Karri Wiggers

I attribute my success to endless learning and an unrelenting work ethic. I've always had this genuine desire to learn - to read about things, to get into 'the mess', and really understand how things work. That curiosity and willingness to dive deep has been a constant throughout my career. The other piece is my work ethic, and I say that smiling because I'm thinking of what my mentors have told me over the years. They've pointed out that my ability to work, to always be working and get things done, is one of my strengths. But that doesn't mean work is all I do in life - I'm very active and participate in all sorts of things outside of work. I have a strong work-life balance. It's more about getting to do 'all the things' and experience everything I can. The combination of endless learning and the discipline to follow through and complete what I start has really been the foundation of all I've accomplished.

The best career advice I've received is to stay true to yourself. In the work that I do in HR, you often know exactly what doing the right thing looks like. Regardless of who's asking, or if their asking you to do something different than what you know is right, the advice that stuck with me is simple: stay true to yourself. At times, you will be pushed in a different direction or asked to compromise on what you know is the right path. Stay grounded in your integrity and your values and trust yourself to do what you know is right and that will carry you through. That's been the guidance that has shaped how I approach my work and the decisions I make.

My advice is to learn everything and try everything. What often happens in HR is that someone will enter the field in one area - maybe compensation, benefits, or employee relations - and they stay there. They don't learn the other functions or explore other areas of the organization. Unless you're willing to do that, or are brave enough to do that, you miss how all the pieces connect. You can't necessarily be the best compensation professional if you've only learned compensation. You have to learn the other areas - learning and development, benefits, employee relations - and understand how they interconnect. I recently hired a benefits specialist, who is amazing at benefits, but she's only ever worked in benefits. to help her interconnect, I had her rotate through each function, so she could learn how benefits can impact recruitment or employee relations, and how programs like the Employee Assistance Program can help reduce stress and improve outcomes. Spending time in those other areas of HR helps you understand how they connect, and that makes a much stronger professional overall. Be brave enough to explore the different parts of the field, even when they're unfamiliar. That curiosity and willingness to stretch yourself will make you better at whatever you ultimately specialize in.

The biggest challenge in the field right now is employee retention, and it's happening for really good reasons, which makes it complex. There are so many opportunities out there now. With remote work opening up, and connectivity being wildly available, Alaskans can now work anywhere in the world. People have access to opportunities they never had before. That's great - it keeps ideas fresh, brings innovation, and creates positive movement, but the downside is that people are changing jobs so quickly they never reach that 'settling-in' period. When I first started in HR, or even a decade ago, you would see people stay 5 to 6 years before they started to feel stagnant and moved on. Now, I'm seeing two years or less before changing roles, and the problem is that's not even long enough to get good at the thing you're doing. You spend six months learning what you're doing, and then another six months carrying it out, but you haven't necessarily mastered it. Let alone improved it. We're losing that knowledge base of the master class level of expertise. We're in a constant period of everyone being 'new' and we're losing improvement and development stages. With that said, employees are changing roles for positive reasons. they're not leaving because the environment is terrible, but because they want to be even more successful. However, it means we never get past learning mode and into the development mode. We're not seeing people stay long enough to do the strategic work that really moves things forward.

The values that are most important to me are integrity and citizenship. I don't think they change whether I'm at home or at work. We just completed an entire project where we redid our organizational values, and what I talk to leadership about most often is this: who we are at home doesn't change when we get to work. The things that we value most in our personal life are the same in our professional life. For example, honesty is a really big one for me. There's not a lot that we can't work through at home, or at work, if we're honest about it. If we make a mistake and we're honest about it and we own it, we can usually figure out pretty much anything. And, having faith - obviously faith at work and at home. Having faith in people, having faith that we're here to do right by people and to help each other. My values are true at home and at work, and I believe they should be. Who you are doesn't change just because you walk through a different door.