HR pros that join the profession after a career-switch often find that the skills learned in their past lives still provide value in their new field.
That’s certainly the case for Michelle Reaux, VP of culture, engagement, and talent development at Insight Enterprises. Reaux started her career as a mental health counselor before transitioning into training, and then business development. She’d first worked at Insight from 2006 to 2010, joining as part of a merger, before re-joining the company in 2014, leading organizational development and eventually adding responsibilities including leadership training, DEI, and talent development.
While she’s spent more than 20 years in the HR world, Reaux’s background as a counselor continues to come in handy.
“It fits really well with what I do today because you’re looking at how people work, how groups work, how teams work, and that’s really what I was trained on,” she said.
While that counseling background has been helpful for coaching leaders and employees and for conflict mediation, Reaux says active listening, an important skill for counselors, has been most beneficial.
“It’s easier to build trust when I stay in that listening mode, because I really want to figure out which direction we should be going,” she said.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?
When I returned to Insight 11 years ago, I knew my team needed to radically change a variety of things because Insight hadn’t changed its programs in quite awhile. My arrival was perfectly timed, right as our culture was changing during our rebrand.
Over 18 months, we revamped our performance management by collaborating with the executive team, leading focus groups, and getting feedback from individuals across the business. We eliminated traditional biannual meetings, ratings, and the bell curve, replacing them with regular “connection” meetings [launched in 2016]. These meetings are between leader and teammate and they focus on discussions around performance, development, and progress.
What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?
That I am in a role that’s focused on policy or employee relations. While those things are incredibly important, the entire focus on my job is culture, engagement, and talent development! A lot of people have this old school way of thinking about HR being a place you don’t want to be and the people that you don’t want to know (because if you know them, that means that something is wrong).
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In reality, my job is so fun; I get to think about how to make Insight a best place to work. And I get to work with the most creative, connected, brilliant, and thoughtful team ever. I truly have the best job at Insight!
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
My team is responsible for bringing our culture to life. We have incredible people, from the executives to our individual contributors, who have done an amazing job defining the brand. Many teams contribute to incorporating hunger, heart, and harmony into our culture because everything we do embodies these values, creating a unified and enthusiastic environment for everyone.
What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?
I think that the world of AI is so exciting, and there are so many things we can do that free up our time to allow us to be more strategic. There’s so much that we do that’s process-driven and system-driven and if we can free up time to elevate our tasks and areas of focus through implementing AI tools… I can only imagine where we can go!
While we have evolved significantly since we launched our program in 2016, by staying informed about current trends, AI will help us by allowing us to take all of the books, information, and podcasts, and compiling those into strategic, current, and relevant programmatic learning for our leaders.
What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?
I cannot think of anything that I’m not optimistic about, but I think that has a lot to do with our culture. Obviously business is hard right now, especially for the technology markets, but I think that Insight does a really good job of trying to do the right things for the business and for its teammates, and we are committed to maintaining our investments in areas that positively impact our teammates. Some examples of this include new and exciting training programs and growth opportunities, investment in new sales tools, and our continued (and fierce) focus on all things AI. We are taking care to ensure that our actions do not adversely affect our company culture, which we recognize as being of utmost importance.
