Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Castagno.

Hi Tiffany, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My journey to HR and Culture + DEIB was a winding one, starting when I began my HR Journey 16.5 years ago. It was a difficult time to try to secure an HR role with starting in 2008 which was a hard time for many economically. I also faced the challenge of not yet having experience, but no one taking a chance on me to give me the experience I needed so it was hard on my Self-Confidence.

I had a great Mentor who was in Executive HR Leadership in one of my early roles who helped me begin learning and sharing the strategic side of HR and what I brought to the table from my contributions through my roles. She helped me revise my resume, Mock Interviewed me, and really gave me some salient pointers that sit with me today.

It was hard having changed roles a lot for various reasons, and I was shamed for that path by employers and my personal circle at times. They’d make jokes about me changing jobs again. Now I look back, being an Entrepreneur, and meeting many others who have had a similar winding journey. I am so proud that I finally learned many years ago to own this and use it as a Superpower of well-rounded Industries, skillsets, tenacity, and diversity!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Outside of what I shared before, it was really hard to know that I’d gotten my degree and to feel that it wasn’t taken seriously or wasn’t “enough” to get into HR, even at an organization where I worked and was doing some of the work and watching someone else get promoted over me who didn’t even have an HR Degree or the most connected experience as I did in my role.

I got my HR Certification right away after getting my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees and I’m proud that I kept at it. Though feeling discouraged, I wasn’t going to let it stop me. I’m a very driven individual and I knew it was within me, so I was determined to show that to people.

We’ve been impressed with CEPHR, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
CEPHR, LLC represents “Cultivating the Evolution of Professional HR.” As an HR and Culture + DEIB Consultancy, our work centers around Human-centered practices and programs and co-creating the right Employee Experiences and Employer Brand Strategies with our clients across the United States. We work with all Industries and Sectors and our team is all Values-aligned and loves the work and working with our clients!

Our unique approach of relationship-building from the start makes us a Boutique Consultancy that holds space, listens deeply, and closely partners with our clients to meet their unique needs under customized Scopes of Work. Each project is unique and we keep DEIB at the forefront of our projects whether it’s specifically what we’re hired for or we’re working on a Handbook, Performance Management Toolkit, Compensation, or other project.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
With regard to the DEIB space, this one has been tricky these days with the current (and frankly ongoing) Political environment as well as naysayers who don’t believe the evidentiary Business Case for Diversity and keeping it at the forefront strategically and intentionally versus performatively. Those of us who know and appreciate the full value press on and we are grateful that all of our clients care about and intentionally set these types of Cultures of Equity and Inclusion. I don’t see that changing for us at CEPHR nor our clients who are really focused on building, attracting, engaging, and retaining the best and high-performing teams.

AI will continue shaking things up as more embrace it as a tool to save time, to support creativity and innovation, to pull in more technology for efficiencies of scale, and to provide best (and better) customer experiences. I see AI getting better in terms of the current levels of Bias as well, as we make more and more headway in that space. As a Firm we are intentional about what we feed AI and we’ve begun testing and training it for the Biases we’ve observed as well. It’s been an interesting journey!

Last, I see more and more Leaders and organizations embracing and enhancing trust and pouring into Leadership Development, a trend that has been continuing. That should also boost Talent Benchmarking in organizations and support better and more consistent Succession Planning over the coming years.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cephrconsulting.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cephrllc
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanycastagno-people-culture-consultant
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/castagno_tmc
• Youtube: https://bit.ly/CEPHRLLC
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cephr-llc/