Hello fellow WisHHRA members! I hope that this finds you all healthy and enjoying this warm Wisconsin weather. As I write this a few days before the long holiday weekend, I reflect how much has changed for all of us over these last few months. While I am sometimes sad about things that were cancelled and delayed, I am also grateful for the extra time that I got to spend with my family. From a professional perspective, and as Human Resources professionals a lot has changed for us as well. I don’t think that I learned as much in my career as I did over the last few months of enduring a pandemic. We have had to provide support to our employees in ways we never thought we would as well as trying to manage the changing market which has impacted all of our health care systems in different ways. In many ways, our leadership teams have looked to the HR professionals to help them navigate through these difficult times and from what I can see, everyone has stepped up to meet those challenges.

Now six months into my presidency, we have had to cancel our annual conference, which was saddening to me as I was really looking forward to connecting with many of you in-person. However, the Board is working through some alternative plans, which I hope will find new and exciting. More information will be coming in the next few months so please stayed tuned to your WisHHRA monthly messages. Please also take some time to respond to the survey that Badger Bay will be sending out shortly regarding what you would like to see as well as what topics you would like to spend some additional time talking about. In addition, I ask that you all please try to actively engage on our listserv. This is one of the many valuable things about being a WisHHRA member, the ability to share ideas and get feedback from your peers. There have been a lot of great questions posed as we all navigated through these new times together, and it always help to see what others are trying as well as what your organizations are doing as well.

Finally, I would like to take an opportunity to wish Bree Clarksen from Badger Bay good luck in her new adventure. For those of you who don’t know Bree, she is the Association Director from Badger Bay, who assists us with the management of WisHHRA. She has been instrumental in our conference planning as well as assisting me with the tasks related to being the President. She has kept me on task, and also provided some great ideas to myself and the Board. She has been very easy to work with and has made my transition to President very easy.

I hope that you all enjoy these next few summer months and all of the “excitement” that lies ahead. If there is ever anything that you would like to see in upcoming newsletters or activities that you would like us to consider or any thoughts related to WisHHRA, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at Nicole.berlowski@phci.org. I would love to hear from you!

Nicole