On the sixteenth installment of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger speaks with Lisa M. Johnson, an internationally experienced human resources professional who has worked with leaders from numerous industries in the public and private sectors with more than 25 years of proven experience as a human resources generalist. She graciously shares her career journey with us, talks about what surprised her the most about HR work, and discusses both her training and development-focused company HR Know-How LLC and the chapter she contributed to Imagination@Work, a unique collection of insights from business leaders and many HR and OD experts about new ways to imagine what is possible at work, on teams and in our own careers.

Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Check out HR Know-How's website by clicking here.

Interested in Imagination@Work? Click here to order the book.

Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.

Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.

Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.

Check out our website.




TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, for those of y'all who are new here, the purpose of Living Corporate is to create a space that affirms black and brown experiences in the workplace, right? There are certain things that only we can really understand, and when I say we I mean the collective non-white professional [laughs] in corporate America. And when we look around--if you, like, Google being black and brown in corporate America, you may see, like, a post in Huffington Post or something that kind of communicates from a position of lack, but I don't know if we necessarily see a lot of content that empowers and affirms our identity and our experience, and that's really the whole purpose of Living Corporate. It's with that that I'm really excited to talk to y'all about the See It to Be It series. Amy C. Waninger, who has been a guest on the show, who's a writer for Living Corporate, and who's also the author of Network Beyond Bias, she's actually partnered with Living Corporate to actually have an interviewing series where she actually sits down with black and brown professionals so that we can learn about what they actually do and see ourselves in these roles, right? So it's a variety of industries that she's--she's talking to a lot of different types of folks. You're gonna be able to see what they do, and at the same time you're gonna hopefully be able to envision yourself in that role, hence the title See It to Be It, okay? So check this out. The next thing you're gonna hear is this interview with Amy C. Waninger. Y'all hang tight. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

Amy: Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.

Lisa: Hello, Amy. Thank you for having me.

Amy: I am so excited to talk to you today. Our paths have crossed a couple of different times through SHRM groups and writing retreats and things like that, and you and I travel in a lot of the same circles, but we haven't had a lot of one-on-one conversations.

Lisa: We sure haven't. We've been moving quickly, haven't we, and haven't had a good sit-down.

Amy: We have, and so I am so excited to introduce you to the audience today because you have worked in your career as an HR professional, and I know that you have a particular niche within HR that you've focused on, and I was wondering you could tell us a little bit about that and how you got into this work.

Lisa: Yes, yes, I would be happy too. Thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure. And for me, the HR route, it started off very broadly from a generalist standpoint, and it was just a situation of I could not make up my mind, and I loved everything that HR brought, every area. Learning and development, labor relations and employee relations and profitization and benefits and all of those kinds of things, and I felt that, you know, "I'm in a space where I can employ different aspects of my skills and interests, and then at some point if I want to specialize I can," and it worked out wonderfully. For once I had a nice blueprint to follow me throughout my career and it worked out, and this was one of them. [?] now specifically working on training and development because that's my true comfort space, and I focus on helping managers, helping them deal with employee relations issues confidently and dealing with employee complaints and litigation competently, but the journey's been a broad one. And I do still use my broader HR knowledge a lot still.

Amy: So when you think about, as an HR generalist, you know, I think a lot of people if they haven't worked in corporate for a while, or even if they have but they've not leveraged their HR partners a lot, they may not understand what all of that entails. Can you tell us a little bit about what are some of the responsibilities of an HR generalist? Kind of in broad terms.

Lisa: Yes. So in broad terms, of course, it's all about--it all touches people, but in very different aspects. So from a managerial standpoint, the HR person--you see a lot of titles of "HR business partner." I would agree. It is just that. It is partnering with the leaders and the managers in the organization to help them accomplish their responsibilities as it relates to people. They've got many hats to wear. They've got a lot of things going on. They also have to meet the goals and needs of the organization, by the way, and we know that people management is not something that comes easily to everyone, and even to those that it comes easily to, a lot of times with many hats being worn, because they tend to be quite popular, there may be a need for assistance, and so the HR person, the generalist, is someone who can assist them in every facet of their people relations. So when they need to hire people, when they need to motivate people and train people, hold people accountable, all of those kinds of things. That's where the HR function can help be of great assistance in that capacity.

Amy: Thank you for that. I appreciate the overview. And then within that you've focused a lot employee relations concerns, specifically around complaints or investigations. Is that correct? And so how did you end up specializing in that field?

Lisa: I don't know what it says about me, Amy, but I enjoy compliance and complaints and litigation. [both laugh] So, you know, I'm that person who enjoys investigation and the like, and so that's part of it. In my role working with managers, I have a feeling of "I want to help managers because I recognize that they have heavy jobs, big jobs," and when issues arise they may get pulled into complaints and the like. A lot of times it's not due to any type of malicious or corrupt or anything like that, it's due to other things. "I didn't cross my i's or cross my t's. I didn't realize how consistency was important. I didn't recognize the law was this or that or the other." And so for me it truly was--in addition to the fact that I enjoy it, I do--a need to help good people who are trying to help others by being good managers and leaders, and so helping them to try to avoid those things if at all possible, but then of course when these things happen helping to work through the investigatory process to help get a [?] that will be helpful to the company, you know, in terms of making sure that there isn't a lot of exposure. So that's really where it comes from.

Amy: So it sounds like in that role you need to be very analytical but also very people-focused. Is that accurate?

Lisa: I would agree, Amy. You have to be analytical. It is a serious process when you're talking about compliance and workplace investigation, and for me myself, I don't have a legal degree, and so with that comes an additional responsibility that I may need to make sure that I'm not giving inappropriate guidance that could then create some legal issues. So to be analytical, to be thorough, to have good process is key to it, but the people aspect of it is absolutely critical. A lot of times whether a litigation situation continues or blows up or what have you has its basis in how you treat people along the way. How are people engaged? How do they feel that they've been handled during the process? Do they come away like they feel like they've been heard and those kinds of things? So the people balance of it is absolutely critical.

Amy: And I would think that that's a pretty unique skillset or combination of skills, to have the people focus and that analytical, detail-oriented component. Typically when we think about people, or at least when I think about people in terms of kind of broad categories, I think about the analytical folks who are, you know, kind of off doing their own thing, you know, typically more introverted, and then the people people that are out there just doing, right, and rubbing elbows and being a part of that, and so the reason I bring that up is I've talked to a lot of folks who have that combination, and they work in--you know, they work in different fields. They'll be drawn very much to the analytical piece first and then realize, "Oh, my gosh, I need human interaction. I've got to back up from this field or broaden my scope of who I think I am," or they think, "Wow, I'm really all about people and I want to deal with people," but then there's this itch that isn't scratched because they don't have that detail analysis piece, and so they kind of find this middle ground where they're straddling both worlds. And so I like to share that because I think there are a lot of people out there who think it's one or the other, and there are certainly jobs in corporate America that will make use of both of those skills.

Lisa: It's true, it's true. I know when I entered the field I was thinking people, you know? I'm thinking, "I'm a people person. This will be good," but along the way, very qu