People Over Processes

Payroll and paperwork.

Those may be some of the core functions of human resources that come to mind.

At least they were for me when I reached out to Michelle Shambeau, the HR manager at Ebert Enterprises in Algoma, Wis., to invite her to be on this Uplevel Dairy Podcast.

But when I sat down with Michelle, she helped me to see that for her, human resources is about so much more.

Michelle's skills in implementing processes certainly make her great at her job, but what truly sets her apart is her sincere love for people.

You can see it on her wall. Hanging in her office is a bulletin board with the photos and names of the 160 employees that staff the Ebert family's businesses, including the dairy, smoked meats, beef harvesting facility and farm-to-table restaurant.

"People are my why," she says with a soft smile as she glances at those faces.

We reflected back to 2019, when she started in her role. As I probed her for the action steps she took to bring together HR efforts across the business segments, Michelle explained that creating compliance checklists was not her first step.

The two most important actions Michelle took to uplevel HR at Ebert Enterprises were this:

1. Develop a vision for what HR would be.
"I didn't want HR to be viewed as a scary place," Michelle says. "I want us to be seen as servant leaders."

This vision for servant leadership represented not only what she wanted to create, but it was also an extension of the culture and values that Randy, Renee, Jordan and Whitney Ebert wanted to replicate in their growing and diversifying businesses.

2. Spend time with employees.
With that vision in mind, Michelle spent her first few months simply walking beside people during their daily work, getting to know them, and gaining an understanding for their work, as well as who they are individually.

She wanted people to know that she was there to help them be safe and successful.

These two action steps laid the ground work and built relationships so that she could go to the next steps of introducing changes. Michelle took big goals, such as improving safety, and broke them down into smaller chunks over time: introducing safety glasses, adding high-visibility to uniforms and so on.

Michelle's passion for people is also what drives her to continually grow in her understanding of who she serves as HR manager.

In fact, one of her goals was to be able to talk to all the employees in their language. So she set out on an emersion trip last year and spent 2 months in Guatemala, learning language and culture of Central  America.

So what can we learn about taking an HR department from payroll to the next level of formalized processes?

My key takeaway was this:
Find a leader who aligns with your dairy's vision, is good with processes and even greater with people.

Find your "Michelle."