Leadership and Wellness with Tiffany Nugent

File 17:  In today’s file, we begin Season 2 of the podcast.  Today, the team welcomes Tiffany Nugent, an HR practitioner for over 20 years.  The discussion is going to focus on leadership and wellness.  They’ll explore the challenge of creating a wellness-focused organization.

Meet Tiffany Nugent

Tiffany has experience in a broad range of industry sectors, including retail, manufacturing, fulfillment, healthcare and healthcare technology.  She led a healthcare organization through a rapid-growth phase, then through the COVID pandemic.  Afterwards, she transitioned into healthcare technology.  That organization was experiencing double-digit growth before closing down.  Currently, Tiffany is working in the virtual, mental health space.

Interestingly, Tiffany is also the owner of the Louisville Salt Cave and Salt Wellness.  They partner with organizations interested in bringing wellness into the workplace.

Molley comments on how so many leaders neglect wellness within their respective organizations.  She blames this on the previous 4-years, post pandemic, and that we haven’t shifted back. 

Jamie notes that often leadership underestimates their impact on the wellness of others.  It’s not simply something quick, such as direct feedback.  It may take someone time to digest the feedback before deciding to act.  It could take years.  She advises leaders to be mindful of creating a spark that could eventually grow into forest fire.

Being Intentional about Organizational Wellness

Jamie remarks on Tiffany’s focus on how organizations support wellness, especially when resilience, adaptability and culture belong at the forefront.

Tiffany describes a scenario from the pandemic.  It heightened her awareness of how an organization has a responsibility to support its leaders, so they in turn can support their employees.  HR is typically under-resourced because it’s not viewed as revenue-producing.  Alternatively, leadership expects HR to lead culture and wellness.  In response, Tiffany views the opportunity exists for HR to equip leadership with tools to lead wellness and to create a healthy workforce.  The HR staff and C-suite can’t be everywhere, so by equipping other leaders in the organization, the feedback, needs and recommendations can be more quickly communicated.  They are the frontline.

During the pandemic, Tiffany was approached by many leaders asking for direction and/or advice in dealing with the situations such as the death of family members.  Her primary response, was to approach the situation as a human, first