An early-career promotion launched Sabra Sciolaro's decades-long tenure in
"Some of my biggest career-shifting roles, I probably had no business being in right at that moment," Sciolaro says. "But I was like, well, I'll give it a shot, [which meant] somebody else was willing to give it a shot too."
Following a college internship in a small HR department, Sciolaro was asked to take over as manager after graduation. This early induction into
Twenty-seven years later, Sciolaro is now the chief people officer at workforce communications platform Firstup, where she has
"I've always chafed at the idea that HR was the principal's office, but in some industries, this is what's happened," she says. But rather than just a rigid rule enforcer, HR should be an essential part of business conversations and decision making within the C-suite, Sciolaro says.
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"The function, by nature, is incredibly strategic," she continues. "We are at the intersection of business strategy and people strategy, and we ensure that [one supports the other]."
To do that successfully, organizations can balance the needs of employees with business goals, which is key to building respect and driving performance and retention, says Sciolaro.
"There is something really impactful about listening closely to what employees need, to understanding what leaders are trying to achieve, and then looking to work on that problem," she says. "We're not looking to hit a goal and then have people burn out and move on. We're looking for sustainable performance and how to invest in that so we become a legacy performance company, not a moment in time."
Sciolaro discusses the benefits of developing confidence early in her career, ways HR has evolved since COVID and how she constructs and leads a knowledgeable, empathetic team.
How did leading an HR department at such a young age influence the rest of your career?
It changed the way I looked at roles for me and also for other people. Stretching beyond where you're comfortable is not something we learn naturally as women and naturally in HR, because there is always this undertone of compliance. But I got comfortable with it fast, and it has served me well, because I've been able to grow into roles and move more quickly.
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How have you seen the role of HR evolve in the past five years?
During COVID, all of a sudden you had boards and CEOs looking at HR managers and going, 'What is our answer to this global pandemic?' Everybody had to rise up and get pulled out of it. It brought those in HR who were struggling to get that seat at the table into entirely different conversations. Now, it relies on everybody in the role to continue forcing that. We have to work with our leadership teams as advisers and as influencers in pursuit of whatever the shared vision is that we have at our companies.
[This means] our job is to develop our expertise, understand the business and understand and accept that what we're doing isn't soft. People get this idea that it's just this fluffy stuff, but it is decidedly not. You want to make a lot of money, you want to be really good at business — it isn't mutually exclusive with being a good person or having good HR practices. They are hand in hand.
How does being knowledgeable about the business and a trusted employee advocate encourage workers to come to you when they need help?
By being educated on the business and having the skill, expertise and love for investing in people that I think most HR people bring to the table, you can help people navigate [challenging] situations by talking them out, being trustworthy and being very open to that.
People open up pretty fast when they believe that you are trying to help them be more successful. Most people are looking for that help; they're looking for a coach in that capacity. We're offering it for free as advisers.
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What is your strategy for hiring and shaping a great HR team?
We start with being smart and kind. From there, there is an expectation that you will learn the business of our business. I love to see people really dig into and accept that they are not just "HR professionals" — you have to know our industry, how we make money and the challenges we face, because otherwise you're not going to be a good partner to the leaders or the managers you're talking with.
It goes a long way, because all of a sudden you feel very connected, and you start to see how things fit together. When your role feels very specialized, you may not always think about that, but our role is less specialized than people necessarily give it credit for, because we're helping everybody. We have to understand what's bringing us together."
How does being open about yourself help you connect to your team?
The best leaders are a little unvarnished — it's a big part of being authentic. [Without this,] it's less fun and it's much harder to connect, particularly as the world is more distributed.
It takes a pretty intentional effort, but you've got to start connecting to understand how people think and how they tick, and then how you can, in turn, amplify that and help them with that. The only way to uncover that is to ask questions and learn more about who they are as a person, and most people will share and be more comfortable the more you share about yourself.
