Hazina Ngandu

I attribute my success to my parents. My mother had me in the 70s, very young, but she didn't allow her studies to suffer. She finished high school, went on to college, and got her nursing degree. She even got a doctorate in education - and she did all of that with 4 girls. It wasn't easy. My father was kind of a protege, I say - he won't agree with that, but I say that he was. He was able to go to MIT, where he met my mother, and they had me. So I attribute my work ethic to them, because they didn't have a lot, but what they did have was their ability to keep it moving. They were able to work, and you could just see the progression in them as they got older. You could see the fruit of their hard work as the years went on. If my father said he was gonna do something, he did it. So that's where I get it from - my parents.

My advice would be to be flexible. I think that being able to flex your hours, being able to cover a co-worker who wants to take vacation - these things matter. When there are meetings with leadership and questions are being asked about what people think about specific issues, speak up. Let your voice be heard. If you speak up in a meeting, whether what you're saying is embraced or not, speaking up can put you on somebody's radar, and when they have an opportunity, they may say, hey, I remember so-and-so said this in a meeting, let me get with her and see if she may have some insight that could help us. So I would say be flexible and speak up. Use your voice.

I would say technology is changing so fast, and if you are not paying attention, you can kind of etch yourself out of the workforce. So you have to be curious in your career. You have to be willing to change. Technology can be a huge challenge, especially if you grew up in a time where we barely had computers when we were growing up. If you don't open your mind to the fact that things change, that can be a great hindrance to you. For me, I'm conscious that I want to make sure that I'm always improving, I'm always learning something, I'm always curious about the next thing. On the opportunity side, I think that AI is a good opportunity. We just upgraded our systems, and our systems now incorporate AI. An opportunity would be to learn how AI can help improve upon whatever job or career you're working in. AI may be able to help you better forecast, and it does. AI may be able to help come up with totally different ways of looking at how to forecast for a contact center, and it does. The agents that work for the Postal Service are leery of AI - a lot of people think that AI is gonna come in and take over all of their jobs, so they're hesitant and put up kind of a wall. So I think that AI is an opportunity, and embracing AI as that opportunity for the workforce management career is key.

Personally, the value that I think is central to me as a person is family. I'm a huge believer that your family and community is the thing that helps to propel you and keep you balanced. As far as my professional career is concerned, I think the thing that I truly value is hard work, loyalty, and just basically keeping your word. If you're working on a project and you have a deadline, whatever it is, if you say that you're gonna do something, even if you don't think you can finish that thing, I think communication about that is key. We don't always meet our deadlines, but as long as you are communicating what the situation is, that's the best thing. So communication, hard work, and just honesty - because it's very, very difficult today, but people don't value honesty, and I think it's central and key to your success.