Heather Pray

I attribute my success to the employees here, the ones that I help and mentor, and the ones that I work with every day. I get leadership guidance from several team members, not just at our Wichita office. We have over 175 offices across the United States, so we have leadership calls with different people at different levels, including engineers, doctorate levels, people in the construction field, and RCC paving. I like that we're all well-rounded, we all mentor each other, and we all help each other. We're an employee-owner company, so if we're not successful, it's going to impact all of us. There's great mentorship that we have here and great camaraderie that we have at this office and in the company.

I had a professor at Friends University who was the director, and she shared her own experience with weight discrimination. She told our class that on paper, she was the best candidate, but when she showed up for the interview, she could see the interviewer's face and demeanor change. She told us, don't let people tear you down. You have the knowledge, you have the skills to do the task at hand. You've always got to keep your head held high and be professional. She said, I'm not saying killing them with kindness, but I'm telling you, killing them with kindness. That was the best advice I'd ever been given. As I've gotten more seasoned over the years, I've really taken that advice to heart, because there are some people who treat you differently because of age, how you look, and all that. So I just kind of take it with a grain of salt and know that I can do the job, and what my level of experience is, and how I can help people, and I just go that route.

Definitely, number one, have an opinion. Don't be afraid to speak up. If you feel something's wrong in your gut, go with that instinct. On the positive side, find a mentorship. Find somebody that can help you in this field, get your foot in the door, and help train you the right way. A lot of times in the HR field, I've come across this from some employees, there's a stigma in HR, and people feel like that if HR's talking to me, I'm in trouble, or I can't openly talk to HR. I've tried changing that policy to have an open-door policy. So that is my best advice for young people getting into this field at an early age.

The biggest challenge I would have to say is the job market. Since COVID, we've had such a challenge finding good talent and keeping them. It could be because of cost of living, it could be because prices are going up, and a lot of families are having trouble living paycheck to paycheck, and it's a tough challenge. I've had to be a little bit creative, not just with social media. I'm going to gas stations, putting up flyers, things like that. On the success side, being part of an employee owner's company, I see the value of working hard and trying to not have recordable injuries. That's a big part of our safety program that we have, and our IIF culture, which is called Incident and Injury Free. I just feel like that's our biggest key point with our company, and I try to live that every day.

In my work life, the value is integrity. If you do not have integrity, there is a great chance that people can get hurt in the industry that I'm in. Honesty, integrity, and the courage to speak up are some of the safety key terms that we focus on at our office, because we consider safety as a major game changer at the office. From going from work to home, I try to put safety as a mindset for my kids and my husband. I live and breathe safety at work, and I want to transfer that at home. One of our big rules at our company is you cannot be on your cell phone while driving for any work-related business, and I've transferred that mindset to driving home. On road trips, if my husband's driving, then I can get on my phone and make phone calls, but we do not get on our phones while driving, texting, none of that. I have this big focus on distracted driving because it can cause injuries, can kill people, and can hurt road construction workers because you're not paying attention. I've tried to have that safety mindset going both work and home, so that's my biggest takeaway.