Heather Byerly

Her Work: HR Manager

“I feel cozy and I like to have it look like my apartment or a room in my house.”

Heather Byerly tells me “this is a new workspace. I moved from where Kim is with all the glass and windows.” I interviewed Kimberly Hansen earlier that day who said she feels like she’s in a zoo in her new workspace. Heather Byerly just moved into this new space a couple of weeks ago so I ask her how she likes it. She says “I like it much better.” I ask her why and she tells me “I feel cozy and I like to have it look like my apartment or a room in my house with the dim lights. I don’t use the overhead light at all I like having a door and no windows so nobody can see in.” “I like hiding out because before I was on display basically and people would stop by and constantly I would be interrupted even if I was on the phone people were doing sign language out the window.” She tells me “being in HR you do have to have some privacy so it’s kind of nice I can actually have employees feel comfortable being in here and not being on display for everybody to see like ‘oh what’s going on in there?’ So I love it. I like it a lot.”

I ask Ms. Byerly what kinds of things she does to make her workspace feel more like a room in her apartment. She tells me “I don’t use overhead lights. I bring pictures and hang them on the wall and little flowers. I have a candle on my desk.” She tells me that the soft yellow lighting from the lamp “just makes it be relaxed and comfortable and it’s welcoming too for employees to come in.” She says “it’s comfortable for me to work in.” She tells me that this relaxed atmosphere and comfortable environment helps employees so that they feel “like they’re not sitting in the principal’s office.”

I ask Heather Byerly if she likes her workspace. “I do. I spend a lot of time at work, I work a lot of hours so I definitely want a space that I can spend a lot of time in. I am in my office a lot, at my desk a lot.” Because Ms. Byerly spends so much time here she has taken the effort to make the space comfortable for herself and others that may be in her office.

Ms. Byerly tells me that the work environment she feels she works best in is “crisis. Crisis mode. I like a fast paced environment that’s always changing, always changing like every day and I think that’s why this environment is definitely good for that. It’s never boring. It’s never dull. But yeah very quick I love moving fast.” “I like a fast pace and I like the stress and I think it’s good. A little bit of that is good. It keeps you alive and keeps the day moving fast and its fun.” She says her work and her day “it’s always different” “there is never a dull moment ever. It’s like you can’t make this stuff up that happens its wild. It’s a rollercoaster ride.”  I ask what she is referring to as far as the wild things that happen and she explains that it’s mostly employee relations issues, which she for obvious reasons doesn’t go into detail about.

Ms. Byerly smiles and seems happy. I tell her that it sounds like she really enjoys HR work and she says “I can’t imagine doing anything else. I feel like it’s perfect.”

I ask Heather Byerly to put her experience with her work into a few words. She tells me “building relationships and helping people through.” “We’re like the anchor, we’re the support structure between an employee and a business and being that bridge— that brings people together.” She tells me that HR is “the glue.” She says “we’re the advocate of the business but we’re also the advocate of the employees. And yeah there’s a balance there and I like playing both sides.” She smiles and says “I love it. I couldn’t do anything else I don’t think.”

She does explain that there is a lot of pressure and stress involved with her work but that she loves it. “Yeah it’s definitely fulfilling and very challenging because you learn something every day, you don’t stop learning. It’s not like a technical skill that once you learn you just apply it. You’re constantly growing.” “And having to fire somebody never gets easy.” “You’re always growing personally and professionally.”