The Modern Onboarding Experience with Debbie Gunning, Vice President of People at Human Interest
This episode features an interview with Debbie Gunning, Vice President of People at Human Interest. Debbie has spent the last 24 years building powerful business teams through talent acquisition, employee relations, and workplace culture.
In this episode, Amanda and Debbie dive into employee onboarding. They discuss the relationship between onboarding and employee retention, the importance of culture during this time, and how Debbie’s team transitioned to a virtual onboarding experience.
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“If you are a first-time HR leader entering into this, my takeaways from the last three years of having this huge scope that I’ve been covering, and part of it was very new to me, is just get ready for the ride of your life and don’t take things personally. There’s always going to be a critic. Critics are loud. And don’t worry about it because people are always going to have different feelings and let them have them, and get super comfortable being uncomfortable. Because, being an HR professional in today’s climate, every day there is going to be something that comes up that you’re like, ‘Hmm, didn’t see this coming. Don’t really know how to handle this. It’s uncomfortable, but I'm going to figure it out.’ So just get comfortable living with the discomfort and you’ll just continue to grow and thrive.” – Debbie Gunning
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Episode Timestamps:
*(01:44): Debbie’s background
*(04:14): Segment: Story Time
*(04:37): How Human Interest is tackling the pandemic world
*(06:12): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(07:24): How a good onboarding experience leads to employee retention
*(12:34): How Human Interest switched to virtual onboarding
*(22:47): Don’ts of employee onboarding
*(25:52): How Debbie is bringing culture into onboarding
*(29:31): Segment: Asking for a Friend
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Links:
Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn