Ep 71 | Explain It Like I'm 5: HR Roles, Evolution, and Balance On an Elementary Level with Kelsie Beckfield

Are you curious about the diverse field of Human Resources? Wondering how it shapes the future work and how you can tread along this exciting career path? Join us as we pick the brains of HR maven and author, Kelsey Beckfield. She shares her intriguing career switch from advertising to HR, and her transition into consultancy. She and your host Dana Dowdell discuss the evolution of HR from transactional to strategic. Kelsie shares how the question, "Did you fire anyone today?" led to her creating the book 'I Want To Work In Human Resources' and how that experiance relates to her work / life balance.
This isn't just a book for kids; it's a treasure trove of insights into the many aspects of HR. It's a powerful tool that encourages creative solutions to workforce shortages and emphasizes the vital role of HR in molding the future of work. Kelsie candidly discusses the book's potential to inspire the next generation of HR professionals. Nobody really says they want to work in human resources when they grow up. Kelsie's book may change that.
Find Kelsie Beckfield @:
Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbeckfield/
Beckfield Consulting: https://bchr-squad.monday.com/boards/4608529346/pulses/5028985410
'I Want To Work In Human Resources' : https://www.amazon.com/I-Want-Work-Human-Resources-ebook/dp/B0BC1ZD9XK

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Dana Dowdell - Boss Consulting - @bossconsultinghr - @hrfanatic

Transcript

Dana Dowdell: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by the Essential Skills for Supervisors training offered by Boss Consulting HR. If you're a new supervisor or a green supervisor or you just feel like you need to refine your skills, it's a great training for you. It's offered online and we cover all of the basics of onboarding, performance management, having difficult conversations, interviewing, compliance everything that you need to know to be a better manager. So if you're interested in checking out the training, we have one coming up soon and if you head on over to bossconsultinghr. com forward slash training, you can sign up for our next session. Hello, welcome back to another episode of Quirky HR. I'm very excited about our conversation today. We are joined by Kelsie Beckfield and she owns Beckfield Consulting, so she does human resources consulting, but she's also an author, and she is the author of I Want To Work in Human Resources, which is a children's book that breaks down what it's like to work in HR. But it's absolutely useful for adults and I'm excited to have you here, Kelsie. Thank you so much for being here.

Dana Dowdell: 1:23

Yes, thanks for having me. So we were talking offline about how everyone's career in HR looks different, so tell us a little bit about how you got started in human resources and where that track has led you.

Kelsie: 1:37

Yeah. So I think, with most people currently in HR, completely fell into it. So when I went into my undergrad, there was no human resource major or anything you could focus on. I had actually went to school for advertising. I loved the marketing side of things and I thought I was going to work at an ad agency.

Kelsie: 1:57

Lucky for me, I graduated in a recession and there was actually zero, zero jobs available, so I went to work for a nonprofit and eventually, through that nonprofit, made my way to working at a university and so, through the university, it was really the teaching and adult learning side of life that I was like okay, I think I found it. I don't necessarily want to go work in ad agency and I always joke about like selling popcorn. That's what I was going to do. I was going to create this slogan to sell you popcorn. That's how I explained my dream job and I really just fell in love with adult learning and training and development, that side of things. So that is really what led me into HR and it was at my first what I call big girl HR job working at Nestle, that I had said you know this learning and development through HR journalists that's where I really found the life of HR.

Dana Dowdell: 2:55

And then you got into consulting, which I feel a lot of HR professionals are taking that track where there may be feeling burned out in their corporate role and pursuing the consulting route. So can you talk a little bit about what type of consulting you focus on and what made you take that leap to start your own gig?

Kelsie: 3:14

Yeah, definitely. So I do have a full time job as well. Consulting really is a passion project of mine. It really drove through relationships in the community and then saying I want to learn more, I want to do more, and so I set up that function to be a resource for them. That way, I really focus on working with employers, working through specific employer relations issues. Policies. Tough conversations are really change management. But I also do have some long term clients where we focus on more career coaching and aspirations. From that and with writing the book, I was like what a perfect avenue to fit it all in is with the consulting portion of it.

Dana Dowdell: 3:54

I love it. So, yeah, this it comes up all the time where people are like, did you know you wanted to be in HR when you were growing up? And the answer is it's always no, and I feel like it's not often you meet someone who, early on in their college or adult life they're like HR. That's my track. So Brandon on my team found this book I Want To Work In Human Resources When I Grow Up and it's amazing. So tell us a little bit about how this idea for the book came about, and I'm curious to see also what success you've seen from the book and its impact.

Kelsie: 4:33

Yeah, definitely. So it kind of came up through two different avenues. First, I have two young daughters in elementary school and at the time I was working as HR manager in a manufacturing facility and every single night we have dinner and we talk about our day, right, good things, bad things. That happened. And the question my oldest daughter always asked me is did you fire anyone today? And so for me it was like, okay, yes, those are conversations they hear, but that was what my daughter remembered. So if she was talking to her friends or talking to her teachers, that's what she associated HR with. Is firing or terminating someone's employment. And I just wanted to tell her in our conversations were, that's not it, that is such a small portion of performance management. There's so much else I do and I didn't get into HR to terminate employment or end people's career. Right, there's all these other sides of growth and development.

Kelsie: 5:30

And so I wanted to show her that, and it was actually through my involvement in SHRM and volunteering through the organization where I had a couple of individuals I knew who had written books, and every single time I went to an HR conference I would have my little notepad and I would just say like what if? What if I wrote that kids book? What would be in there and go from there? So it was kind of like a three year journey of this would be fun to do. And then finally I just said, like what am I waiting for? There's no need to wait. Unfortunately, my mother had passed away and that had really triggered in me like don't wait for anything. She passed away very young and suddenly and so it was just just go do it. So that's really what started the book.

Dana Dowdell: 6:17

So we read it. So Brandon and my team found the book, we brought it to our monthly meeting with our team and we were reading it and it just does a fantastic job breaking down the different parts of human resources from a very much a value perspective right, so the value that HR brings into an organization, and it's written as a children's book, but I really feel like it could be for that executive who doesn't quite understand what HR does. Was that the intention when you wrote it that way?

Kelsie: 6:54

Kind of Part of it was again looking at it through my child's eyes of only terminating employment and for those that have been in the HR field for a while, HR really has done a full evolution of where we used to be very task focused. Now it is really into the strategic space and that's what I also want to portray in the book is it's so much more than hiring and firing or the onboarding and the paperwork and going through that. It's really the strategic access of how we can improve the business from all aspects.

Dana Dowdell: 7:31

What kind of feedback or responses have you gotten from readers with this book?

Kelsie: 7:39

Yep, I think a lot of it is. I want to show my kids this. That's really where a lot of the people purchasing my books are existing HR professionals that just don't have a way to communicate to their young kids what they actually do on a career day or when they fill out those worksheets at home. It's what do you want to be? Oh, I want to be a firefighter, a police officer, a doctor. Write these very concrete things that are in their life, and there's so much more out there. One of the things we're actually having conversations about is do we take this farther and really dive into all the aspects of our family? So I want to work in sales, I want to work in health care, I want to work in finance. There's these careers that can lead to a great life and that those kids are growing up in, but they just don't have exposure as a child through a book, to learn it.

Dana Dowdell: 8:34

I think that is absolutely amazing. Do you think, had you had this resource when you were younger, that you would have found HR as a career path sooner?

Kelsie: 8:48

I don't know if I necessarily would have found HR, but I definitely think it would have spurred more conversations. Growing up myself, along with probably half of my friends, it was teacher. That's what we were exposed to and we said, oh, I just want to be a teacher because that's what I see and how I can see I can make an impact. But I feel like if there's more books and more conversations about other career options and what you could do and also how you can be flexible and make the work what you want to be, even within HR there's generalist roles, recruiting, safety, focus, kind of each few pages in the book it goes over different areas so you can have a group of 10 HR professionals in a room and each one of them actually does something completely different. So I think it's just giving that exposure for young kids of their options.

Dana Dowdell: 9:39

Do you think that HR is going to become even more dynamic than what it is now? With there's so many different paths, do you see it evolving into something even more that you're going to have to do a part two of the book?

Kelsie: 9:54

I'm not sure about a part two, but I actually I fully see work evolving right. There's a whole future of work piece about what does it really look like, Not only with AI integration, but a lot of skill-based work as well? Is there this philosophy of jobs eventually going away, where we move into everyone's a gig worker or you're hired based on your skills and competency, which may mean that you are not only supporting HR but you're also doing some P&L responsibility, because that is where your skill set lies? Right Kind of blows up the thought of traditional work. But that's really where I see the workforce going and that's also what I hope to do through some of my consulting work is to say how can we be creative right and solve the workforce shortage and come up with creative solutions to what we could be, instead of doing what we've always done with traditional jobs?

Dana Dowdell: 10:51

Yeah, I feel like that's a common rut that HR professionals get into, where it's what we know, versus that forward thinking, strategic, like let's figure it out, you know, everything is figure outable.

Kelsie: 11:06

Definitely and I think a lot of it for HR professionals really is coaching them to how to bring their leadership on board with them. That change management of saying I know this is how we've always recruited, but what if our job advertisements looked wildly different, right? Or I know this is how we've traditionally onboarded. What if we did something completely different and started including things like virtual reality or working through this new technology and AI base? I always like to say what is the absolute worst thing that could happen? And that's what I did with my book, right, and I wrote it. I said, okay, what's the absolute worst thing that happens? The worst thing that happens is I lose some of my personal investment money on paying an illustrator for this, but through the process, I got to work with my kids. My kids actually picked out the characters and named them after people in our family, right? So I was like, even if I'm out the money, this process of creating it was worth it for me.

Dana Dowdell: 12:08

Do you have any insight as to why? You know I think you and I are similar in that I didn't find HR as a career path until I took a class I want to say it was my second or third year of college and I see a lot of HR professionals where it's career change or they go to school for psychology and realize that they like the work psychology side of it. Do you think or do you have any insight into what HR professionals, schools, mentorship can do to kind of create earlier thoughts of HR as a career path?

Kelsie: 12:46

I think a lot of it is. We just really struggle with communicating what we do. Hr is so versatile and we do so much that it's really hard to communicate that and show that, especially to young professionals early in their career or, let's say, high school students, because there is this wide breadth of work that we do as well as possibilities that you could do within HR. So I think for HR professionals we really just have to communicate to the perspectives, much like we over communicate to our employees, right? What can we do and how can we make sure that the future pipeline of HR professionals is stronger?

Dana Dowdell: 13:25

Do you feel at all that people view HR as like an easy task? I think this ties into value a bit. In terms of onboarding, oh, that's easy. I don't need someone who has skill, knowledge, experience, education that supports that.

Kelsie: 13:45

Yeah, I definitely see the career early on seem very tactical. Right, you do this one task and you move on, and those strategic roles usually aren't until you've had a couple years of experience. So I think that's also the struggle of bridging that gap, of getting those interested in strategic work. But they need that tactical background to understand how to implement it. I also think there's this stigma of HR is unlikeable, unapproachable, not fun. So I think that's just something we have to break down barriers for Now. Will we be the ones at the happy hour leading all of that? No, right, because we have to draw those lines, maybe stronger than some of the other departments. But I think I've been very successful in some of my other roles, really working through, creating those relationships so that they feel HR is a trusted resource rather than someone they have to hide their work from.

Dana Dowdell: 14:44

So you started your career in the training and development side of things and then you could currently do a lot of employee relations. So for someone who's listening that maybe has no concept of employee relations or might only think that it's the negative side of employee relations, can you share a little bit about what your job entails and some of the things that you work on with clients?

Kelsie: 15:09

Yeah. So for the employee relations piece basically what I like to think of it as as a new employee coming in what is their wish list? Right? They want to feel supported at work, they want to have a flexible work environment, they want to have strong benefits that are relatable and usable for their family. The list goes on and on, and really my goal as employee relations is to see how many of those things we can make happen and support not only the employee as well as the business. So there's always creative solutions. Especially in the US, we have a huge healthcare cost issue, right, and the employer side of things we really see it hitting our pocketbook, especially those who are self-insured. There's so many creative solutions that you can come up with to better support the employee as well as reduce healthcare costs for the business. So when I think about employee relations, it's taking that whole scope of work making the employee feel supported in the workplace, but also at home, as well, and so it's integrated within all of the functions of human resources.

Kelsie: 16:15

Definitely. I think there's really more and more. You know, covid brought on so many different challenges, but there are some really good things that came out of COVID and I think one of it is really, instead of work life balance, talking about work life integration. I have small children. When we have a rough morning and a rough bus, stop getting dressed, fight, tears all of those big feelings that spills into the work day and there's no way that's not going to happen. Same with when you have a rough day at work and you're having dinner with your family at home. If your day was so exhausting, that's going to spill into your family, right? So we really need to take about, think about the person as a whole and how we can support them.

Dana Dowdell: 16:59

I always look at that as like a really fine line, because it's you want to support them, but you don't want to know too much that you know that there's a boundary issue there. So what do you do to maintain a positive presence and an approachable presence while maintaining that boundary?

Kelsie: 17:26

I think the big thing is really establishing trust as well as psychological safety within the workplace, because you want them to be able to come to you with any questions or concerns that they have, rather than starting, let's say, negative conversations with their peers or letting it fester. A lot of the issues that I see come up in the workplace could have been solved months ago if someone just would have brought the concern forward. Instead, they sit on it, let it fester and it just becomes the sore spot day after day where we can have those open and honest conversations. I don't like where this is going or this doesn't align with my values. The sooner we can have those, the sooner we can say is this something we can address or can't address? And even if it's something you can't fix or can't have changed, the fact that you listen to the employee and explored options is really just adding to that psychological safety.

Dana Dowdell: 18:23

I'm curious your thoughts on any generational differences in how they approach employee relations.

Kelsie: 18:32

Oh, that's a great one. I have a love hate with everything generational right. I eat it up, I love the content and I really love watching funny reels or tic-tacs about it. But what I also struggle with is we are people at the core and we have the same meso hierarchy of needs right, we have that same focus for it. So I think it's really embracing that there may be some commonalities among generations, but that's the way it has always been and the way it's always going to be. You're always going to have a few sets of commonalities and shared experiences of what they have lived through and what they've witnessed growing up, but it really comes down to there's aspects of individuality as well. So working again to balance that shared experience of growth as well as individuality.

Dana Dowdell: 19:26

Yeah, I feel like, as time has gone on, I've noticed it more and more with longer term employees, where they look at human resources as the mouthpiece for employee relations rather than a desire to take an active part in resolving the employee relations. Do you see that as well in what you do?

Kelsie: 19:49

Yeah, definitely. We're at the point where we're having five generations in the workplace, which is something we haven't normally seen. Retirements are later and people are getting into the workforce earlier. I think a lot of it comes to again that transition that we have had within HR from really that tactical, basic, almost paper pusher as job to strategic, and then those in the more senior role tend to be more senior in age as well and with that that's their lived experience right Out of their workforce time.

Kelsie: 20:23

Over 50% of it HR was doing basic admin tasks, so they are defaulting to what they know instead of that strategic thought partner for it. And I think really the shift, especially with employer relations and employee engagement, is before it was very much seen as HR. The party planner is in charge of this employee engagement and now it's really funneling to the manager and the leader within that organization and that leader is responsible for the people under them and in their care, right To make sure their team is engaged. It's not an HR activity. Hr will support and guide and coach and mentor, but really it comes down to the leader implementing it.

Dana Dowdell: 21:09

So I'm a big fan of therapy and I think in my 30s I am finally realizing how many tools that I learn in therapy that I deploy when I'm dealing with employee relations with employees, and so I'm curious what tools you use when you're navigating some dicey employee relations issues that could benefit our listeners.

Kelsie: 21:35

Yeah, when it comes to the really difficult ones, what I like to do is always pull back to the organization that you're supporting, the values and the policies in place. That really creates a framework for you to help solve a path forward. I typically come from a manufacturing industry. That's my background in HR. Those are the organizations I tend to have supported and in those organizations they tend to be very policy heavy and very focused on that. So there's always some sort of framework you can go back on to say what have we done in the past? Where do we go from there Now? Growing up, I also did a lot and, let's say, hospitality and retail work. Those environments don't necessarily have those frameworks. They may have a very loose employee handbag just for regulations. So that's where you have to say okay, is the framework I'm starting with really rigid or is it more loose and fluid? And once I know that, then we can look at creative solutions forward. Do I have to stay in this path or can I open myself up to more flexible ways of work?

Dana Dowdell: 22:41

I think something that is often missed in the HR careers is the self care component, and we are often supporting others and not necessarily focused on our own kind of balance. Integration and employee relations can get really hard sometimes. Can you share your tools for compartmentalizing or processing through some of those challenging situations that have come up?

Kelsie: 23:11

Kat, I think one of the first ones is workspace. I work from home but I have a dedicated office that I'm fortunate enough to just shut the door right, and so this is the time when I am. I also recently have gotten into a lot of meditation, and the reason for that? Not necessarily I've tried guided meditation. I really struggle. It feels very forced for me, but the thoughtfulness of thinking about what I'm doing at the time and really being present, especially with my children and my family. I tend to multitask, I love to multitask, but that only increases my burnout where I feel like I have eight balls up in the air. So something as simple of I'm just going to sit with my kid for a little bit and work on this one task right, play this one game, put the phone away and really try and shut off my brain of thinking that mental list with those 800 tabs that are open in our brain, right.

Dana Dowdell: 24:09

Oh my gosh. I think in HR it's everything's a fire. So I think we get trained and we get comfortable in that space of immediate responsiveness and taking immediate attention to something, and so that idea of kind of taking a step back and having a sense of presence in whatever task you're focusing on is I mean, it's a work in progress room, at least I know but I think it's been hugely beneficial.

Kelsie: 24:42

Yeah, work in progress for sure. I struggle all the time with it and I just the thought of I'm attempting to be more mindful and be more present, I think, is enough to help me really go through that. Also, I really enjoy physical activity, I think, getting out there and moving any way that you can and trying to unplug when you do it. I personally really enjoy going to a CrossFit class because there is no option. You have to participate with the class and with the group and you have to kind of follow along with it so that you can't get distracted and go into other paths.

Dana Dowdell: 25:21

I want to ask one last question about employer relations and it's the concept of like discretion and need to know. You know I view that as like a muscle that you build and get comfortable with and I'm curious. You know, that sense of discretion, need to know what to say when, who to say to who needs to know, did that come naturally to you or is it something that you had to build over time and did you come into any dicey situations along the way?

Kelsie: 25:54

I think for me, a lot of it comes from a place of almost empathy, putting myself in the shoes of, let's say, maybe the person being accused of wrongful doing or the person who had wrongful doing done upon them. Right, you're always going to want to know more information than maybe you should be privy to and you're going to want that open transparency. If someone does something against you, you want to know that it was investigated and that there's proper corrective action and that something came of it, right? So, while I may not be able to share that they got written up or they got terminated or the exact specifics, what I can share with you is that I took your concerns seriously and we looked into it, right, and there either was findings or maybe there wasn't findings, but really creating that open space and open door to say you can come back if there are future issues or concerns.

Kelsie: 26:51

I don't necessarily know if there was any tool that helped me develop that. It was more over time going through that. I also had some fantastic mentors early on in my career and I also started off my career working in a union environment and I think, working within that and having those strong mentors to guide me and say, okay, not only is an employer relations issue, but we also have this added layer of working with unions and stewards. We need to be more thoughtful about some of our communications beforehand.

Dana Dowdell: 27:28

Yeah, I think slowing down that desire to put out a fire, give somebody an answer or respond to every question is not necessary and you have to be mindful of it.

Kelsie: 27:44

Definitely. And the one thing I think about again is would the employee appreciate an answer right now? Is that really what's driving them? Or do they want a thoughtful answer within 24 hours? Right, that there is nothing wrong within a conversation saying let me double check or let me get back to you on that. That's going to be so much more appreciated and also be seen as a value thought partner than shooting from your hip and maybe giving some incorrect information or giving information that only makes the situation worse.

Dana Dowdell: 28:18

Right. That is unclear or is incorrect, then you find yourself in a worse situation. Right? Definitely Kelsey. Where can people connect with you and buy the book?

Kelsie: 28:33

Yeah, so you can go and follow me on LinkedIn. Connect on there. I would love to hear from you, and also my book is available on Amazon. That's the best way to purchase. Or if you are at an upcoming SHRM conference, the SHRM bookstore now has my book as well.

Dana Dowdell: 28:48

Amazing, amazing Congratulations. That's a huge. We loved it and I think I hope more people who are listening go and buy it, because it's a fantastic tool resource and it's cute, it's adorable.

Kelsie: 29:00

Awesome. Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I can't wait to see all of the people starting the majors in HR and growing our profession.

Dana Dowdell: 29:09

I agree and, as always, we'll make sure that the links to connect with Kelsey on LinkedIn and also purchase her book are in the show notes. Kelsey, thank you so much for being on Quirky HR. Thank you.