Q&A with Laine Mitchell
Where are you from?
I was born and raised in the Fort Myers/ Cape Coral area. I moved to Tallahassee, FL to attend FSU. Afterwards, I moved to New York City, Corning, NY, Atlanta, and Gillette, WY. I relocated back to Florida in 2013 and currently live in Fort Myers with my son.
How did you get into this business?
By accident! After realizing that my Bachelor’s degree in Art History wasn’t as useful as I thought, I went back to college to see if anything else piqued my interest. After thinking my life and career would be in the arts field, surprisingly, I fell in love with accounting! I then pursued my MBA from Kennesaw State University and went into the accounting field. When you do accounting, human resources always seems to sneak its way into your responsibilities in one way or another. I always loved making connections with people and providing solutions, so this provided a great way to do that! After moving back to Florida, I continued accounting work and ended up at a local golf and country club, where I was eventually promoted to Director of Human Resources. After 7 years, I left the organization so that I could join forces with Gary to deliver people systems and performance management systems to organizations that will help them to succeed!
What challenges do businesses face today?
I agree with Gary’s list, especially the culture development bullet. This saying rings so true: people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers. Most employees who leave a workplace continue in their field of work. So why did they leave your organization? The culture! Creating a culture and workplace where employees are excited to be, ESPECIALLY during this time of “The Great Resignation?” It’s priceless and it’s where companies need to be investing their dollars. By incorporating employee engagement and happiness, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (DE&I), and safety and HR compliance, we can help create a culture for YOUR workplace that your employees will love!
What differentiates you?
PASSION! I absolutely love brainstorming and creating programs with clients that help make a workplace happy. I believe in the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) motto: Better Workplaces, Better World. It all starts with YOU, the client!