Episode five of this season features SHRM Board Member and Director of Human Resources in the financial industry, Mandy Woulfe, SHRM-SCP. This episode covers Mandy’s non-traditional journey into the field of HR and her insights on how to advance your career.
Episode five of this season features SHRM Board Member and Director of Human Resources in the financial industry, Mandy Woulfe, SHRM-SCP. This episode covers Mandy’s non-traditional journey into the field of HR and her insights on how to advance your career.
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Aly Sharp:
Welcome back to season seven of Career Compass, a podcast from SHRM and the SHRM Foundation. Career Compass prepares the future leaders today for better workplaces tomorrow.
Kevin Abbed:
Thank you for joining us for this episode. My name is Kevin Abbed.
Aly Sharp:
And my name is Aly Sharp. During this episode, we're going to speak to Mandy Woulfe.
Kevin Abbed:
We are extremely excited about today's conversation. And with that, Career Compass would like to warmly welcome Mandy Wolf, director of human resources at Mountain West Insurance and Financial Services, and also a member of the SHRM board of directors.
Mandy Woulfe:
Thank you for the invitation. It's my pleasure to join you.
Aly Sharp:
And with that, let's get started. Mandy, you have an extensive HR background with many different roles.
Mandy Woulfe:
I was working in a hotel as the executive assistant to the general manager. I had been there for a year. When the HR manager left, she said to me, "Mandy, you should apply for my job." I said, "I don't think so. I have no idea what you do in HR, and I'm just now figuring out my current job." However, on her last day, my boss had not hired anyone. And he sent me down to the basement, which is where the HR office was, and told me he wanted me to find out what Carol was doing and all the mission-critical things so that I could continue to do those items until he hired someone. And what Carol showed me was purely administrative, how to hire a new employee, how to post the job, how to file a workers' compensation claim.
And I thought, "I could do this." So I suggested to my boss that he pay me a lot more money and I would do both jobs. He said he would pay me a little bit more money and I could definitely do both jobs. But within two weeks, we figured out I couldn't do both. There was too much work in each of those jobs, so we posted the executive assistant job and that's how I started my HR career. What really helped me to be successful was Carol's advice. She suggested that I join SHRM, become a member of SHRM, but I also joined the SHRM local chapter. And she also said I should get on the board of directors.
I don't know what inspired her to say that, but I did all of those things. My very first local chapter meeting was a unique meeting because people introduced themselves at the beginning of the meeting, which normally didn't happen. And as each person went around the room and said what their job title was, the company they worked, I thought, "I can have a career in HR." That was really an epiphany for me because I thought I had lost my opportunity to have a great career because I didn't go to college right after high school. So it was just beautiful. And I immediately learned about HR certification, I got certified, and that's how I learned about HR was through the certification and through the local chapter program.
Aly Sharp:
I was honestly going to ask how you transitioned. And this might be sort of leading into the next question, but that transition from post-high school but pre-degree, what was your mindset to go to school or to go to college, I guess?
Mandy Woulfe:
Yes. Because I didn't go to college right after high school, I thought I had missed my opportunity to do so. My college career started before I got into HR. I had gone back to my local community college and earned a degree in secretarial science, an associate's degree, which was a two-year program, and a certificate in occupational proficiency in accounting. I had that degree. When I got into HR and I knew I wanted to advance my career, I knew I would need to have a master's degree and a bachelor's degree to be able to qualify for the positions that I wanted to ultimately achieve.
I started my education with certification so I could learn the HR body of knowledge. In the beginning, I didn't live near a college where I could go back to school. About eight years after starting my HR career, I had an opportunity to go to Regis University, which had an accelerated adult learning program where I could take one class at a time. So I enrolled in that and enrolled in the bachelor's degree for human resources management. And I achieved that degree in three years. I also applied for scholarships through the SHRM Foundation, which I received, to help me with that education. And my company provided me with a $1,000 a year tuition reimbursement, which helped me also to get my bachelor's degree.
Aly Sharp:
That's awesome. And I think that does kind of tie into Kevin's question.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. So moving forward in your academic career, you received your master's in integrating functional and strategic HR management from Walden University. Can you talk a little bit more about your experience again as a non-traditional student in that sense?
Mandy Woulfe:
Yes. When I went back to get my master's degree, I was also working full-time. I took courses one course at a time, which really helped me to balance my workload, which had me working about 60 hours a week during that entire time. As a non-traditional student, there wasn't a campus life or a student life for me. There was my home life, there was my work life, and there was my studying. Probably the most challenging part about being a non-traditional student was I always felt like I was neglecting somebody or something.
If I was studying, I was neglecting my husband. If I was at work, I was neglecting my studies. If I was spending time with my husband, I was neglecting my studies. That was really, really difficult and really challenging. When I was studying for my master's degree, I lived in Hawaii. We would go to the beach and I would take my study material to the beach. And I sat there and just read all of my materials, and I even had some books which were very large and I couldn't take them to the beach. But what I landed up doing was making copies of the chapters I wanted to read-
Kevin Abbed:
Oh, my gosh.
Mandy Woulfe:
... and taking those with me to the beach.
Aly Sharp:
And look, I know that our listeners can't see me shaking my head, but I'm shaking my head because I am also a non-traditional student. After I graduated, I took about a year off, after I graduated from undergrad, I took about a year off before starting my master's program and I feel the exact same way, especially right now. I'm in a class, I'm working full-time, and I'm moving. So it's like I haven't quite figured out how to balance my time because when I feel like I'm packing I'm neglecting my family or my studies, and it's the same thing.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. And I think a lot of people are kind of on the fence about going back to school exactly because of what both you and Aly have touched on. It's a big change. And having a job, it's a full-time career. So figuring out how to balance that is super important. So what advice would you give a current HR professional who's considering returning to school?
Mandy Woulfe:
Well, first of all, I would encourage them to do it. It is a big commitment. I would advise them to apply for a scholarship through the SHRM Foundation. I also would encourage them to look at the specific curriculum for the university that they are considering going to. That's how I selected my degree program through Walden University because they had some non-traditional HR courses in the master's degree program, whereas some of the classes I had looked at, some of the universities I had looked at, they had the same course titles of what I had taken in my undergrad. And in many respects, I found that I was somewhat unique because most of the people in my master's degree program were not people who already had a degree in HR management. They were people who had undergrad degrees in other areas and they wanted to get into HR, and that's why they were taking their degree.
I also think you should be proud of yourself because, being a non-traditional student, especially if you've already been in the workforce and you're already working in human resources, will really help you with your education, with your assignments. Because a lot of the assignments are experiential, I can't say that word quite right, but they tell you, "Here's the situation and how will you handle it?" And what I found as a non-traditional student and somebody that was already working in human resources is that I was much better equipped to answer a lot of the questions and to contribute to my group projects because I had that experience. I also found that it was more relevant to me because I already knew what was being spoken about.
Aly Sharp:
I completely agree. Obviously, I mean, I don't know if you know this, and people listening might not know either, but I'm in marketing and my master's is in marketing. And from my first class I was like, "It's so cool to learn about stuff you do at work and how to make your work better," because in undergrad you have nothing to base it off of. It's just like, here are the basics. But then once you have your day-to-day and you can figure out how to elevate your work with your advanced degree, which I honestly really appreciate. It makes it feel like I'm actually getting something out of my online schooling. Not only do you have your master's, but you also hold the SHRM SCP. So how has that impacted your career?
Mandy Woulfe:
Having my SHRM SCP has given me a tremendous amount of confidence because I studied and I learned the entire body of HR knowledge. When I apply for another position or when I am having my business card or my signature on my email, it says that I'm certified, that I took the time to become certified, that I am dedicated and committed to my career, and I'm willing to go above and beyond to learn what is necessary to be successful in my career.
Kevin Abbed:
And going off that, because we know obviously the value that having a credential has, and I hear this from some students all the time, and our research has shown that even just having a certification can increase your salary just at the start. So if you were in a room filled with HR professionals that were considering taking the exam, returning to school, basically doing everything that you've done to get you to this point, what would you tell them?
Mandy Woulfe:
Well, I'd tell them that there's three areas of knowledge. There's the information you know you know, there's what you know you don't know, I don't know a lot of math and science, and I know that, and there's what you don't know that you don't know. And when you study for the SHRM certification, when you go back to college, you learn all those things that you didn't know you didn't know, and you can apply them to your work. Having my certification and my education through my universities has really helped me to build confidence, but it's also given me tools and helped me to be able to make better decisions. It's helped me to be able to better coach people. It's helped me to improve the workplace and to improve myself.
Aly Sharp:
I really like the way you put that. But we're going to pause just for a second. For those of you listening to this podcast who are seeking professional development credit, this program is valid for 0.5 PDCs for the SHRM CP or SHRM SCP. The code to redeem your PDCs is 24-DTU6G. Please note that this code will expire on November 14th, 2024. And again, that code is 24-DTU6G.
Kevin Abbed:
Awesome. Mandy, just a couple more questions before we let you go. So we talked earlier, you're the director of human resources at Mountain West Insurance and Financial Services. Most people in their careers when they hit director, that's normally a massive jump both in leadership and pay scale and just everything that you're in charge of. What would you say was the biggest jump in that part of your career? And how do you think people can make that jump from manager to director?
Mandy Woulfe:
I think there are probably two ways to make that jump. One is if you work in a large organization where there is a large HR department, I would do things to become visible to the decision makers. So if your HR department has an initiative, raise your hand and volunteer. If you do that, make sure you follow through with what you commit to. Let people know that you want to advance in your career. Let them know you want to become certified or you are certified, because you have to get the attention of those decision makers. And you won't do that without being visible, without letting them know who you are. If you don't work for a big, large organization, I would seek opportunities with smaller organizations, departments of one, or small departments where you could be mentored by the HR director.
You do have to be careful when you go that route because if you stay with that company for many, many years and you stay in that particular role and you don't move, I think you can get pigeonholed or people think you can do the assistant work or you could do the manager work, but not the director-level work. So you want to be thoughtful about how do you advance? If you're in a place where your manager or the director is probably not going to leave for many years, you might want to do what I did and make a conscientious effort to find another job.
If you do that, make sure you get some coaching on how to put a resume together, how to apply for a position, and most importantly, how to successfully interview. When I made that conscientious decision to leave my job of six years because I didn't find any career advancement opportunity was going to be in my company, which by the way might happen to you even if you work in a large organization. I bombed my first few interviews. In fact, that made me really passionate about helping other people to interview. So if you're listening to this and you want-
Aly Sharp:
Yep. You did our mock interviews.
Mandy Woulfe:
... some help [inaudible 00:15:39], look me up on LinkedIn. I'd be happy to help you. I had people help me. I also had some really great advice from somebody for job seeking, and she said to create a portfolio of my work. So anytime I created a new form or I got an email from somebody that said, "You did a great job on this," or I created a new program, I made copies of it and put them in a portfolio. And before I go to interview, I look at that to remind myself of what I've accomplished because I don't sit back and think about all the things I've accomplished, I just keep moving.
And it's been tremendously helpful in helping me to create examples of the work that I've completed. And I've also at times taken my portfolio with me to interview. Sometimes people want to see them, sometimes they won't. But it's really a helpful, has been really the best advice I had ever received. So definitely practice interviewing and be vocal about what you want to do, although you do need to be careful. You don't want your current employer to necessarily know you're looking for another job. But you can share with colleagues and people that you would be open to other opportunities if they became available.
Aly Sharp:
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't really sound like you have any regrets about your career journey. But if you had the opportunity to do anything differently throughout your career, what would it be?
Mandy Woulfe:
Something I learned along the way in my career, and I've been in HR for quite some time, that I wish I had known earlier and changed, is I wish I had not been the messenger in a lot of situations. I found myself in a lot of positions where I was the one who was telling people that they were not following company policy or even simple things in the hospitality industry, employees have to use the employee restroom, not the guest restroom. They have to wear their name tags. And I would tell people, "Where's your name tag?" And, "Oh, by the way, you can't use that restroom. You have to use the employee restroom." Little things like that. But what I found is that it diminished my credibility. So over time, I got to a point where I decided that it wasn't my job in HR to be the messenger of bad news, to be the person who's making sure everybody's upholding the policies.
My job was to coach the managers to do those things, that I wanted to be viewed as a resource that people would come to me for help, not be seeing me as the HR police. That took some time to change that. The other thing that I learned in my job as the HR leader of my organization is that one of the most important things to do is to support the managers, because the managers have the biggest impact on employee engagement. And if you have a manager, especially one who is known as being difficult, maybe even being a toxic manager, sometimes you can't let that person go because they're very valuable to the organization and there isn't an option for that person to go. And the only thing you can really do is come alongside that person, build trust with them, and help them. And that has probably been the most successful part of my career is to be able to help managers to be better.
And it's a very difficult thing to do because they feel very defensive when HR is telling them they're doing something wrong. So you really have to be thoughtful about how you do it. And once you build trust and a relationship with them, then their defenses lower. And then you are able to help them, to coach them along, to give them suggestions on how they can do that differently. And a lot of times, I'll do that through storytelling of how I had encountered a situation in the past, what the manager did that didn't work, what the manager did that worked, and then they make their own decision on how they want to move forward. And it is remarkable to see the impact you can make when you see a manager as a partner rather than as the problem.
Aly Sharp:
That was perfectly said. Kevin and I are both pretty early in our career, so we've only been direct reports. So it's really nice to know that there are HR people out there who do have that mindset where they prefer to help people than to just get rid of the problem, conceal the problem, whatever it may be, to actually make people better. Because in turn, when managers are better, their direct reports are better, the people they report to are better. So I just really appreciate that and I really appreciated our conversation today.
Mandy Woulfe:
Thank you, thank you.
Kevin Abbed:
And with that, we're going to go ahead and bring this episode of Career Compass to a close. Thank you all for joining us, and we hope you stay with us throughout the season as we discuss more topics like this episode.
Aly Sharp:
For more exclusive content, resources, and tools to help you succeed in your career, consider joining SHRM as a student member. You can visit us at shrm.org/students to learn more.
Kevin Abbed:
Lastly, are you looking for more work and career-related podcasts? Check out all things work and honest HR at shrm.org/podcast. Thank you again for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Career Compass.