. And the whole reason I think that was most challenging… That was nowhere in our plans. We had no extra time that we could devote to fixing a problem, yet it absolutely became our top priority when it happened. So I think managing those outside relationships, and in… in the credit union space, you’re very dependent on those. You don’t do everything in house, but you partner with organizations pretty broadly, and when an error occurs, you just have to make it a priority to get it fixed. So for us that would be most challenging.

Susan White 20:10
Is there anything you wish you had done more of or less of in your career?

Susan Weber 20:15
I have absolutely no regrets about my career journey. I’m, in fact, just absolutely grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had. And… and maybe most importantly here at the very end of my career, I have the opportunity to work through a succession planning exercise regarding our CEO, who actually is also retiring within the next few weeks. And I started that journey with our board of directors three years ago and actually saw it come through to completion, literally, in January, and then I… I technically retired at the end of January. I’m happy to say we’ve got a new CEO, who will be starting, actually, this week with the organization. So really, really happy about that. I think the one thing I wish maybe I had done sooner, is pursue my HR certification. I waited really late in my career to do that. I don’t know why, I just did. And I feel like that gave me credibility when I did get it, and I always wondered why I didn’t do it sooner. So I… I highly recommend for anybody who hasn’t done that, that it’s a great addition to your credentials and maybe your credibility to have that certification behind you.

JoDee 21:36
Susan, you know, we are The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, so we always like to talk about being JoyPowered®. What influence do you think that you had in your career as a CHRO in creating a JoyPowered® workspace?

Susan Weber 21:54
I love the concept of JoyPowered®, and I’m glad that that got coined as a phrase, because I always felt like… I feel like HR in particular has every opportunity to influence the culture within the organization. We were lucky enough, I always felt like we drove the culture. When I went into the position, HR was seen as more of the police versus a partner, and that wasn’t the image that I wanted us to have, so we worked really hard at partnering. We changed even job titles, which I know is fairly common these days for HR business partners, but we truly had to not only change the title, but we had to live out that expectation with our department managers and… and our senior staff team, because we had an… we had an image problem, quite honestly. So to create what we know today as a JoyPowered® workspace really took some work on our part, but I believe we did it because we really wanted it to happen. We wanted to change the culture, we wanted partnerships, we wanted to develop people and… and to retain our top talent within the organization. So I think for anyone who’s focused on changing the culture or creating a more positive culture, work at it little by little, set the right example, you know, even when days are challenging for those of us in the world of HR – and they certainly have been for the last few years – work at it little by little and then watch things evolve, because they will and it’ll become… it’ll kind of catch on within the organization. So one person will tell the other, “hey, they’re not here to just enforce the rules, but they’re here to help us partner and really make a difference for the organization.”

Susan White 23:45
Good advice. Well, Susan, thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate this.

Susan Weber 23:50
My pleasure.

Susan White 23:51
Absolutely. Any parting advice or anything else you’d like to add?

Susan Weber 23:55
Take advantage of every opportunity that comes along. You never know where it’s gonna lead. And seize the moment. The path isn’t always clear, I think, in terms of getting from where you are today to the end destination. But once it happens, you’re sometimes amazed, but it’s just being brave enough to step forward.

Susan White 24:14
[Laughs] Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you so very much. The next guest is one of my dear friends and former bosses, Anne Leyden, who retired in 2021 from TransUnion as their Global Chief Human Resources Officer. Welcome, Anne.

Anne 24:30
Thank you, Susan. Good to see you.

Susan White 24:33
Yes. We’d love for you to start out maybe just giving us a brief description of what the CHRO role really was at TransUnion. What industry you would say that you were in, the size and scope of the business, the employee count?

Anne 24:45
I joined TransUnion at a at a wonderful time for me and certainly a wonderful time for anybody who’s interested in being a head of HR. They were owned by private equity and ultimately, were taken to market to the public markets. So I got to be a part of the whole process of taking a company public. And at the same time, the company was expanding tremendously and really diversifying what it does. So most people think of TransUnion as a credit bureau. It is, of course, a credit bureau, but it is so, so much more than that. It’s really a big data analytics and technology firm that works to help consumers get the best out of life in terms of what they’re looking to do financially and works with businesses to do the best matching of consumers to businesses so that businesses have the best opportunities. The firm now numbers, I believe, close to 10,000 employees. When I started, we had, like, 3,000.

JoDee 25:42
Wow.

Anne 25:43
So grew a lot in that time, a lot through acquisition, but a lot just organically, too, in growing the businesses that they had. And you know, I think the the revenues of the firm are probably… I didn’t check the latest earnings, but I’m gonna guess two and a half billion, and the company operates in over 30 countries across the globe. So has a tremendous reach internationally, which was a really fun and exciting thing for me to be a part of, in my time.

Susan White 26:14
Amazing.

JoDee 26:15
Was it always your dream job to be a CHRO? And how did you get to that level?

Anne 26:23
Yeah, no, it wasn’t. It was not my dream. I did not…

Susan White 26:26
[Laughs]

Anne 26:27
…seek it out. Susan knows I did not…

Susan White 26:28
It was your nightmare. [Laughs]

Anne 26:29
[Laughs] But oddly enough, I will say that my undergrad is in human development, and when I… when I came out of school, I did think about things sort of more in the industrial psychology space and didn’t seriously pursue those, just ended up being at a bank and actually had my first job at a bank – other than being a teller, which I was in college – was the receptionist for the human resources department. So I did, even before Susan and I worked together in HR, I did have some very early days working in HR as a very young person. But… but then I pursued a lot of different tracks. I was in marketing, I was in operations, I was in the field doing various things, always in banking. And literally, I was asked to take on an HR role just at a kind of a… I don’t know, Susan, would you call it a bit of a tumultuous time at the bank she and I had worked…?

Susan White 27:28
I think that’s a very nice way to put that. Yeah. [Laughs] Yes, tumultuous.

Anne 27:32
And only really because I knew the business and I knew people in the business, and that, I think, was a greater priority than other things for the management team at the time, because there were obviously, you know, incredibly talented people who had HR expertise who in many ways would have been much more qualified for that role. But I had the business sense, which at the time, I think was important. So no, I didn’t start out there. But I, you know, I’ve been in it, and I’ve been out of it. And when I went to TransUnion, that was an intentional desire to be in it. I mean, I looked at everything I could do in a business, and I came to the conclusion that all the smart people who… who got HR long before I did know, that if you really want to have influence inside of a business, the greatest influence, the greatest leverage you have is through the people. So being in that seat and taking on that role is, in my opinion, other than maybe being the CEO, the number one way to have the influence that you want to have in a business. It’s through the people.

Susan White 28:41
Quick personal story on Anne. In “The JoyPowered® Team” book that JoDee and I and several other people wrote, I talked about Anne in that book, about the fact that when she came into HR, as she said, it was really because of her business knowledge. She really lifted our game as HR professionals, because in HR we had spent a lot of time thinking about people from a lot of directions, but we had not spent nearly as much time thinking about the business, and how do we leverage the people to really enable that business to achieve its objective. So Anne, that was a gift you gave me and all the other HR people when you did make that migration into HR.

Anne 29:15
I got many more gifts from you, my friend, than you did from me.

Susan White 29:19
[Laughs] Aww. So you briefly mentioned your educational background. So beyond your undergrad, did you ever get any other certifications or masters or just maybe some of the ongoing development?

Anne 29:33
You know, no, and I… you know, there were a lot of years I felt less than because I didn’t have a business degree or an advanced degree. And you know, I did various certain things. You know, I remember doing some programs at places like the University of Chicago, much more of this business focus, though, you know, you take a certificate or something like that, that I had done. I will say that in my time in TransUnion I… I was introduced to the HR Policy Association. It’s an amazing organization, it is just for heads of HR, but it’s… it’s both a great community, but they have tremendous programming. And if you’re going to get into that head job, or even if you’re not in that head job, and you’re close to it, you know, maybe you’re number two, taking advantage of programs like that is… I mean, it’s honestly, it’s… it’s irreplaceable. It really is. It just… you know, surrounding yourself with people who are in the practice, and who know the practice, and who can bring that knowledge to you. It’s amazing. So that… that is definitely one thing that I have done. And I’ve done most of their programs, specifically in the executive compensation space, and I would highly recommend it.

JoDee 30:45
Nice. I’m not familiar with them. What were some of the best and worst parts of being a CHRO?

Anne 30:53
Well, I’m going to say, you know, now that I’ve had the distance between leaving the job and today, I mean, the number one best part of my job was the… the group of people I had on my HR team. I mean, just no question. I… I had a tremendous team, we all enjoyed each other’s company, we worked hard, but we also just had a lot of fun together. So surrounding and… same with Susan. Surrounding yourself with people like that, that’s, oh, my gosh, such a meaningful part of just your daily existence in a job like that. But for me, I think it was the best part was just the challenge, you know, I… it was an endless series of challenges, by the way, ending with COVID. So there was always just something so meaty and so difficult that you had to kind of figure out and wrap your arms around. And when I walked in the door, I think the highest engagement score they’d ever had was in the 40s. And by the time I left, we had it into the high 80s and, in many cases, even over 90. So…

Susan White 31:58
Wow.

JoDee 31:58
Wow.

Anne 31:59
The best part about being in the head job is you get to you get to build a strategy, you get to work through the execution, and you just get to get things done. And that is a wonderful thing. You just feel like you’re constantly creating impact. And you see it and you feel it, you know, when you talk to people and you go around the globe, and you see how they’re doing. I think the hardest part for all of us in HR is people have struggles, and we are right there in those struggles with them. And there is for… for people pain that comes from that, that, you know, we can only do so much to help them navigate that pain. And so to find yourself in situations that are painful for people is always, I think, really hard. And I guess I’ll just say much more tactically, if you’ve not done the head job, you’ve probably not had a lot of exposure to executive compensation. And, you know, writing the CDNA and the proxy and being on Comp Committee, and I found that was a heavy lift, you know, coming in with nothing and really learning that from the ground up. I would have to say, that was… you know, there were definitely some tough days in that realm until I got on my game, until I had the right people around me who who were good support to me in that space, too.

Susan White 33:21
So looking back, Anne, is there anything you wish you had done more of or less of in your career?

Anne 33:27
Yes, definitely.

JoDee 33:29
[Laughs]

Anne 33:32
You know, I was thinking about this earlier. So I’m going to tell you what I… what I think… I was trying to decide whether or not this is super helpful to people who might be listening. But I think it took me too long in my career to really lead, even though I was in leadership roles. And I think I did a good job, if you know what I mean. I was too focused on my job, and I was less focused on leading. And part of that, I think, is just, you know, my own demons and worries and anxieties and insecurities that I allowed to take up too much space and keep me from really focusing on the people I was leading or the organizations that I was leading. And I think part of it is allowing yourself to be so wrapped up in in the work that you don’t look out and see really, beyond what you’re doing, what the company might need from you. And I think when you’re in an HR role, it’s all about everybody else. You know, it has nothing to do with you and people are counting on you to set a course, to be there for them, to ensure fairness, to ensure happiness, engagement, all these things, joy, you know, people are looking to you for that, and I… I could have embraced that role much earlier in my career. I could have cast a much larger shadow had I lifted my head up in thought beyond the job I was given to do and had I allowed myself to get out of my own head and be more present for everybody else and less worried about… about myself. So I… it’s not, I don’t know that I would have changed any job I had, or anything I did, or any work that I did. But yeah, I wish I would have been a better leader earlier in my career, for sure.

Susan White 35:26
That’s great advice, I think, for any… any of us really, to get out of our own head. We all have that negative speech that’s going in our head, all of our doubts and things that keep us from actually stepping out and truly leading. So I love that. Thank you for that.

Anne 35:39
The other thing, and I tell this to people a lot, and I never did it myself until much, much later in my career. But the other thing I would couple that with is, you know, really think about who all of your stakeholders are. And I, you know, this is sort of, at any level of your career, even if you’re in a head job somewhere. Who are all the stakeholders? And literally, push yourself to almost put pen to paper and think about… Who are those people? What do they care about? And what are you doing that matches what they care about? Because what you’ll find is, if you don’t really think about that analytically and have a real plan around each of those stakeholders, you’ll spend a ton of time with people who are easy to see there, because they’re totally embedded in what you’re doing, and you will just appear absent to the other people, unless you do something to fill that space. And I think as you’re building a career, not planning for that and being intentional about that will hurt you. You know, you’ll… you’ll have a divided group of stakeholders, people who think you’re doing a great job, and people who are like, “eh,” you know, “I don’t see her,” or “she doesn’t seem to care,” you know, whatever that track is, but it’s never too early to start thinking that way and really planning for how you manage those stakeholders.

Susan White 36:56
Smart.

JoDee 36:57
I love that great advice. And you know, on the JoyPowered® podcast, we like to think about joy and the workspace. So what influence do you think a CHRO has in creating a JoyPowered® workspace?

Anne 37:14
100% of everything.

JoDee 37:15
[Laughs]

Anne 37:17
I mean, I can’t… you… I just… I knew you were going to tee up that question, and I… I wish I could come up with a better answer, but I cannot think of any single thing that impedes our ability to own 100% of that space. I mean, we hire the people, so matching people to jobs that create joy, that’s on us. I mean, it’s not 100% on us, but man, we have a huge…

Susan White 37:43
Yes, influence.

Anne 37:45
We know that their experience every day has so much to do with the person they work for, and the teams they work on. That’s us. That’s how we train those people, how we select those people, how we reward and motivate those managers and how we teach them to be great managers – huge influence on that – and how we put a team together and enable a manager to run it well so everybody feels great. And how we work with the CEO and business leaders to create a mission for the company that our employees can really rally to and feel good about. And how we… you know, I used to say at TransUnion that, you know, my goal is to every day send people home with more energy than when they came to work.

JoDee 38:31
Ooh, nice.

Anne 38:33
And when you think about that, of course, it’s like, that’s a huge goal. And there are a lot of pieces of that that maybe we don’t control. But think about if we could actually make that happen by matching employees well to jobs, making them feel good about the work they did, giving them great teams, giving them great leadership, and they… they literally went home to their families feeling more energy to be with their family or other people that they care about and to do the things that they care about that aren’t just work versus sending them home feeling just defeated or depleted or tired. That… I think 100% of that equation, we can influence and… and I think great companies allow great HR people to do that.

Susan White 39:19
Wow, I think that goes beyond a JoyPowered® workspace. You’re making a JoyPowered® world, if you can pull that off. If you send them home from work…

Anne 39:25
I believe that, totally. That if we… literally, if people look back and they say, “Yeah, like, when I was at whatever company, you know, I was able to give so much more to my community or to my family and… and to be grateful for that experience.” I mean, you can’t get better than that.

Susan White 39:43
Beautiful.

JoDee 39:44
Very wise.

Susan White 39:45
Well, Anne, thank you so much for coming. This has really been a joy for us.

Anne 39:48
Thank you, and thank you for thinking of me.

JoDee 39:51
Susan, we have a listener question today that came from a listener in November of 2021. She asked, “Are your podcasts also approved through HRCI?”

Susan White 40:05
My guess is that the listener’s saying “also through HRCI,” because many of our episodes are approved for SHRM credit, which I think we’ve spoken about before and on different episodes. I’ll tell you, HRCI, we do not go through a certification process to get our podcasts that are educational in nature, pre-approved by them. HRCI is the HR Certification Institute. But we would encourage you if you hold your accreditation from them, a GPHR or SPHR or a PHR, to consider submitting the talk show notes we provide at getjoypowered.com with each episode, as well as I would copy the SHRM pre-approved documentation so HRCI could see that another organization had certified this class as eligible. And once you complete an evaluation of any of our episodes, you are then able to get the SHRM credit certificate, which I think is a nice piece of documentation to share with HRCI. JoDee, do you have any other advice for our listeners who might be interested?

JoDee 41:08
No. But I do think it’s important for certified HR professionals to understand that both through HRCI and SHRM, that you can… you don’t always have to have a pre-approved code, that you can in fact go through this process. So you could do this with other events or trainings that you go to that aren’t SHRM certified either. And most people think there’s a lot of work behind that, but I’ve done it many times, and it’s really a pretty simple process.

Susan White 41:42
Terrific. Thank you. It’s time for in the news. HRmorning.com posted an article by Tom D’Agostino on February 3, 2022 about Santander Bank paying $4.25 million to settle a wage and hour class action suit. The suit alleged that Santander hadn’t paid their 764 branch operations managers overtime in seven states as they should have.

JoDee 42:09
Wow.

Susan White 42:10
I know. Having supported branch banking from an HR perspective for a lot of years, this article really hit home with me. The fact that the role had the word “manager” in the title may have left the organization’s leaders not recognizing that it may not have met the Fair Labor Standards Act criteria to truly be an exempt role, so they should have been paying overtime. Tom notes that the primary duties of the branch operations managers were non-managerial tasks such as processing transactions, balancing the cash vault, and placing work orders. The lead complainant in the wage and hour class action suit said it was normal for her to work 10 to 12 hours of overtime a week due to staff shortages, which in today’s world is a constant reality.

JoDee 42:58
Wow.

Susan White 42:59
Yeah. I think this case is a good reminder to all of us to periodically review what are the primary duties being performed by all of our employees and ask ourselves, do we have them correctly classified as exempt or non-exempt? Don’t let titles that may have the word “manager” in it or “supervisor” in it lead you to believe that that job is exempt when it may truly not be.

JoDee 43:20
You know, we haven’t talked about that in a while. And that’s a great reminder to all of us to look at those job descriptions. Thanks for listening today and make it a JoyPowered® day.

Susan White 43:36
Thank you for listening. If you liked the show, please tell your friends about it and let us know what you think by rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts.

JoDee 43:45
You can learn more about JoyPowered® at getjoypowered.com. Check out The JoyPowered® Shop, where you can order our books, journals, and other items that power our joy, at getjoypowered.com/shop We’re @JoyPowered on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter and you can email us at joypowered@gmail.com.

Susan White 44:13
We hope you tune in next time. Make it a JoyPowered® day.