Melissa Lloyd

▶0:00HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Melissa to the Built by People podcast. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:49GuestSure, I would love to. I have been in human resources for approximately 27 years. About 23 of that amount of time was in the banking industry. But honestly, I've always been a self-motivated individual who was very much open to leadership opportunities. I was the kid who wasn't just in a club like 4-H, but I was also the secretary and the president. And I was the one who took on the junior leadership roles. I didn't just do a youth group at church. I also was helping in the Bible classes and doing things for VBS. So, when I graduated from high school in the early '90s, the thing that you did was you went to college. That was your choice. In reality, I probably would have done that anyway. I love learning. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to learn. So, at the point that I had changed majors 3 times, I finally landed on what was considered a new major at the liberal arts college I was at the time, which was human resources. And it was a combination of half my classes were in the business department and half of my classes were in psychology. Ended up being probably the best thing for an HR career in the long run, but definitely a new endeavor for that college at the time. Once I graduated from college with my human resources degree, I knew I wanted to be in human resources, but I didn't really know what industry or what I was interested in. I was very fortunate to get get to do a little bit of a sabbatical. I actually went and lived with a missionary family in Italy for a few months. And so that was a great opportunity for me to expand my global horizon. But when I came back to the States, I did not have a job lined up. So I initially started in a college setting in a bookstore. And although that was a nice environment, it wasn't what I felt like I had gotten my degree for. And so I eventually moved into the staffing industry. Doing temporary placements, temp-to-hire type placements. That was with a small family-owned business. And there were 4 of us in that particular business. And at the tender age of 23, I was laid off for the first time in my life because the 2 newest of us in that business got laid off just because the business was at a point of struggling a little bit. So I went from there into the staff leasing industry. Staff leasing gave me the opportunity to learn payroll, HR administration activities, and things like that. For personal reasons, I moved to Missouri and was very lucky that at that time, there was a small hometown privately owned bank that was looking for an HR director, and they weren't ready to spend a lot of money, so finding someone who didn't have a lot of experience and who just needed an opportunity was ideal for them. It was also ideal for me. So at 25, I became a human resources director in a small bank. And from there, I continued to grow in my position, got my master's degree. I got my certification, my PHR certification. I worked to improve opportunities for the employees at the banks that I worked for, to develop the human resources functions more thoroughly. I was at the first bank for about 2 years when I had the opportunity to move to a bank that was consolidating 3 small banks. And it was needing to actually develop the human resources function. So I had the opportunity of developing the function from the ground up. About 6 years later, a bigger bank approached me and they wanted to enhance their human resources program. So I spent almost 15 years with that bank, and it was a bank that was in continuous improvement mode. And so I was getting to do everything from changing HRIS systems to developing new performance management programs, to enhancing benefits, and ultimately also working on developing professional development for that particular organization. But like most banks in the banking industry, eventually acquisition took over. I was on the end of actually acquiring other banks, but then eventually was on the end of being acquired as a bank. And so I got the opportunity to be severed, and I say opportunity because I actually took a sabbatical, which isn't real common in the corporate world. Took about a 9-month sabbatical. My husband and I, we traveled around the US in an RV and had a lot of fun doing that. But eventually we did have to come back to the work world. So at that point, I took a position with a small company that did management consulting and management-type functions for ambulatory surgical centers, as well as for ophthalmology companies. And as I was working to enhance their human resources, I actually stumbled upon the opportunity to come to Ozarks Technical Community College as their Chief Human Resources Officer, and I have been here for about a year and 4 months now.

▶6:01HostMelissa, starting as a director at the age of 25, what were some of the key lessons you learned about self-development that shaped your leadership style?

▶6:11GuestAs a director, you are usually reporting to people who don't specialize in human resources. So there's no one that's telling you how to do your job or what you need to learn in human resources. And so when you start that at the age of 25, 5, you're still learning yourself. There's still a lot you need to learn about your own career and about the human resources profession. So, I had to be very self-motivated to continue my learning on my own. I think I mentioned I got my PHR certification. I worked on my master's degree and obtained it. I went to a lot of conferences, a lot of seminars. I read a lot on my own. Once webinars became more prevalent, I would Go to as many free webinars as possible because that also helped me with my budget dollars and being able to stretch those. I researched as I did projects for the different initiatives that I had responsibility for. And then I also got involved in teaching continuing education courses and started training supervisors. And what I have found is you learn the most when you are teaching others. And so that was a very important component of me continuing to develop in my role. The other thing I did and something I think is very important is I volunteered with professional associations like the local SHRM chapter, and that helped me build a network of professionals that could serve as mentors to me, help share best practices, things like that.

▶7:39HostYou've mentioned working with smaller companies where supervisory development wasn't established. How did you approach building these programs from the ground up?

▶7:49GuestWell, I would love to say that I followed the textbook answer of conducting needs assessments and having clear objectives and creating the perfect plan. But in reality, I really started that when there would be new HR projects or initiatives that I had going, and I needed to teach the supervisors what their roles were with those initiatives, with those programs. So my programs were initially tailored to addressing what was needed right then to allow for change management to take place within the organization I was at. The bank that I was at the longest, the one I was out there almost 15 years, I got buy-in on the retail side initially and would just go to meetings or retreats that they already had established and do different types of supervisory training for them. How do you deal with difficult employees? How do you make sure you're making the right hiring decisions? How do you successfully do performance management? From that point, I developed a reputation of providing quality training and interactive sessions that people wanted to be part of, which gave me the latitude than developing that on a bigger scale across the bank as a whole. The more trainings I conducted, the more I would survey the participants to get their feedback, making sure I was meeting their developmental needs, and then I'd make adjustments to those programs as needed in order to continue to move forward with that type of a program.

▶9:16HostWell, as in your experience, what are the most critical elements of an effective employee development program, particularly for supervisory roles?

▶9:26GuestI think that when we're talking about adults, we have to have that real-life application. The offerings have to make the individual understand how they can be best in their current role and/or what their desired role might be. So they need to be able to see what's in it for them. Why should they participate in a particular program? There have to be also different types of activities that are part of that training, so group discussions, role-playing, application activities. I often say that I'm really a facilitator. Adults learn best from one another. So although I might be sharing concepts with them and helping them learn new things, I'm actually also helping them learn from one another at the same time. And then I think the other thing is that the program has to be customized to fit the specific needs and challenges of the organization you're in. One size is never going to fit all when it comes to training. So even if you're using an off-the-shelf program, You have to tailor that content to your organization so that your participants can understand how it helps them in their current roles.

▶10:33HostAnd how has your approach to professional development evolved over your 26-year career in director-level positions?

▶10:41GuestI mentioned initially no needs assessment, things like that. I'm not going to say I do a full needs assessment even now. But I've learned to really make sure I'm paying attention to where the pain points are. So that is really what are the needs of the participants? What is it that they need to be trained in? I've also really leaned into continuous improvement, meaning a training can and should evolve based on changes to the organization, to the environment that you're in. You should never have a one and done. So you're going to learn from your successes and from your challenges and continue to make improvements there. The other thing that has changed throughout my career is I went from being the only one providing those types of development opportunities to now being in a role where I'm more empowering and guiding others who are developing and offering the programs and offerings. So I need to make sure that I'm helping to guide and train others to be the trainers that are needed for the organization. I also think that aligning professional development initiatives with broader goals of the organization is really important. We have to make sure that the culture is reinforced, that we're changing and evolving the training as the organization changes and evolves.

▶12:01HostMelissa, what role do you think HR leaders should play in driving employee development initiatives within their organizations?

▶12:09GuestI think that, first of all, a strong HR leader obviously has to understand the organization's strategic initiatives. And so when it comes to professional development, employee development, they should tie that strategically to what the initiatives of the organization are. We are tasked with making sure the employees who are part of the organization are able to lead the organization in the direction that it needs to go. HR also has a ton of data available to us. So we should gain insight from the pain points that we see happening within the organization. What's causing the turnover? What are the most common employee relations issues? Is our recruiting and hiring effective? And what roles do the supervisors play in all of that? And how can we then equip them with proper training and development in order to deal with those things? We also have a role of coaching the supervisors, so not just training them, but also coaching them through the situations that we've given them development on. I've already mentioned I feel that HR leaders should and can shape and influence organizational culture. So the examples that we utilize, the importance we put on training are going to help do that. We have to stay abreast of the latest trends, the best practices related to professional development to make sure that we're utilizing those. And then we also have to be an advocate for employee development. We have to sell those initiatives, not only to the C-suite, but also to the employees and to the supervisors themselves. We have to help them understand that by making themselves better, then the company as a whole is going to be better. So being that advocate, selling the program is very important.

▶13:56HostMelissa, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶14:00GuestI think that it's really important for us to realize that our own professional development is our own responsibility. You can't wait for your leaders or your company to create opportunities for you. You need to find them yourself. You need to advocate for them, and you need to lead others by being an example of why professional development is important. We also have a responsibility to develop others regardless of whether we have permission to start a formal program or not. So again, no excuses. You mentor others, you coach your own employees, you create discussion, you make sure that professional development isn't just sending someone to a class. It's also things like volunteering, reading, trying new things. Encouraging curiosity. I think the saddest thing in today's culture is that many people seem to think they should be incentivized to learn. We need to actually be leading ourselves and others more intrinsically so that we're motivated to continue to develop and learn on our own. We need to stay curious. We need to fully embrace lifelong learning, just not as a catchphrase, but also in practice of what we do. And then one other thing, I think perfection is the enemy of innovation. So many times, I feel like leaders feel like if it's not a perfect program, if it's not a perfect training event, then we shouldn't do it yet. I think we need to be willing to jump in to get started. We don't have to have everything in place to be able to move the organization forward with professional development.

▶15:33HostMelissa, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶15:38GuestThank you. It was great to be here.