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Rebecca Camire is director of learning design at Southern New Hampshire University. She transitioned to HR after several years spent working in nutrition and finance. Camire recently spoke to HR Brew about how SNHU structures the employee training department.
How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in HR? I manage a team who design, develop, and deploy trainings to university staff…My colleagues are separated into different products and each product has a target audience that they focus on for their trainings. For example, one product is focused on new-hire onboarding, individual contributors like career growth, and continuous learning. Another is more middle management leadership, and then another team [focuses on] how a leader and whole team are functioning and working together.
How has the training sector at your organization changed over the last couple of years? The big thing for us is trying to change the mindset of leadership from…just a boss who’s telling somebody what to do and being super directive. You’re actually trying to hold more of a coach and mentorship role in some situations, to really help them develop their career and really home in on the skills that they’re good at.
What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked? Process improvement. I have helped create processes and documents to help make the flow of work more efficient for a team that lacked any processes prior. So, that’s one of my skill sets in a place that doesn’t have a lot of process. I look for things that are fairly consistent and try to look at what’s the least amount of back and forth or rounds where there’s paths off so you’re not getting confused. And a huge thing for me is [that] I always map them out in [collaboration platform] Miro. It allows for the team to interact with it, too. So, we build the process together.
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What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job? They often think I am the one who runs the trainings, or that I have a part in policies, hiring, [and] firing.
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job? Learning new things! There are so many new ways to design for people to learn and engage with the content. It’s always so cool to see a new idea come to life!
What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why? Coaching for development! I think it’s great that more companies are looking at the value of really engaging individuals in developing their skills and having more open and honest conversations on where we can grow through feedback. I feel this will really help build strong leaders and succession plans.
What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why? I wouldn’t say [I’m] not optimistic, but I do worry about the impact of AI on the HR field, as I think it takes away the human and empathetic element required for strong relationship building, particularly in this field.
Tell us one new or old HR tech product or platform that’s made your life easier, and why. I love Miro! My team uses it all the time for activities, brainstorming sessions, and process mapping. It’s such a great tool that allows for a ton of participation and great discussions in a remote world.
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