Built By People

Amit Neev is Head of HR, North America at ADAMA, an agricultural solutions company. He started out as a financial analyst with a legal background, moved into compensation and benefits at Comverse, and spent years in comp and ben roles, including at ADAMA, before moving from the company's headquarters to lead HR for North America. He and Kimball talk about learning the language of the business, making a global culture work for a US team, hiring for culture fit, and how he uses AI as a thinking partner.

Takeaways

• Whatever part of HR you're in, understand how the business makes money and learn at least the basics, like how to read a P&L. If you speak the language of the business, you get a seat at the table.
• Don't wait for the opportunity to come. Be curious, agile and adaptable, and keep building your skills so you're a good fit when the next role opens up.
• In HR you almost know everything, but you can't always share it. People bring you problems with their manager, business challenges and personal issues, and you have to point them in the right direction without violating their trust.
• A lot of Amit's job is translating: explaining to the business why global headquarters is asking for something, and explaining to headquarters why the business is pushing back.
• What surprised him after the move: culture is stronger than geography. ADAMA's informal culture felt like home from day one, though some US employees prefer more structure.
• When hiring, include an interviewer who isn't on the hiring team and doesn't have a horse in the race, and encourage candidates to ask about the culture too. ADAMA's "people promise" spells out what candidates are getting into.
• One hour can go from updating employee records to planning the future structure of the sales organization. Staying proactive comes down to checking your KPIs and prioritizing every day.
• His advice for HR specialists: take the time to learn the other areas of HR and keep an open mind. He came from comp and ben and once wanted nothing but numbers and spreadsheets.
• He uses AI as a sounding board and a thinking engine, with a human in the loop. More than once it has shown him perspectives he hadn't thought about.

Connect with Amit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-neev

Stephanie Saik is Head of People & Culture at Ash Hotels, a boutique hotel group, and has spent over 20 years in hospitality. She started as a hostess, worked her way up to general manager of a barbecue restaurant, and moved into hotels and then HR. She and Kimball talk about building the People side of Ash from scratch, how she prepares for hard conversations, why HR isn't the enemy, and why hiring is the biggest piece of the guest experience.

Takeaways

• When Ash's founders geared up for growth, the company had four well-run hotels but nothing bringing them together. Stephanie was one of the first hires on the new hotel executive team and built the foundations: handbooks, a first 401(k), one benefit plan, training manuals and hiring guidelines.
• With every new property, the priority is the GM and senior leadership. One person in the wrong seat can derail the entire operation.
• She came into HR without a formal HR background. Her mentor, then VP of HR at Modus Hotels, told her she was already doing 75% of the job and they could teach her the rest. Her advice to her younger self: trust yourself and say yes to things.
• HR has to know compliance, but it shouldn't lead with it. Spend a day at the front desk and eat lunch in the break room. It seems basic, but it builds trust.
• Hard conversations never get easy. Get the facts, hear both sides and don't jump to conclusions. A termination for cause or performance should never be a surprise.
• HR often delivers decisions it didn't make and gets blamed for them. HR is definitely not the enemy, and most HR people have the employee's best interest in mind.
• Hiring drives the guest experience. Ash's HR person is part of every property interview, and the hotels don't use rigid scripts, so people can be real.
• Her advice for the community: network, get out of your comfort zone, and always leave a job on a high note.

Connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-saik

Daniel McDonald is Chief of Staff and Head of HR at Spartan, the obstacle course race company, and spent most of his career in franchise operations, including Pearle Vision and Sport Clips. He and Kimball talk about his book Remember Your Why, why Spartan's event crews hire their own teammates, why he thinks "people operations" is an oxymoron, and how a five-person HR team covers everyone from Europe to California without leaving an email unread.

Takeaways

• Most people have more than one why: one for family, one for work, one for what they do outside work. When one goes sideways, the others keep you on track. He wrote Remember Your Why for his wife and son, and his wife told him more people needed to read it.
• At Spartan, the foreman of each seven-person build crew does the hiring. The crew travels to 12 to 14 events a year and often shares hotel rooms for 10 days at a time, so they have to fit. A new hire's first three events work as a real probationary period, and average tenure on the ground is about four years.
• When someone works hard but doesn't fit their crew, event directors find them a crew where they do. That kept four employees this year who would have been let go before.
• Say it plainly in the interview: this job isn't for everybody. Spartan's events run on weekends, so the support teams, finance included, work weekends too.
• It's in the title: human resources is the resource for the humans. He thinks "people operations" is an oxymoron, because operations is KPIs and efficiency. HR still holds people accountable, but with empathy, and he shows the difference with two versions of the same "you missed a step" email.
• If you want employees to work with HR, HR has to lead. He seeks out the employees who complain the most, asks what they don't like about HR, and fixes what he can.
• His team of five covers 5 AM to 8 PM Eastern, six days a week, and nobody signs off with an unread email. The reply might be "I don't have an answer yet," but nobody gets ignored.
• In 2027 he plans to start a podcast, also called Remember Your Why, with people who have overcome incredible odds or helped others do it.

Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-k-mcdonald

Dr. Suzanne Larsen Balaoing is Chief People & Culture Officer at Silverado, which provides memory care and end-of-life care. She's done physician HR at the Permanente Medical Group and worked at PRO Unlimited and 360 Behavioral Health. She and Maddie talk about the day the FBI showed up at her office, why "there's nobody to hire" usually isn't the real problem, what HR loses when a chatbot takes the easy questions, and replacing performance reviews with an impact report.

Takeaways

• Do the tedious work. Someone skipped a right-to-work check while onboarding a group of contingent workers, and nine months later the FBI told her a fake worker on payroll was funneling money to a terrorist organization. It came to almost $5 million over about three years.
• Turnover usually has more than one cause. A mix of 5-star and 1-star Glassdoor reviews tells her management is inconsistent from site to site. She once had two communities 13 miles apart, one at 117% turnover and one at 40%, hiring from the same pool of candidates.
• At Silverado she hires caregivers for being other-centered and compassionate, not for assisted-living or dementia experience, because Silverado trains for that.
• She asks everyone on her team what their care plan is for themselves. HR deals with a lot of hard things, and it will wear you down if you don't manage it.
• At 360 Behavioral Health, time to fill went from 45 days to 7. The fixes were fair pay, cutting out paper workarounds between systems, tighter handoffs with hiring managers and approvals, and no longer ranking recruiters against each other. "What you reward is what you get more of."
• When a chatbot answers the simple HR questions, what's left is all the high-emotion calls. Those simple questions were giving people a break.
• Her idea for replacing the performance review: an impact report that shows people the hours they spent caring for someone, the families they helped and the times they stepped up for teammates.
• Her advice: be kind. You don't know what people are carrying.

Connect with Suzanne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanneklarsen

Ariana Gett was an executive assistant for 8 years before she moved into HR, and in one of those jobs, at a very small company with no HR, she was asked to fire her own replacement. She later spent nearly four years at edX, where she pulled together the HR information when 2U acquired it. She's now Head of People Ops at mabl. She and Maddie talk about performance reviews, being your own advocate, and how AI is changing the way her team works.

Takeaways

• "Performance should not be a surprise." If 360s happen after big projects or each quarter, the year-end review should feel like a summary of what you've already been hearing.
• Be an advocate for your own career. Say when something's not going well and say what you want, whether that's a promotion, more money or a different role. Your manager can't read your mind.
• One review process can still fit different teams. At mabl, engineers reflect on the customer outcome of what they built, and the success team focuses on skills, since commission already shows results. Both happen at the same time of year, with calibration across the company.
• In an acquisition, the buyer wants to know how your culture will fit with theirs. Expect them to look at your values, your engagement surveys and even your Glassdoor ratings, and know your headcount, hiring plans and contractors well enough to answer live.
• When women were leaving faster than men, mabl funded its ERGs, started paying ERG leaders and gave each group an executive sponsor.
• Change is messy. When you're learning, you're not having an impact yet, and that can feel confusing when you come to work to have one.
• Her advice: know your business, and meet people where they're at. Underperformance is often something underlying that you don't see yet, and most of the time people want to do their best work.

Connect with Ariana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariana-gett-75423159

Lindsey Wendland started her career at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, working on partnerships for its music series and on patron loyalty. She moved into business operations, picked up HR work when a colleague went on maternity leave, and never left. She's now Head of People. She and Maddie talk about why patron loyalty turned out to be a lot like employee loyalty, what she learned watching the orchestra come back from a musician strike, and why she'd rather write a policy after the same problem shows up three times than write one for a problem that might never happen.

Takeaways

• Patron loyalty and employee loyalty come down to the same question: are you getting what you expected out of this exchange? For an employee, that means being paid fairly, being respected as a person, and having your skills put to good use.
• Most people problems start pretty small. If you get the small things right and don't dodge uncomfortable conversations, some of the really big stuff never happens, and you build trust along the way.
• To understand what a team is up against, she sometimes sits in on a meeting that has little to do with her, just to listen.
• "Structure has to follow the problem." If you get the same question three times, it's probably time to send something out about it. Every process you add is something people have to work around, so it has to earn its place.
• Eat the frog: do the hardest thing on your list first. The conversation you're dreading doesn't get easier when you wait.
• Early in your career, get comfortable with failure. Do things before you feel ready. You probably won't make the same mistake twice.
• Bring problems to HR early. They tend to be smaller, and there are better options.

Connect with Lindsey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-wendland-52024020

Brian Baines has worked in HR for more than 20 years. After college he was managing a shoe store when he took a part-time payroll job, and he's stayed in HR ever since, including five years recruiting at Bon Secours, a stint at Newport News Shipbuilding, and a senior HR business partner role at William & Mary's business school. He's now Associate Vice President for Human Resources. He and Kimball talk about why he used to wait until Fridays to offer people jobs, why so many people still see HR as "the party of no," and how he gets ready for a hard conversation, including why he never has one in his own office.

Takeaways

• Lean on your HR people. They can help with career progression and your resume, whether you want to grow where you are or go somewhere else.
• When a resume says someone "led a battalion," find out what that means. It can mean leading 200 or more soldiers at 25 years old, in high-stress situations.
• Call the candidates you don't hire. At William & Mary he phoned everyone who interviewed instead of sending a system email, thanked them for their time, and sometimes asked if he could reach out about future roles. Word of mouth is how you attract talent.
• Before a hard conversation, write out the points you need to make. Have it somewhere neutral, not across your desk, have it in the morning so you're not dreading it all day, and make sure there are tissues in the room.
• "It's not about how much work it is for us. It's about how easy we can make it for the end user."
• Don't turn down opportunities. If your boss hands you something outside what you know, take it on. They probably see something in you.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbaineshrprofessional

Anju Choudhary has spent 20 years in HR. She was at IBM for more than a decade, led global talent and organizational development at NextRoll, spent a few years as a product leader at Skillsoft, and is now CHRO at Xoxoday, a rewards and engagement platform. She and Kimball talk about the folder where she put every HR email while she was in a revenue role (she never got through it) and what that taught her about how HR communicates. They also cover the IBM program that paired every new hire with an ambassador for their first 90 days, and why she asks people what they need instead of treating them the way she'd want to be treated.

Takeaways

• You're never over-communicating. Her IBM boss's version: "tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them what you came here to tell them, and tell them what you just told them," then do it again.
• In a once-a-year review, people mostly remember what just happened. Even your top performers, when they get a top rating, often don't know what they did right, so they can't repeat it. That's why she pushes for a constant coaching culture instead.
• Onboarding needs more than clarity and compliance. At IBM, a Royal Blue Ambassador walked each new hire through their first 90 days, which helped reduce early attrition.
• New to HR? Get in front of people early. Do listening tours, don't make commitments yet, and always follow through.
• Before handing work to AI, sort each role's workflows into people only, AI only, and both. Don't outsource the human part, like coaching and performance reviews.

Connect with Anju on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anju-choudhary1

Sophia Okeke is Executive Vice President and Chief People & Culture Officer at The Center for Family Support. She worked in news before moving into HR, then spent seven years building HR for country offices in Sub-Saharan Africa, including a first town hall in Togo before she could speak French. She and Maddie talk about why communication is the skill leaders underestimate, how she measures whether a training program worked, and what she's focused on now: hiring for hard-to-fill care roles and using technology so her team can spend more time with managers and staff. She also talks about her first book, God, Me, and Coffee, and how it started with a devotional she wrote for her church.

Takeaways

• Communication is probably the most underestimated skill a leader has. Sophia writes her emails as herself first, then uses AI to tighten them up.
• Before you build a training program, figure out the problem it's meant to solve and look at the data. Then you can measure it two ways: how it changed the person, and how it impacted the organization.
• Bring the people you're training into the design, and ask peers in your HR network what's worked for them. You don't have to start from scratch.
• For hard-to-fill roles, don't rely on job boards alone. Build connections in the communities your candidates come from. For Sophia's care roles, that's hospitals, churches, and community centers.
• Keep performance reviews simple. In Sophia's words, "people like easy," especially managers with a lot of direct reports.
• Use technology to take paperwork off HR's plate, so the team has time to go out, meet managers, and sit with staff.

Sophia's book, God, Me, and Coffee: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GRWW5FYX

Connect with Sophia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophia-okeke-a0b0b211

Summary

Nicole Buck is Head of People & Culture at Black Rifle Coffee Company. She started her career as a graphic designer, found her way into recruiting at a staffing firm, and joined Black Rifle as a recruiter in 2019. She and Kimball talk about why she tells her team "don't police, partner," what she's learned moving off Workday, and how she got started with AI by asking the AI what it could help her with. She also tells the story of hiring her own boss, who became her first mentor.

Takeaways

• Build relationships across the business, not just with executives or the people you think will get you promoted. And be vocal about wanting to grow: ask for stretch projects.
• Don't police, partner. When HR gets stuck on "don't do this, don't do that," people stop wanting you in the room.
• If you're replacing an HR system, start early. Nicole started a year and a half before her Workday contract ended and still doesn't feel it was enough time. Ask about the modules, the money, and the manpower the features take.
• Not sure where to start with AI? Ask the AI what it can help you with.
• Learn the business. Listen to the earnings calls and understand what a P&L is.
• Early in your career, your direct manager is the easiest place to find a mentor.

Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-buck-b740b357