As Director, Global Talent and Total Rewards, Jamie is responsible for everything we do at Monument to attract, engage, grow, and retain the right talent. Jamie joined Monument in 2015 as Human Resources Manager (Houston Area) after working in a variety of HR leadership roles for almost 14 years at Motiva Enterprises and Royal Dutch Shell. She assumed her Talent role last year, and her role has now been expanded to include Total Rewards.

We recently sat down with Jamie to chat through her own career and talent journey – as well as Monument’s approach to making a positive impact in the work lives of our team members.

What attracted you to a Human Resources career?
After obtaining my Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology/Management from Texas A&M University, I had plans to continue my education through grad school to obtain a PhD in Counseling Psychology to establish my clinical practice. After completing the curriculum for a Master of Science (MS) in Clinical Psychology at Emporia State University in Kansas, I became fascinated with Industrial/Organizational Psychology, which is the science of human behavior in the workplace. I graduated with my MS in I/O Psychology and began my HR career as a Nurse Recruiter for a large healthcare system.

And now, after more than 25 years in HR, I am more confident than ever that I made the right choice as I am passionate about making a positive impact on people’s work experiences.

What are some of your most memorable career highlights?
I will never forget the way my employers, and the HR teams I worked with, responded to events that had an unimaginable impact on employees and their families. I was working with Shell in southeast Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina and vividly remember trying to help our employees be rescued from their flooded homes, distributing generators, and then physically helping them rebuild their homes and community.

In 2018, we experienced devastating flooding in the Houston area following Hurricane Harvey. I was so proud to work for Monument as we coordinated temporary housing, car rentals, and basic household goods for employees who lost almost everything. It is hard to believe that just two years later, we endured the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the company’s support, I will always remember the direct impact we were able to provide to employees and their families during these incredibly difficult situations. I am so proud to have been a part of those caring and creative response teams — and never more grateful for my career choice than during those crises.

As I said, I went into HR to help make a positive impact, but I didn’t expect it would mean helping manage through epic hurricanes and a global pandemic!

How has HR changed since you got into the field?
It was not that long ago that what we now call Human Resources was “Personnel,” a perfectly fine name for a function whose focus was primarily transactional — managing the hiring process, making sure people get paid, tracking attendance, etc. Over the course of my career, I have been proud to see and help HR evolve into a much more strategic function and critical business partner to the company. Growing and developing talent is directly related to us being competitive and able to grow the business. The work we do to shape our culture through how we recruit, onboard, manage performance, recognize employees, and develop careers is a strategic imperative.

What advice do you have for employees who want to advance in Monument?
My advice is to share your ambition with your manager and/or HR team members — to be an advocate on behalf of your career development. People managers, as well as my HR colleagues, frequently hear “what’s next for me?” What we hear much less often — but really appreciate — is “here’s what I would like to do next.” Sharing your goals opens the door to talking about specific steps on which we can partner with you to achieve these aspirations. We are fortunate to work for a company that is increasingly able to promote from within; so, if you know what you want to do next, let us know and we will work with you to try to make that happen. Of course, if you don’t know, we’re more than happy to help you figure it out!

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?
We’re charged with leading people development, which in turn enhances company growth. This means balancing the needs of the company with those of individual team members. The specifics of that challenge can take several forms. For instance, how do we preserve our unique “family” culture as a bigger company? How do we ensure our people have opportunities to advance within a relatively flat organization, when at the same time the business needs of a growing company may require that we hire from outside?

We are fortunate to now be competing with the “big” players in our industry — but we don’t want to lose what’s special about Monument to be able to do that successfully.

What excites you most about the path forward?
I am thrilled to lead Global Talent and Total Rewards — and excited about every aspect of what that means. Over the course of my career, I have worked in many different HR leadership roles, and I’ve learned that the most meaningful and fulfilling work for me — the work I am meant to be doing — is what I am doing right now to develop our people and our culture. I’m very proud of what we’ve already accomplished, including launching our Employee Growth and Development Program and our Monument Performance Management Process Playbook, ramping up our presence and recruitment efforts on LinkedIn, and doing a better job of telling the Monument story.

And the best part? We are just getting started!

We look forward to sharing more about Monument’s enhanced Talent efforts to increase opportunities to LEAP...

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