How a Nonprofit Human-Resources Manager Learned the Value of Caring for Employees

ENTRY LEVEL

Dana Winfield

Age: 41

First nonprofit job: Telephone case screener, Judge Baker Guidance Center, Child-at-Risk Hotline, Boston

Current job: Manager of human resources, Frick Collection, New York

The first time it occurred to me that I wanted to go into the so-called “helping professions” I was about 12 or 13. It was the early 1970s in suburban New Jersey and a time when public schoolteachers were finally starting to delve into subjects like drug use and sexual activity in classroom discussions.

One day in health-education class, we were having a rap session and someone was revealing personal information about themselves. I guess I must have shown some level of empathy, and my teacher picked up on it.

“When you get older, you should consider some kind of career in counseling,” she told me. I think that is really where the seed was first planted.

I went to Boston University, where I received my bachelor’s degree in psychology. During those years, I volunteered at a summer camp program for economically disadvantaged kids and at a 24-hour hotline for parents who were having trouble coping with the stresses of parenthood.

My first professional nonprofit job was in 1985, as a telephone case screener at the Child-at-Risk Hotline at the Judge Baker Guidance Center — now known as the Judge Baker Children’s Center — in Boston. The center had been contracted by the Department of Social Services of Massachusetts to process reports of child abuse and neglect for the entire state. We took calls from children, parents, relatives, doctors, nurses, social workers, day-care providers, and the police, and often the information we heard over the line was unbelievably graphic. I was working insane hours, which included weekend and overnight shifts. It was brutal work.

I would say it was the hardest job I have ever had. But it is also the job that to this day shapes the way I approach my work in human resources. I learned more about what drives me and about my personal philosophy toward my work in the two years that I was at that job than I have ever since. The most important thing I learned was how to take care of people so that they can do their jobs well.

Understandably, it was very difficult to recruit people to do the work we were doing at the Child-at-Risk Hotline. Because of that, those of us who were there were paid well, we had excellent benefits, and when we needed a day off, we took a day off. Our offices were fabulously well stocked with supplies. If there were certain pens you liked to write with, those were the pens you got. And on top of it all, we had fun — which is hard to believe, given the work we were doing. We told stories, we shared pictures, we brought our pets to work. As long as we were doing our jobs, our bosses would allow us to do anything that would help us feel a little more human and a little bit more connected.

We also had amazing supervisors. Since most of us working at the Child-at-Risk Hotline weren’t licensed social workers, we had no mandatory clinical supervision requirements. Yet even so, I still had a meeting with my supervisor, John Considine, every week without fail. We discussed how I was managing the work, the schedule craziness, and the sleep deprivation. He was always telling us, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” and he meant it. John believed that at the end of the day, taking care of yourself was the most important thing. The final product was also important, of course, but if you didn’t cross every “T” every time, it wasn’t the end of the world. As a result of that support, we all worked very hard and were very proud of our work. So, what I learned first and foremost, is that that if you take care of people, they will give you everything that they have.

The second thing I learned from that job is that I really didn’t want to be a social worker after all. I simply wasn’t cut out for it. On a personal level, the misery that I had to absorb every day was a lot, and even with all the wonderful supervision that I had, I knew after a couple of years that it wasn’t for me anymore. After the Child-at-Risk Hotline, I ended up briefly working for a temp agency, where many of my clients were low-income, unemployed day laborers, or people with very basic clerical skills. That job, while short-lived, showed me another way I could contribute to people’s well-being. That is really where I got my start in human resources.

Since then, I have held several positions as human-resources manager or as a consultant to general health-care and AIDS/HIV-related human-services organizations. Last year, I saw that the Frick Collection in New York was looking for someone to be the museum’s first ever human-resources manager. I had been the first human-resources person at two other places, first at HIV CARE Services and then at the Momentum AIDS Project, so I was well aware of the challenges. But when I came to the museum for the interview, I met people who were truly committed to the same things that I am committed to — namely, providing good benefits for employees and having rules that are understandable and apply to everyone.

In the year I’ve been here, we have shortened the waiting period for health-insurance enrollment, we have added flexible spending accounts for dependent health and transportation costs, and we have added an employee assistance program. I’m also working to start an English-as-a-second-language program, because many of our workers are not fluent in English. I really enjoy trying to help people see how their employer can help them build a foundation in their home life through these types of benefits.

I think about my first job at the Judge Baker Guidance Center and all that experience taught me every day. I am constantly aware of how important it is to give people the tools they need to do their job well, thinking always about how their personal lives affect their work. I think that’s why I’m in a small nonprofit setting and why I think I always will be. With 200 or fewer people, I feel like I can really get to know everyone I work with, and if someone needs something, I can try to figure out a way to help. If you do your best to let people know that you care about them, I believe it enhances the retention of the employee, it enhances the quality of the product that you get from the employee, and overall it enhances morale.

If you take care of people, they’ll take care of you by producing a good product, whether that product is providing food for people with HIV, or helping set up and break down exhibitions at the Frick Collection. Take care of people, listen to them, and they will be forever grateful. You are never going to have everyone’s answers, but if people know that you are at least trying, that’s really all they need. — As told to Rebecca Gardyn

How did your first work experiences shape your current nonprofit career? Tell us at entrylevel@philanthropy.com. Your story may appear in a future edition of Entry Level.