The following transcript is provided unedited.
LaTrelle Porter:
So in our organization, we are local government and we have a lot of individuals who are ex-offenders that. Applied with our organization. And oftentimes they find it difficult to become employed.
So they would always say, "Miss LaTrelle, I've gone on a lot of interviews. Nobody would hire me." And it's like, "Well, what are you saying in your interview? Have you prepared for your interview?" "Well, no, I didn't prepare. I didn't ask you any questions."
"Well, why didn't you ask any questions? Let me help you. I'm going to get you to the interview and we're going to secure the bag."
Tony Lee:
Welcome to the HR Storyteller podcast series from the Society for Human Resource Management. I'm your host, Tony Lee, head of content here at SHRM. Thank you for joining us. Our HR Storyteller podcasts feature practitioners and thought leaders in human resources sharing stories about why they love HR, what motivates them, and what's moved them in their careers. Today we are joined by LaTrelle Porter. She is the HR business porter for the city of Savannah, Georgia. LaTrelle, welcome.
LaTrelle Porter:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Tony Lee:
Well, we're excited to have you here. So you've got a story you'd like to share to get us going?
LaTrelle Porter:
Yes. I got into HR because I love helping people. I got into HR in 2001, so I've been with the city of Savannah for 25 years. Started out as a communication specialist and transitioned into HR in July of 2001. So in our organization, we are a local government and we have a lot of individuals who are ex-offenders that apply with our organization.
And oftentimes they find it difficult to become employed. So they would always say, "Miss LaTrelle, I've gone on a lot of interviews. Nobody would hire me." And it's like, "Well, what are you saying in your interview? Have you prepared for your interview?" "Well, no, I didn't prepare. I didn't ask you any questions."
"Well, why didn't you ask any questions? Let me help you. I'm going to get you to the interview and we're going to secure the bag." So I would help them prepare for the interview. I would give them interview questions to ask in the interview, because it's a two-way street.
They're interviewing you and you're interviewing them because you need to determine if it's a good fit. So once they practice and we guide them, they'll come back, "Miss. LaTrelle, I got the job. I got the job." That makes me as a HR professional, happy because I'm impacting the lives of other individuals who are stigmatized because they have a criminal record. And that's just the nature of our society. So helping those individuals gives me a sense of pride.
Tony Lee:
That's wonderful. And as you know, SHRM has been a huge advocate of hiring people with criminal histories. Can you tell me a little bit more about some successes some of those candidates have had?
LaTrelle Porter:
So in our organization, most of them apply for labor positions. So one young man, I remember when we were scheduling interviews for maintenance workers. So there were nine different departments that had vacancies, and they all had interviews with each of the nine departments.
And this young one man, he had been selected by four departments, and he was like, "I don't know what to do." "Well, where do you want to work? Select which department that you like the best." And so he selected that department. So we did the criminal background check and everything turned out fine. And he passed that. He passed the drug screen and all of the pre-employment screenings, and he got hired on. And he was so excited. I was excited for him.
When someone gets hired, I'm excited for them because I've helped them prepare themselves for a career with the city of Savannah.
Tony Lee:
Yeah, that's fantastic.
So we've heard lots of great stories about companies that have reached out to folks with criminal histories and had great success. But the questions I often hear back, what do you say to the colleagues, the coworkers? Or do you not say anything? Do you let the employee themselves kind of explain whatever their background is? Or is it nobody's business?
LaTrelle Porter:
It's nobody's business. If they want to share that information, then that's on them to share it. But we do not share their criminal history with anyone.
Tony Lee:
How about the hiring manager?
LaTrelle Porter:
The hiring manager, if the individual does not pass the background, we let them know that they were disqualified on the process. But we don't disclose the information about what it is because we don't want the information to get out because it's confidential.
So again, if you're going through the interview process, you may ask the question, "Is there anything in your background that may prevent you from being hired?" At that time, the applicant can disclose the information. The hiring manager can follow up to say, "Okay. Well, tell me what you learned from that experience? What happened? What did you learn? How are you going to prevent that from happening again?"
And that gives them a opportunity to engage in dialogue and have that real conversation and lets the hiring manager decide whether or not they're going to move forward with those individuals or not. And nine times out of 10, they're going to move forward with them because the applicant has been truthful.
And they did not hold back or lie to them. And the one thing about it is being accountable for your actions and showing what you would do differently. And it's just changing your circle.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Now do you find that you needed to give counsel sometimes to hiring managers that, "Look, this is a good candidate. You need to think differently about this person."
LaTrelle Porter:
Sometimes it just depends on where they're going. Because we do have a lot of departments that are open to hiring individuals with criminal records and some that may not be as open. So you have to have those conversations with them giving second chances to individuals. Because if they don't have that second chance, they're never going to have the opportunity to find a career or better their lives for themselves and their families.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. So let's put your job in perspective. How many employees does the city have?
LaTrelle Porter:
We have over 2,500 employees.
Tony Lee:
So tough times right now, finding people, paying people.
LaTrelle Porter:
It's very tough. It's very tough. Right now I have, I am the business partner for Savannah fire department and municipal operations. So that includes fleet services, IT, risk management, municipal operations, couple more departments. But I have difficulty with CDL drivers.
Equipment operators and mechanics. So I have 12 vacancies for mechanics, and we are competing with private sector.
So it's very hard because nowadays generational differences, most are chasing the dollar, not the benefits.
Because they just want more money. So it's very difficult to find people who want to be employed, but stay put in one organization as opposed to moving around a lot.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. So I've talked to other people in the public sector who say, "We can't offer the sign-on bonus," or "We can't offer..." Whatever. So you come up with other things. Right? So what other benefits do you use to get people to say, "Yeah, yeah, I'm in."
LaTrelle Porter:
Well, we have a good health plan, medical, dental, and vision. We also have educational reimbursement. We are coming up with incentives for sign-on bonuses for positions that are hard to fill.
We are going to do an employee referral program for our public sector. We are doing, trying to do lateral entry on the police side. So fire will follow soon to do that. And just word of mouth. But just training our hiring managers on the process as a whole, how to conduct successful interviews, how to prepare for the interview.
We have opened up our hiring manager training for interviews for the whole organization. So anyone who wants to get that experience on interview panels can gain that experience. But you have to take the training first, take a little short test to test your knowledge, and you can sit on an interview panel, which is great experience and exposure, so.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. No, absolutely. So what do you love about working in the public sector?
LaTrelle Porter:
Meeting people. 25 years, almost 25 years with the city, I have met thousands of people. And I think that's the best part is meeting people from different backgrounds and talking to them. When you in process them, you get to have the conversations and find out about them. So I think that's the best part is meeting the people. When they come in.
Tony Lee:
So tell me about your HR team, your colleagues.
LaTrelle Porter:
We have on the talent management team, we have four business partners, four technicians. And our learning development, we have our learning development manager, two coordinators. We have employee relations, we have our benefits analysts, and we have our director and assistant director. So there's about 25 of us.
Tony Lee:
Wow.
LaTrelle Porter:
So we have a diverse group of individuals in our department.
Tony Lee:
And everybody is everybody supporting one another and...
LaTrelle Porter:
Yes. We do our best to support each other, because these are trying times.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about remote versus in person? I mean, most of your positions, you've got to show up every day. Right?
LaTrelle Porter:
Most of the positions are back at work. I think all of them are back at work now. We are [inaudible] the work from home with our IT department from what I was told last week. So hopefully we'll have a work from home policy, crossing our fingers.
We can alternate, come in a couple of days a week, coming to the office a few days a week. But...
Tony Lee:
Okay. So if you were advising a new graduate who's just getting into HR and they're looking at a lot of opportunities, and one of them is the public sector, what would you tell them?
LaTrelle Porter:
I would encourage them to do an internship, but get information on a front end, do an informational interview to find out from the different areas in human resources, what they do on a daily basis so you can be well informed. Because it may not be what you think it is. So if you find out what they do on a daily basis, the task and all of that, it gives them better insight into what area they want to go in. So if you're doing an internship, you can be exposed to all areas, but find that one niche that you want to become proficient in and pursue that.
Tony Lee:
So let's talk a little bit about [inaudible]. There's been a lot of discussion that the public sector's actually leading the way. That there's maybe a stronger commitment and you see more results. Do you think that's true?
LaTrelle Porter:
I think we are getting there for our organization. We do have a new position for diversity, equity, and inclusion. So that person probably started maybe a month ago, or will be starting soon. So I think we are getting there. It's going to take time, but I think we're getting there.
Tony Lee:
Okay. Do you think there's buy-in?
LaTrelle Porter:
Buy-in from the leadership, yes. Definitely the city manager.
Tony Lee:
Yeah.
LaTrelle Porter:
Yes. Because that position reports directly to the city manager. So the buy-in is definitely there.
Tony Lee:
That's great. So thinking about your career, that's a long time you've been there. Highs and lows and everything in between. You're in a unique position in HR to help people. So when you think about how you've helped people, what comes to mind?
LaTrelle Porter:
You know how you get chills when you help someone do something? And a lot of people say, "Well, I don't think I can do that." Yes, you can. So I like to encourage them and push them towards their purpose.
Tony Lee:
That's great. There are people knocking on your door?
LaTrelle Porter:
They call me, they'll email me, "Hey, I need to talk to you about something." Sometimes we may have lunch just to have a conversation and try to guide them into the right direction. Ask questions, "Well, what is it that you really want to do? Because if you don't know, I can't help you. So I need to know what is it that you really want to do." I give you the best advice that I can give you to help you along the way, but I also try to connect you with other individuals to help you get to where you're trying to be.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Now the other catch with HR is you're the department of no. Right? So how do you work around that? How do you get managers to get in line.
LaTrelle Porter:
Well, department of no, department of maybe, department of flexibility. So we are flexible. But me as a HR professional, I think those who know me, I am policy driven. I am strictly black and white. There's no gray area. But I am very flexible on the things that I need to be flexible on. Because I think for us as an organization, we have to be compliant in the areas that we need to be compliant in, but not so rigid where we don't allow things to bend when we need to bend.
Tony Lee:
Can you give an example?
LaTrelle Porter:
Like our hiring processes. So I would use, for example, let's go back to the criminal record. When we are reviewing the information, where in the past we would say, "Well, no, they have," let's say marijuana, less than an ounce or something like that, "We can't hire them." Now it's like, "Bring them in, have a conversation with them, find out what happened, what will prevent them from doing it again, what they learned from it. Give me feedback and we'll go from there."
And you have that conversation. You let them explain it, you report it back to the assistant direct. And it's like, "Okay. We'll give him a opportunity." And we let him know, "Hey, we moving forward with you. And they're excited." Like, "Oh my God, thank you."
Tony Lee:
Yeah, that's great.
LaTrelle Porter:
So that's a good thing.
Tony Lee:
How about same thing with educational background, or is that pretty rigid? There's been a lot of talk that people say, "Oh, college degree is required," when maybe it's really not required. And alternative credentials, maybe they're not bad. Maybe that's the right fit for that person, that job. Do you see that?
LaTrelle Porter:
It's been said that degrees don't matter, and I think I have a different opinion about that.
Tony Lee:
Okay. No, share please.
LaTrelle Porter:
Because those individuals who have pursued their degrees, we pursued them for a reason, to help better ourselves, to advance ourselves and our education and our knowledge to get us to where we are striving to be. So to say that it doesn't matter, it does matter because we've worked hard. Four years, five years, six, however long it took to get it, we've worked hard. Alternative credentials, that's fine.
Certifications are fine. But I think the education is still important because it gives you the foundation. That's how you build your foundation to get to the next level. So if you don't have that foundation, the only other alternative is giving someone an opportunity who has no degree, no certifications, but providing the opportunity. But if you can't get that opportunity and you have education, how do you get the experience?
Tony Lee:
Well, and you mentioned you have tuition reimbursement programs. Learning development programs. I assume you encourage your folks to take advantage of that.
LaTrelle Porter:
Take advantage of it. Yes. That's what it's there for.
Tony Lee:
Well, LaTrelle, thank you so much for joining.
LaTrelle Porter:
Thank you.
Tony Lee:
Really appreciate it. We've been talking with LaTrelle Porter, and she has shared some great stories and some great wisdom. You can hear all of our HR Storyteller podcast by visiting our website at SHRM.org/podcast. Thanks for listening.