Sabrina

Welcome back to the HR Connection, the podcast built solely for those managing human resources in a 1 to 500 employee organization. Today, Marie is bringing you the second installment of our In the Trenches series, where she is interviewing in-house HR practitioners who are managing human resources inside a 1 to 500. We always say that small business HR is not smaller HR; it is its own discipline. And I think through Caitlin's stories and experience today, you're going to understand why. If you are managing human resources in a 1 to 500 and you want to be on this series, then we would love to hear from you. You can reach out at hello@acaciahrsolutions.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. And if you don't want to be on the podcast but you want to hear what's happening on the podcast, then please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you can hear from more practitioners who are doing the work that you are doing every single day. Let's tune in.

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Marie

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the HR Connection. I'm your host, Marie Rolston, and we are going into our second installment of In the Trenches. Today we have HR Director Caitlin Samson with us, and we are so excited to talk and learn from her. Caitlin, hello. Thank you for being here.

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Caitlin

Hello. Thanks for having me.

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Marie

Before we dive in, I was hoping you could just give everyone a little intro about yourself. Don't give too much away. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but please give our listeners a little heads up on who you are.

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Caitlin

Sure. So I am a hot mess express HR director. So I am working here in Huntsville, Alabama, for a government contractor, and we are growing, which creates good problems. I have spent a larger portion of my time at Trivector as an HR department one, but we are growing. So I've got a full-time person starting in a couple of weeks. But I also am the president of the North Alabama SHRM chapter, and I teach an HR management class at our local university as adjunct, and I also serve on a couple of committees related to hiring veterans and hiring people with disabilities.

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Marie

Wow. You have a full plate, and I am so glad that you're here because you are the exact example of all of the HR folks that we're bringing on this series. So let's go ahead and dive right in. Oh, also congrats on your hire. I know that must be very exciting.

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Caitlin

Yes. Thank you. Can't wait for her to start.

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Marie

Yeah. No problem. All right. Let's dive right in. So can you tell us a little bit about your role and your company setup? What does your HR world actually look like day to day?

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Caitlin

Sure. So as a small business, Trivector is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business. And so what that means for most folks in the back office, which are all business operations support type roles—HR, accounting, marketing, business proposals, etc.—all of us wear a lot of hats all the time. And so the nature of a small business is probably summed up at best by saying, "We just make it happen." You never have the same day twice. And so what we are doing, we have our back office here, and then we have two other departments, if you will. One of them is really focused on defense type work, and one of them is really focused on the civil sector. So think NASA. And I have two boys. So I have a two-year-old and a six-year-old. And I joke that they're feral.

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Marie

Caitlin, so much for giving us a little heads up about what your day-to-day actually looks like. And I'm sure that all of our listeners are thinking in some capacity, "Girl, we know exactly what you are talking about." It's so funny that you opened it up saying hot mess express because as an HR department of one, or even if you're managing a small team, that is putting it lightly, right?

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Caitlin

Yes. 1,000%.

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Marie

Yes. So with that, tell us a little bit about what's been keeping you up lately. What's that thing that's taking up the most space in your head right now?

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Caitlin

So to be very honest, to answer that question from an authentic perspective, I'm going to kind of let you into what I say some of my crazy is. I enjoy being busy. I enjoy having a lot to do. But I also am a little bit of a perfectionist. So this mentality of nothing is ever good enough, this'll do, but I've still got plenty of work to do, or this is fine, but only temporarily, that can be really hard for somebody like me, especially when you have this mentality of taking care of everybody else all the time. So for the HR department of one or maybe a small HR department, you are doing everything, be it hiring, firing, performance reviews, all of your strategic planning related to recruitment, succession planning, your benefits, and whether or not you're brokering them and putting together all of that stuff, and set up interviews, never mind the employee relations stuff. So you have all of these moving parts, which independently can be very complicated. So together, it can be overwhelming sometimes. And so I think where I lose sleep, if you will, is just this mentality of, "Did that meet my expectation? Did I deliver that well enough? Did I represent Caitlin? Did I represent Trivector to the level which I intended?" And I spend a lot of time in that thought sometimes.

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Marie

Yeah. It's hard not to, right? I see that so much in this field specifically. And Sabrina and I actually talk about that quite a bit. For me, I worked in-house in large organizations for quite a while. And when I got into the small business space, I mean, and it still haunts me to this day because you want to give that 110% or that A++ effort all of the time to fulfill ourselves and fulfill the jobs that we're doing. But what I have found, and tell me if you have found any peace with this, is sometimes that in the small business space, because we're wearing so many hats, and a lot of folks might not even know what good HR looks like, sometimes giving that C level is going to look like that A+ to somebody else. And you can kind of touch all of the things when there's a lot going on and kind of give that B or that C level effort. And then once it's kind of calm, you can go back to that A+. Does that resonate at all?

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Caitlin

Yes and no. And I say that because intellectually, when I think that way, I agree with you 100%, but I don't feel that in my heart. And so then you have this somewhat conflicting point of view. I will tell you what brings me peace is I know every single one of my boys. I can tell you something about their families. They have employee numbers. I don't know what they are. I've never used them. I can tell you whose mom has Alzheimer's. I can tell you who's potty training. I can tell you who's selling Boy Scout popcorn. I can tell you whose teenager is wanting to learn the hard way. That is incredible. And so not every employee, and certainly not every HR professional, is that way. And do I sign up for some self-inflicted pain by being that way? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. So my peace comes from I got to have impact today.

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Marie

Yeah. That's wonderful. I think our listeners are going to resonate with that one too.

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Caitlin

I mean, that's why we're here, right? Impact and making a difference and all that stuff. And I don't know if you guys have spent any time really exploring some other factors that come into play. But as a little bit of a perfectionist, but also, I mean, I'm a female, and I'm a mom. So we don't know how to just idly stand by and watch things happen. We're doers. We're fixers. We come up with solutions, and we mitigate problems before anybody else even knew it was a problem. And some of those things just become job skills.

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Marie

Yep. Absolutely. That is also something that we highlight quite a bit, right? It can be so exhausting sometimes because in order for us to be really good at our jobs, that means that there's a lot of invisible work going on.

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Caitlin

Yep.

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Marie

Yep. When we think about navigating so many of these situations, we can have all of the context. We can have the relationships. We can have the trust. But sometimes things just go sideways. Tell me or walk us through a situation that might have gone sideways for you. What happened, and how did you handle it?

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Caitlin

Does it happen? Every single one of the days in HR starts with, "Here's my plan, and I know it's going to go accordingly." That's how I start every one of my days anyway. It never happens. Because to your point, sometimes some of the more simple things seemingly look very easy, and then you start asking questions, and you start diving in, and then you learn about this whole other realm of just stuff. So one of the more challenging scenarios that I've dealt with in my career was related to employee relations. It was a conflict. And interestingly enough, the employee relations part of HR is my favorite. It is the most unpredictable. But also, people are complicated. We're just so complicated. So you don't ever have the same employee relations issue twice. And I was reminded of that most recently. I had an employee kind of reached out and was talking about some concerns that she had with a supervisor. And the concerns were valid. So I wish that I knew how to just leave well enough alone and ask very surface-level questions, but I don't have it in me. So the more questions that I thought to ask, the more stuff that I started to uncover. And so the good thing about that is, one, I'm developing trust with an employee and probably a group of employees. But also, I feel like I'm being as diligent as I can and making sure that you've kind of left no stone unturned, if you will. But I created a lot of work for myself because it wasn't just this original issue that we thought it was. That was the tip of the iceberg. And so you started to ask more questions. You started to learn more stuff. And ultimately, you were starting to uncover some manageable, though very tricky, things that you would have to work through. And not only are you always worried about compliance and various legal implications, but you're also worried about, "Did I do a good enough job? What was the perception of this employee? What could I have done differently? How can we prevent something like this occurring in the future?" And so I would best describe it as one of those scenarios where you had to use every part of your brain for an extended period of time. And though I was just sitting, and I was just asking questions and learning, it was exhausting. So the investigations require a lot of follow-up and require the ability to look at all kinds of different points of view and how they're intertwined. Love it. Favorite part of my job. But those things are usually the ones that I think are the toughest and can go south pretty quick.

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Marie

Yeah. They definitely can, especially if you're not careful. And it's like there is this catch-22 that comes along with being that diligent. But at the end of the day, it's worth it because you're getting to a root cause and avoiding it in the future, right? You might be breaking a cycle. And so while the intention is never to add more work to our plates, for sure, or to create another fire that has to be figured out, that is just part of the territory when done well, right?

Caitlin

Absolutely. I like that perception. That's what I'm going to tell myself. This is how we break the cycle. So when I'm tired or I've been having a lot of sideways kinds of weeks, I'm going to say, "This is how we make it better. This is how we break the cycle." But you've probably heard lots of HR people will joke about when an employee asks, "Do you have a minute?" It's never a minute. That is code for, "My house is burning down, and I got to tell you about it."

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Marie

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. That's so funny. So with everything that you've kind of shared with me, what do you wish you would have known before stepping into your role? Or maybe not just your role, but kind of the everything that you are a part of right now.

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Caitlin

That's a really tough one. I say that because I consider myself a lifelong learner. And so seemingly, it looks like I know what I'm talking about. And people often will call me for advice or we'll talk through problems together. But I would very much tell you I am an expert of nothing. But what do I wish that I would have known? As an HR person and as a female HR person at that, there is always a part of yourself that you are bringing to work. And when you bring yourself to work and I'm not talking about your whole self. I mean, I very much have this professional demeanor. And that's what I bring to work. I'm also very authentic, very real. And sometimes there is some vulnerability in that. And I think that that's incredibly uncomfortable for me. But it's also really valuable. And I had no idea. So 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if somebody would have said to me, "Caitlin, it is okay to be selective, but know when to show vulnerability at work."

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Marie

Before we wrap up all of our time today, Caitlin, I would love for you to share a win that you have or just a general moment that you're really proud of throughout your career or maybe just in your current role that you have now.

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Caitlin

Oh, that's also a doozy of a question because I feel very fortunate to have had some of the opportunities that I've had and some of the interactions that I've had with people, as bizarre as some of them are, very memorable, very impactful to me as a professional. But I've also been very lucky with some of the other HR people that I have always had in my corner. I have a very strong network of people that I can bounce ideas off of and say, "Hey, how are we handling this? Are you seeing this?" I'll call an HR colleague, and I'll say, "Am I forgetting something? Am I not looking at this the right way?" So full circle, one of the things that comes to mind has to do with when employees reach out for help. So Marie, I don't know if you knew this about me or not, but I did not start out wanting to be an HR person. My undergrad degree is in public relations. So I joke that I went from being in this career that is designed to make people like you to HR. And my dad, actually, when I told him that I wanted to be in HR because I liked training and development, I liked facilitating different things, my dad looked at me and said, "You know no one likes them, right?" And I thought, "Well, that doesn't make any sense. It literally says resource for humans in the title. How could you not just love them?" So now I get it, right? But I had an employee who was a single dad, blue-collar worker. And he didn't know who else to call. And he called his HR lady. And he called me, and he said, "Do you have a counselor?" And at first, I was, "Should I be offended that we've interacted enough that you just know that I have a mental health professional?" But I started asking questions. And I said, "I do, but what do you need? Where's this conversation going? Do you need a business card, or are we going to the hospital?" And long story short, he ended up telling me that his teenage son was sent home from school. He had to go pick up his teenage son because his school had found a suicide note. And he didn't know what to do. And he thought, "My HR lady, you will know how to handle this." And I was able to take that information, make some of the calls that I was able to make because of my network of HR people. I got to call that employee back and say, "Your son has a doctor's appointment today at 4 o'clock with a mental health professional. They already have all of your insurance information. I just need you to show up." And so particularly proud of that moment because I love that that employee knew that even if I didn't know the answer, I would be able to find it. But also that he trusted me with something so sensitive and with your kid. I mean, as a mom, that's another level. And so now we're talking about my kid, and then we're talking about my kid's safety. And I don't know what to do. I know a lot of HR professionals would have just given an EAP number. Here's 1-800. Here's a stack of cards. Here's a website address. And I just couldn't do it. And so to this day, I have a good relationship, good rapport with that employee. And so I'm super proud of that because that was never in my handbook. That was never in any class. Nobody told me that. But it really was, as an HR pro, I know these things. And then as a person, I know how I would want my HR team to respond. And that's what I got to do.

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Marie

Yeah. Yeah. What an incredible story. I think about you said earlier, the hot mess expressed, the chaos, the fires, all of these things that bring so much stress and frustration into the everyday work that we do. And then sometimes there are just moments that are presented to us, and it allows us to step up and show up for someone else in the capacity. And that's why we got into the role that we're in, right? It's those moments that, as awful as they are, you're able to show up for people and make a difference in somebody's life. And that's really why we're doing all of this work, right?

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Caitlin

Absolutely. That's what we need to be teaching an HR class.

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Marie

Yes. Yes.

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Caitlin

Because I had learned that in a class. That was straight out of the school of hard knocks. And there again, I have been really fortunate with some HR mentors that I've had, some colleagues that have always been in my corner helping kind of keep that stuff in check. Why are you here? What's the motivator? What's the impact? But I can't imagine doing anything else.

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Marie

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Caitlin, so thank you so much for taking some time to chat with me and share a little bit about yourself and your world with our listeners. Listeners, thank you so much for spending some additional time with us and getting to know one of our new favorite people in our network. Please stay tuned for our next episode next week. If you are interested in being on in the trenches, please reach out to please reach out to us at hello@acaciahrsolutions.com. We would love to chat and share your story with the rest of the world as well.