Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tamica Sears. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tamica, thanks for joining us today. Do you have any thoughts about how to create a more inclusive workplace?

As a Black woman, inclusion, especially in the workplace, is very important to me because I have felt the sting of being made to feel like I don’t belong there, or was hired to meet a quota. Companies that continue to put robust diverse hiring plan in place without first focusing on inclusion are doing a huge injustice to the diverse people that they end up hiring. Psychological safety, being able to be yourself at work, speak up, give ides, and make mistakes without negative consequences, can’t happen without inclusion.

Creating a more inclusive workplace starts with organizations discovering and admitting that they don’t currently have an inclusive workplace. This is a much bigger step than one would think, most organizations aren’t even aware that they don’t have an inclusive workplace. There are a several things to do to find out the level of inclusiveness, and most of them start with talking to your employees. Ask the leaders in your organization how they handle mistakes. What you’re looking for is the amount of psychological safety that they your leaders are building. Do they let people make mistakes without ridicule? I can’t say this enough: You can’t have an inclusive workplace without psychological safety and you shouldn’t have a diverse workforce without having an inclusive workplace.

Think about what you’re hearing from exit interviews and engagement surveys. Pay close attention to who wants to return to the office and who wants to stay remote. I worked with a client recently that thought that they had an awesome DEI program but when they wanted everyone to return to work, 100% of the people of color and 87% of the women did not want to return to the office. It’s important to ask why and then make changes from there. This doesn’t mean hiring a VP of DEI and then not empowering them to make actual changes. It means taking a good, hard look at your leadership team and understanding that having an inclusive workplace starts from there.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m an HR Consultant and Executive Coach that provides leadership development for small businesses. I help bring about organizational transformation using results-driven processes that focus on giving leaders the ability to gain a better understanding of who they are, their strengths, and development opportunities. This helps them can move forward faster with authenticity in a way that benefits themselves and the organization. With 20 years of experience as an HR professional, I feel that I am very lucky that I love what I do as this was something that I just kind of fell into. My first job was as a Personnel Clerk processing payroll in an after-school job working for one of my older sisters. Since then, I have been fortunate enough to work in multiple industries, from both human and animal healthcare to aerospace and biopharmaceuticals, in just about every part of Human Resources. I learned a lot along the way and found my HR “home” doing leadership development and organizational development work.

I work with organizations to help their leaders become more inclusive, innovative, and impactful. My straightforward approach makes it easy for people to trust that I have their best interests in mind. When working on programs to help small businesses create sustainable DEI programs, I help them understand the multiple characteristics of diversity and help inclusion, diversity, and equity become a part of the company’s DNA. I also have the privilege of working with an amazing I/O Psychologist, Eric Franco, on DEI programs and other consulting projects. What’s awesome is that though we have very different personalities and styles, we work very well as a team. The way that we show up, me as a Black, extroverted, divorced, single mother, and him as a Hispanic man who is introverted, married with multiple children and a wonderful wife, helps people connect with the multiple ways that diversity is represented in the workplace.

I also have a peer advisory group for HR professionals. I love doing this work because as a whole, the profession of Human Resources needs to change. It’s not a place for compliance cops, it’s a place for strategic business partners who understand that it is their responsibility to ensure that every employee has the best employee experience possible. When a company takes care of its employees and does the right thing, compliance is a natural byproduct.

Recently I published a book “How To Tell If You’re An A**Hole Boss” which tells stories about bad leadership behaviors and gives tips to help bad managers improve their behavior and make positive changes. I am hoping that it helps bring about some much-needed changes in organizations. Changes in leadership behavior and changes in employees being able to set boundaries when they recognize behavior that is toxic. In a nutshell, I’ve experienced bad leadership behavior, up to and including flat-out racism and discrimination. My hope is that through my work, these behaviors are eliminated, and other people don’t have to go through what myself and my contemporaries did.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started coaching in 2016 when I was still working full-time as an HR professional. I was very lucky, the company that I worked for paid for my certification in exchange for me coaching leaders there. When I got certified, I began doing internal coaching at the company that employed me, as agreed and I was able to get some referrals from those leaders that signed up for coaching with me. I also signed up as a subcontractor so that I could have as many coaching clients after work and on weekends as I could handle, which was really only about 4 or 5. But it was enough for me to get credentialed by the International Coaching Federation which added to my credibility as a coach. When I left that company, I was worried that my coaching would slow down but fortunately, I was able to keep it going.

This went on for several years, adding on group and team coaching, doing HR for HR work, and HR consulting. In 2019 I started working for a startup as their VP of Talent. It was fun and exciting for me to build the HR function in an organization from the ground up. Unfortunately, once the honeymoon was over it was no longer fun. I believe that Human Resources, as a function, should uplift and empower employees, develop leaders, and most importantly, have integrity at all times. At this company, they said that they wanted to treat their employees well but they didn’t walk the talk. In fact, they did the opposite. They were petty, vindictive, and discriminatory when hiring and firing. They disregarded recommendations that I made, and quite frankly that any other leader made if it was contrary to the direction that they thought was best. So, I was at a crossroads. Do I continue with this company and try to make it work even though I felt that more and more of my integrity was oozing out of my pores on a daily basis, or do I look for something else? It didn’t even really occur to me to take my coaching and consulting full time.

Thankfully, I am surrounded by really great friends and family, and they convinced me to take the leap. This was a huge deal for me, I’m not married, and I don’t have a large amount of savings. No safety net. But the thought of me working for another company and not being able to make the same type of positive changes that I was able to make with my side job just annoyed me so much that I took the leap.

Going it alone can be really tough, especially if you’re like me, really awful at sales. I had to learn a lot, really fast. I slowed down my spending and basically ran through my meager savings scaling up by outsourcing the things that I knew I wasn’t good at. I also was able to eventually work with a friend who is an I/O Psychologist, and he is great at the things that I am not good at, and vice versa. Well, except for sales, we share that deficiency. Having someone to bounce ideas off of and a person that I know I could rely on to help me with bigger contracts made a huge difference. It somewhat freed me from only going after smaller engagements and chasing, and eventually catching, some big fish.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I sometimes feel like my life has been a test of resilience. Some obstacles I brought on myself, and some were placed in my way due to things completely out of my control. One thing that was definitely brought on by myself and was totally in my control was motherhood. When I was 18, I gave birth to my son. I was very young and to be honest, probably didn’t fully understand the full ramifications of this decision. When I had to start working, I discovered, much to my surprise and chagrin, that I couldn’t work, go to school, and take care of a baby so I lost my full ride college scholarship. I look back and want to tell myself, suck it up, you can do it! But I know that it was the right decision for me at that time. And on a positive note, it allowed me to gain very valuable experience while most of my peers were still finishing up their degree programs and not working. I did eventually go back to school when my son was quite a bit older and a little more self-sufficient. Unfortunately, I had to pay for it this time around.

I know that I wouldn’t be the same person that I am today if it weren’t for my son. He was literally my reason for getting up in the morning for years. I had to wake up early and take him to school so I figured if I was up, I might as well go to work and try climbing the corporate ladder. It was hard but having sole responsibility for a whole human made me grow up quickly. Everything that I did for my career growth was in an effort to make the best life for my son. Being a single mother pushed me to do better in every aspect of my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.searscoaching.com
• Instagram: @searscoaching.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/searscoaching
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamicasears
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/author/tamicasears