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Keeping People at the Center

I believe people must be at the center of all decision-making when cultivating any type of purpose-driven community, internally or externally.

To do that, I have become obsessed with feedback.  I solicit feedback from both employees and leaders through surveys, debriefs as well as impromptu meetings and do my best to implement the feedback I receive promptly. Whether the feedback is as simple as 'the event needs more umbrellas' or as significant as 'we need more clarity around career development,' acting on both ensures that we focus our time, attention and resources on making the changes that people care about most. This makes people feel part of the process, which is critical to them continuing to provide honest feedback which helps to sustain the flow of information—the crucial asset at the heart of the organization. Programming that reflects employees' needs builds trust in both processes and leadership, driving the engagement and commitment that carry the mission of the company forward.

Authenticity through Employee-Led Giving

Building authentic community partnerships that strengthen employee engagement begins with a fundamental recognition: our employees are members of the very communities we aim to support, and their roles as parents, coaches, and volunteers do not end at the badge reader. Guided by this principle, our approach starts with identifying where our people already dedicate their time, then aligning our giving strategy accordingly. This approach yields partnerships that are inherently more durable where employees engage because the cause is personally meaningful to them, and our community partners gain not merely a sponsor, but a genuine, lasting relationship.

Building Strong Teams through Everyday Leadership

The leadership practices I've found that build the strongest connections and teams at work mirror those of a marriage or domestic partnership.

Three principles from those partnerships translate directly to leadership: showing up, communicating transparently, and listening and acting on what you hear.

The first principle, showing up, means being present not only during the wins but also when it's inconvenient. Be the leader who's at the celebration and the milestone, but also in the trenches when the work still isn't done. Anybody can attend the party. It's the support and presence during the tough times that people remember.

The next principle is about keeping people in the loop, not just informed after the fact. Nobody wants a partner who makes a decision, builds their own plan, and tells you about it afterward—which keeps you guessing, feeling left behind, and feeling less part of a team. Be the leader who shares the changes, the ideas, and the reasoning out loud, because when leadership communicates that way, the team learns they can too.

The final principle is where listening either becomes real support, or just a gesture. Think about the spouse who keeps buying flowers when you’ve repeatedly asked for help with the dishes. It's a nice gesture—it just isn't the one you needed. After a while of asking with no action, you stop asking. That's most engagement programming: generous, well-intentioned, aimed at the wrong thing.

An example of us implementing these principles was the creation of our company choir, which came from learning that many of our team had a passion for music. What started as a few singers has grown to include a drummer, trumpet, bells, and singalongs. The result: colleagues who've corresponded for years discovered shared passions, which have fundamentally reshaped their working relationships.

Leading HR with Curiosity and Creativity

Much of what HR does today is the same things that have been done for decades—surveys, all-employee meetings and pizza parties.  While those things can still be impactful, several have become running jokes on social media because they signal how out of touch an organization can be with the needs of its employees.

Moving forward, HR leaders will need to embrace their curiosity and creativity to maximize alignment on culture, impact and company reputation. Curiosity is the prerequisite for creativity & innovation. You must ask a few more questions and challenge “what is” to move towards “what could be.” To remain curious, I continue to ask, who are we as a company today? What do our employees need right now? What is the legacy we want to leave for the next generation of our organization?

“Purpose-driven communities succeed when people remain at the center of every decision.”

This line of questioning led to us reevaluating our employee groups—not whether they were valuable, but whether they were the right ones for who we are now.  We retired a few, stood up new ones that reflected where people actually were, and the difference in energy was immediate—less begging for volunteers and more employee-driven participation.

Ultimately, the greatest opportunities will not come from measuring what currently exists, but from the courage to envision what could exist instead.

 Advice for HR Professionals

My advice for HR professionals about building culture & community engagement through Purpose, Connection and Action is threefold.

First, bring the idea AND the blueprint. I earn an invitation into strategy conversations not by title but by bringing the deck, the tracker, the framework, and the governance model—and by connecting each to measurable business outcomes.

Second, take ownership of something no one owns. Some of the most meaningful initiatives in my career began not as assignments, but as unaddressed gaps. These opportunities are rarely delegated; they are identified by those attentive enough to notice what is consistently overlooked.

Third, be patient. Culture and community investments compound over time, rarely yielding immediate returns. Their true impact often surfaces years later—in retention, growth, renewed engagement, and the emergence of genuine advocates among partners.