Jessie Gaglione

I'd say it's probably a combination of work ethic, luck, and being excited to be able to help people. I think those three things together have really driven my success in HR. The work ethic keeps me going and pushing to do better, the luck has put me in the right places at the right times, and the genuine excitement about helping people is what makes this work meaningful to me every single day.

I would say that someone will be really successful in this industry if they approach it with empathy, but realize that HR wears a lot of hats. There's ambiguity in the role, there's a lot of you kind of figuring things out for yourself or having to find the answers to things that are not easily printed. I think we're going to start to see a lot of project management work in HR, so if there's someone who really likes to jump in and help out companies and work with a lot of different companies, I think getting a project management certification would be a really neat future-forward kind of thought. I'm also really diving into the AI side. I think there's going to be some positions that might fall between tech and HR, and especially as we figure out how to manage HR data, at some point all these different HRIS systems will have AI components, and having to protect your employees' data, I think will fall further - it won't just be an IT fight, it'll be an HR fight as well. I'd say someone who's able to be empathetic, but is very people-focused, wants to see people at their company be successful and help them get there, but then also if you're thinking about the future and thinking about this career, I think a project manager lens or an AI kind of ethical lens would be really interesting and a really smart pivot for people in the future.

The biggest challenges right now are that the job market is very uncertain, so there's a lot of concern and fear whether people are employed by you or looking for a job. AI is interesting because I think a lot of people think we can use it to replace certain parts of our job, but I don't think we're there yet. I can see how it can be very helpful for the job rather than being seen as a replacement. Another challenge is how quickly laws, mandates, and different regulations by different cities can change, and when you work for a company that has a lot of different states under their belt, that can be a challenge. On the flip side, AI does have some positive help - if you're an HR person of one wearing all the hats, AI can really be helpful. You have to double-check a couple things, but for the most part it does have the ability to help people in different capacities. We're also seeing some more laws come out in different states that are very pro-employee, which is great to see. I think that's a positive win. Even just the day-to-day, being able to help people - you always have an opportunity to help someone. There's a lot of careers out there, and not all of them get to interact with people in a way where you're helping someone figure something out, you're helping them navigate a big step in their life. Knowing that you went home and you helped someone set themselves up for success and know what the process is for a leave of absence that they really need to take for multiple different reasons is a really neat thing.

Empathy would be number one. Authenticity would be another, and I think along with authenticity is transparency - those two would kind of be side by side. And trust, I think they all kind of work in a circular fashion. You kind of need all of them to be able to do this job and understand both sides of the different arguments that come your way. But even in my personal life, the importance of speaking up, saying what you need to say, and doing so respectfully are, I think, going to get people far. Because without being heard, without being seen, it's very hard for people. So being that person for people, by being those things and showing people this is who I am, I hope you can join me in that space - that's really important to me.