What Made Me Fall in Love with HR

We here at Who’s Your HR? each have our own individual journey on how we ended up in Human Resources (HR) and the reasons why we stay. To be an HR Consultant or Specialist, not only must you be competent in your human resources knowledge and proficiently skilled, but you must also have a passion for what you do. Understanding what motivates you individually and being able to identify the ways in which a career in human resources can fulfill that need is what will drive your personal success. Successful HR professionals can in turn drive the success of employers and employees. Read on to see what our staff has to say about what made them fall in love with HR.

My career in HR started while I was a production worker on the floor and was given the opportunity to work in an administrative role. This motivated me to get my degree in Business that excelled my career in HR, which gave me experience to address or recognize any problems that an employee may have. I love working in HR because it helps improve people’s professional life as well as their livelihood. It’s a rewarding career where you are impactful in the workplace, the ability to engage with employees to help them with any situations that may arise. This industry is ever-changing and constantly growing so you’re always learning new skills, laws, and regulations. I like being able to address the challenges of HR and find ways to solve them. I’m passionate about people and enjoy building new relationships.

Maresha Woods, HR Specialist

My fascination with human behavior led me to obtain an undergraduate degree in sociology. I had obtained a minor in business administration and knew that I wanted to be able to utilize those skills more in my profession. But as my career in social services progressed I soon realized that I needed to further my education in order to further my career. As I explored master’s degree programs I came across the study of organization design. It was the perfect marriage of what fascinated me (human behavior) with what I wanted to pursue (business management) without a heavy focus on what I disliked (finance and accounting)! That education opened up the opportunity for me to enter human resources for the first time via a marketing position in which I had responsibility for planning and implementing a company’s employee recognition program. That opened up the opportunity to move into an HR generalist role from which I never looked back!

Today, I’m privileged to have had opportunities throughout my 20+ year career to gain experience in nearly every facet of human resources. I thrive in helping organizations optimize their most valuable resource, people, to help their businesses succeed. Anticipating risk, strategizing solutions, identifying opportunities and overcoming challenges are the aspects about HR that I love. No matter how big or how small the issue I know as an HR professional I’m making meaningful impacts for employers and employees every day.

Penny Horton, Owner/HR Consultant

I love finding solutions, being innovative, having an impact, and I love to learn – all things that are ever present in HR! I started my career in a bit more of an untraditional way than most. I have bachelor’s degrees in Mass Communication and Secondary Education but stumbled into a student worker position at the University of Nebraska working as the Student Wellness Coordinator in the HR department, from there I took a summer position at the U working with a new youth work program. In this role, I received experience in hiring and orienting the new employees and a little bit of payroll as well. I got to write a standard operating procedure manual and learned a lot about policy and paperwork! That might not sound like a thrill to some, but to me it was the beginning of my future! This led me to further pursue my education and I am now nearing completion of my master’s in organizational management. I have moved from that intern role to a generalist, to an HR manager and now a specialist with WYHR working with so many interesting and unique organizations and learning, learning, learning! The variety of what I am afforded in HR and this role keeps me busy and never bored. What I enjoy most about HR is training and educating others about HR, organizational management, and about how to better themselves, that, of course, leads to my other passion for career development. Call me weird, but I also very much enjoy policy development, writing job descriptions, and keeping up with compliance and the legal side HR.  

Kristen O’Brien, HR Specialist

If you’re interested in learning more about what we do here at WYHR, give us a call at 539-215-8868.