Welcome to my HR Blog Series
Friends, I am excited about what is the first of many blogs that I am writing for you – activists – for those fighting for the animals in the Animal Advocacy Movement (AAM) – I want to help Keep You Engaged!
I am very interested in employee engagement - how and why all of you continue to do what you do every day and how I can support you in ensuring that you continue to do it for many years to come.
Engagement is a reciprocal. People work for organizations, and organizations are made up of people, and in the case of social justice organizations, those people are activists. And, the quality of an organization’s human resources is perhaps the leading indicator of the level of employee engagement. High quality human resources practices are correlated with high quality employee engagement, ultimately determinative of the quality of the organizations’ activism efforts.
How organizations treat their employees either strengthens the work of those organizations or puts the organizations at risk.
One of the most compelling bodies of work in this area was done by the Gallup Organization and popularized in the 2014 book, First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
The Gallup Organization conducted in-depth interviews with over 80,000 managers in 400 companies, and according to Echols (2005), studied survey results from three million other employees. This led to the creation of a list of 12 of the most fundamental questions related to employee engagement, known as Q12. The Q12 were ultimately phrased as statements to which those surveyed were asked to respond affirmatively or negatively. When the responses were in the affirmative, they directly correlated with higher levels of employee engagement, and revealed “a directional relationship from employee engagement to outcomes such as employee retention” (Harter et al., 2020, p. 46). The 12 statements were laid out in Gallup’s Employee Engagement Hierarchy (Harter et al., 2000), structured into four hierarchical components—basic needs, management support, teamwork, and overall growth—loosely modelled after Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Poston, 2009, p. 346).
In this blog I would like to help you feel strengthened, and will provide advice on employment matters that are shown to lead to higher levels of engagements. I will touch on everything from overtime to travel, from sexual harassment to shortened workweeks, and from performance management to confidentiality. When you feel respected and engaged, you are much better positioned to help animals.
I’d like to start by sharing a little bit about my own background, and how it uniquely positions me to help you.
I began my professional career in 1990, and proceeded to spend the following 23 years working in the area of human resources and employment. I began this journey working as national recruiter for the largest computer distributor in the world, Ingram Micro Inc., and was later promoted to a managerial position in human resources. I then joined a manufacturing organization, Kaufman Footwear, and was responsible for human resources across three plants in Canada and the United States. I was later drawn back to the fast paced world of technology where I served as the national director for one the first enterprise software consulting firms in North America, Atos Origin, and then I became the vice president of human resources for one of the largest software companies in the world, SAP. Growing tired of the non-stop global travel, I co-founded and was a partner of a law firm in Toronto specializing in employment and labour law and consulted for organizations across Canada and the United States for the next 10 years.
Krista speaking at an annual Mercy For Animals donor event. Toronto, Canada.
It was then, after facing and surviving a breast cancer diagnosis, that I knew I needed to finally leave the for-profit world, and turn all my time, energy, skills, and long time commitment to veganism, into fighting for farmed animals. I joined Mercy For Animals as their Vice President for Canada, and in over 5 years I oversaw more than a dozen undercover investigations from coast to coast, I was a federal lobbyist fighting for changes to the animal transportation regulations, and I worked with some of the largest corporations in the country.
I have been consulting for groups in the AAM since early 2018, particularly in the areas of human resources and organizational development. I hold 5 degrees and designations in the area of human resources including a master’s degree in Work, Organization and Leadership. I am currently working on my doctorate with a focus on the job experiences of women in the AAM.
I have also spent many years as a volunteer for several organizations including as the founding board member and president of Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary, home of Esther the Wonder Pig for 6 years, I am an advisor to One Protest and Egg-Truth.
During my for-profit career, and my non-profit career I have dealt with every employment-related situation that you could imagine and I want to share that knowledge with you.
I want to help to empower you to be the best activist you can be. Please reach out with any questions and I’ll try to answer them in future blogs, anonymously of course!
Always for the Animals,
Krista
References:
Buckingham, M., & Coffman, C. (2014). First, break all the rules: What the world's greatest managers do differently. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Echols, M. E. (2005). Engaging employees to impact performance. Chief Learning Officer, 4(2), 44–48.
Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Killham, E. A. (2003). Employee engagement, satisfaction, and business-unit-level outcomes: A meta-analysis. Princeton, NJ: Gallup Organization.
Poston, B. (2009). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Surgical Technologist, 41(8), 347–353.
This blog series is provided for general information purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice or opinions of any kind. No one should act, or refrain from acting, based solely upon the materials provided on this website, any hypertext links or other general information without first seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice.
The intention of this blog is to promote the longevity and engagement level of the activist community within the Animal Advocacy Movement (AAM). The majority of the advice will be geared towards employees within the AAM in Canada and the United States, but may be applicable to other countries. All information provided assumes that the employee works within a non-unionized environment.
Krista spent the first 15 years of her career in human resources including as the Vice President of HR for one of the largest tech companies in the world. Krista then founded a boutique employment law firm in Toronto where she consulted to employers across Canada and the U.S. for a decade. To pursue her true passion, Krista sold her practice to lead Mercy For Animals in Canada where she led twelve undercover investigations into factory farms and slaughterhouses. Today Krista consults with animal protection organizations across North America on matters of organizational development. In addition to holding five degrees and designations in human resources, she is pursuing her doctorate focused on the employment experiences of animal rights activists.