Page 4 - The Leadership Line: February 2021

HR Team Profile

Tamie Patterson
Tamie works in the corporate office as an HR Coordinator III to ensure the smooth and
efficient operations of the office and to provide professional customer service.
Tamie joined MIL 6 years ago. She is often referred to as the administrative backbone of HR
here at MIL as she handles a significant portion of employee onboarding, verifications, and
enrollment into HR programs, like Tuition Assistance and Training.
Her HR experience includes 20 years of HR field experience. She provides the best customer
service possible to all MIL employees including our outside clients. She is committed to
ensuring every employee or external client interaction is useful, productive, and pleasant.

Wellness Tip

Support Emotional Health

A leader should convey they are sensitive to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has on employees’ lives and work. When
an employee opens up to you and shares what they are experiencing, it’s important to normalize their emotional response
with a statement like, “I think a lot of people feel that way as well” or “That seems like a very normal response to what you
described.” You might consider sharing some of your own emotional reactions related to the pandemic.
Emotional support and modeling healthy work habits will go a long way.
Emotional support involves letting employees know that they are being cared for and that they should feel comfortable
discussing work- and nonwork-related challenges.

Emotional Support Techniques Include: Model Healthy Work Habits
» Providing comfort and monitoring for signs of struggle » Making sure you stay up to date on safety and public
such as distress, social withdrawal, poor performance, health COVID-19 responses relevant to your team.
and knowing when to refer an employee to HR or EAP. » Knowing about the most up-to-date wellness resources
» Recognizing that some employees may have families and available to you and your workers. Remind people of
loved ones who are requiring additional attention, so these resources regularly in meetings and consider
openly ask employees how they are managing both work posting information about wellness resources in your
and nonwork. virtual workspaces, employee websites, and other shared
» For those without others in the house during physical spaces.
distancing ordinances, offering check-ins and » Communicate expectations regarding work hours,
encouraging them to virtually connect with colleagues, response times and disclosure around family obligations.
friends, and family. » Using PTO when needed and encouraging your staff to
» Reinforcing to your employees that you are sympathetic do the same.
and that you’ll maintain an open-door policy – virtually
– for them to talk through issues when needed.

Top 3: Fun Ice Breakers/Themes for Virtual Meetings

» Would you rather- compile a list of work appropriate scenarios to foster commonalities
amongst the team (ex. Ice cream or cake, working meeting vs shared document, beach
vs mountain vacation)
» Themed Teams Background- pick a theme and ask everyone to set their Teams
background accordingly (vacation, sports team, pets, post pandemic bucket list, etc.)

» Team little known fact- each participant submits an interesting or little-known fact and
the team guesses who they think the mystery person’s identity. This is especially good for
frequent or routine meetings