60 in 60 Project: Insights into Success #60in60project #58of60 with Karen Brownrigg @ iHR Advisory Services

#60in60project

#58of60 with Karen Brownrigg

Check out all the 60 in 60 articles.

Recap - The objective of this project was to meet with 60 business leaders and professionals in 60 days to gain insights and perspectives into what success means for each of them. I then took that information to see what, if any, are the connections I could make to help further my own understanding of what success really is.

It’s one thing to connect with someone for the sake of adding a number into your network, but to really connect with that person for a greater purpose, whether that’s for education, experience, or a simple conversation; that requires the ability to effectively communicate.

After my conversation with Stayci Keetch last week for #57o60, she graciously followed up with some email introductions to some of her contacts to not only help me finish up the final leg of this project, but to also provide some me with some advice in how to proceed to that next opportunity. One of those people was Karen Brownrigg.

Who is Karen Brownrigg? (see photo above)

Karen Brownrigg is the Founder & CEO at iHR Advisory Services

Prior to launching her own consulting firm, Karen tells me that she had accumulated over twenty years of working for other organizations and it was through those experiences that she’d carved out her own approach to the industry.

“My journey began in the non-for-profit world where I started working as an HR Coordinator while I was still studying HR in school. I’d done some other college certificates before that, but I had yet to really find something that I was interested in.”

After learning about an opportunity to work as a 911 emergency dispatch operator from an advertisement her mother saw in the newspaper, Karen decided to give it a try. She was successful in that and ended up staying on for another 6 six years. In that position, Karen explains that part of her job was to not only work as a dispatcher, but also to train new dispatchers and work on project teams for the “amalgamation and refitting of the dispatch centres.”

“I was always involved in blazing new trails; in project work and committee work and I loved the job, but in that role I found that the shift work was a little hard on my personal life, so I decided to pursue another option (within the organization) that was offered to me.”

In her new position within the Ottawa Police Service, Karen was working for the Superintendents of the organization, where she was involved with situations such as “critical incident debriefings”, and coordinating the content that was needed in those meetings.

“As I had worked in the both the trusted settings of the operational environments and the debriefing situations, an opportunity came up to work in the HR department and with those experiences combined with my previous work in human resources in the non-for-profit industry, I was hired into that role to do their recruitment. That led to the beginning of a career that was all about creating something new or repairing something that was broken.”

Her next opportunity was working at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, where she helped them to collaborate with Ottawa Police Service for the creation of the first mental health crisis service which as Karen explains; “meant a police officer and crisis counselor going out in a car to respond to people at home, who were in crisis.”

“Once that was up and running, Sandy Hill had an opportunity for me to go and work in their HR department and support the setup of some of their new HR program activities, including their performance management systems and some of their hiring process for executive directors.”

A funny thing starts to happen when you do good work for people; you become wanted by others. It didn’t take long for that to occur for Karen as she was soon recruited by another sizeable non-for-profit health centre here in Ottawa, the Centretown Community Health Centre, where she would head up their HR program.

To me, the ultimate satisfaction of quality performance is the idea of being offered a job rather than having to seek it out or apply for it. For someone to see potential in what I do based on how I’ve done it in the past is probably the greatest feeling I can think of as it relates to gaining employment. It’s not something I’ve come to experience much as of yet, but it’s definitely a concept that Karen was pretty familiar with.

“The next position that I was headhunted for was to go and be the HR Manager for BLG (Borden Ladner Gervais), who at the time were struggling with a few internal issues and really needed to get to the bottom of it, before it became a problem for the brand image.”

After implementing some new HR programs within their organization, Karen tells me that she helped BLG become one of the best Intellectual Property firms to work for in the area. Of course, other companies again took notice and wanted in on the action, so once again she was “headhunted” by another organization in yet another completely different industry.

“I ended up getting hired on to be the HR Manager at Rogers, where I managed a team and supported client groups across Canada and again found a way to customize the already outstanding HR program delivery activities that Rogers did; for those client groups that my HR team supported. That was a lot of fun and really dynamic; no two days were ever the same as we supported 3 different levels of the company - Rogers Television, The Ottawa Cable Business Unit and the Ottawa Call Centre, who all had very different operational requirements as well as goals and objectives, so we had to customize our HR programs to align as such.”

If you were to guess that her next opportunity was one that she was again headhunted for, well you’d be right on the money, quite literally as it was for a position within the Bank of Canada. Although she still continued to move around rather frequently for the next 6 years, those opportunities all took place under the same roof for change.

“My first position there was all about implementing a new wellness program and really ensuring that the bank was well positioned to deal with the cost-cutting measures that came about a result of the federal budget at the time. The bank had never had a large program like that and I was asked to create that program and then follow up on workforce adjustments that needed to take place for our employees in making sure they were supported and well equipped for the transition out of the organization and into the next phase of their career.”

If you’ve ever seen the movie, “Up in the Air” with George Clooney - that was essentially the type of job Karen had.

“My whole career has been that of an HR Generalist, in that I’ve worked in all areas of human resources. I can advise in all areas, but my particular wheelhouse has always been employee relations.”

As Karen became well known throughout the bank in her abilities and experience within the HR industry as well as her previous experiences, she once again found herself with the option to take her career to that next level by taking a job within the corporate cyberspace securities industry. As Karen worked her way up to Assistant Director for Information Security,

“In today’s work world where there’s high stakes for mistakes and we’re doing so much but we don’t have the luxury of more people or more money or more time, then throw into that mix the idea of excellence or high performers and people who are passionate about what they do - and we’ve created the perfect storm. At the center of it all is communication.”

“I’d really like to do something that is going to be meaningful. If I throw a pebble in the pond, it’s going to create a whole bunch of ripples and through that I can just see what comes about and maybe I can be a part of those things. But what is that I’m going to do, which will allow me to do that? I could just continue to be an HR Director and do things in different organizations; go and fix something else or go and create something new somewhere else, but I’d already done all of that. With that in mind, I decided to start my own company. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do."

“I think I can make a difference in organizations and I think I’ve got a different view on what today’s organization might look like if we approach it differently if I’m working with leaders and business owners who really want to try something different; who don’t want to do things just because that’s the way we’ve always done them.”

After taking 6 months to figure it out, Karen took the plunge and started her own HR company which offers a virtual HR department for businesses that don’t have their own.

As she puts it:

“I created my ripple in the pond and I don’t think it’s ever going to end; I just want to keep creating more ripples."

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

“If I look at what I’ve accomplished in the last year and a half since I launched my business, five years from now is a hard projection to define. I think where I see myself going is being able to create this innovation hub of a community of experts that’s helping the new workplace become agile. That means being in the cities across Canada and we’re role modelling what it is to create that access to information; to grow to people’s strengths to allow uniqueness - you shouldn’t have to become one of the Borg and in a place where resistance is futile."

“I really want to keep blazing some trails in the HR industry and keep an open mind in learning through our own agility, how we might continue to ease the burden on leaders in organizations, in particular business owners who are following their passion and really trying to make it better. They already have so much that they’re concerned with, so if we’re able to make that just a little bit easier for people to be happier in their work then I think I’ve accomplished what I really want to keep accomplishing, which I don’t think it ever really ends and I that’s what I find most appealing, so five years from now, who knows, I think anything is possible.”

Yes it is! As has been the common answer for oh so many people, which has been lovely to hear.

What would you say is your biggest accomplishment in life so far?

“I think there’s a couple things but throughout my career, I’ve had to be chameleon and it’s something that I’ve been really good at; I’ve changed to whatever the environment needed me to change to, whether that’s adapting to different cultures within organizations, I would be the good corporate soldier when I needed to be but I had to always have that balanced approach between the employees perspective, the organization’s perspective and what’s in the middle. I have been a phenomenal chameleon and I think the greatest accomplishment was when I decided to say: “I don’t want to be the chameleon anymore. I want to be authentic me so building on that would be starting my company, which is really the conduit for authenticity.”

What are your driving factors? What motivates you?

“It’s about how do we empower ourselves and others to be authentic so that we all create something cool. It’s about creating a community that is going to get there in a way that lowers the burden for everyone. That’s the motivation that drives my passion.”

What does success mean for you?

“Success used to mean fixing things and now success means building things. For me, it’s all about being a builder; I build the community and from that comes possibility.”

Insight -

There had been a few people throughout this project with whom I’d had a prior relationship with, but for the most, every other connection I’d made was through a conversation I’d had with someone else; this is the power of networking.

It can, and has the ability to, make all the difference. By connecting and collaborating with others, you not only find answers and new ideas, but it also gives you experience in how to effectively communicate opportunity; social networking platforms are a perfect example of that progression within the business world. Virtually everyone of us has the ability to connect with anyone else within any one of these networks, with quite literally a click of a button. The object again would be to connect with someone for purpose; whether that’s for knowledge, experience, opportunity or insight, the object is to develop a relationship. From there, anything is possible and so much can be achieved, but you absolutely have to take the time to actually connect with those people to uncover those possibilities. That was essentially the premise of this project; to create content that provides value to others by communicating with as many people as I could to generate that content.

For many of us, whether we’re trying to find or create impact throughout our careers, our overall objectives are are fairly common - we want to provide something positive for someone else; whether that’s a program, a service, a product or a place, it’s been a common insight that has come about in almost every interview I’ve had.

For Karen, that’s basically been the overall foundation of her career; working with others to provide solutions for problems or creating the best ways in which to achieve new results. As she refers to it; “Blazing new trails”, which refers to the approach she’s taken throughout her journey; changing the way in which we do business.

There’s always an alternative way to do something and there is no definitive way to achieve any one thing; options exist everywhere, but to see them, you have to be open to looking for them.

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Hartley is a content marketer who has set out to meet 60 people in 60 days in order to find insights into the idea of success. If you would like to be profiled on this project, you can reach Hartley here on LinkedIn or via email: [email protected]. #60in60project