As the director of Education and Workforce Development Programs at LIFT, Phaedra Wainaina is used to taking people on a journey – one that involves offering insight into the recruitment and retention of talent for Black people especially.
As a native Detroiter and millennial, Wainaina told the Michigan Chronicle how her career trajectory has informed her work and beyond.
Working in her position since September, Wainaina said that her professional career has focused on bringing the right pieces together at the right time.
“My professional career has focused on aligning the complexities of workforce development and community investment to create systems of support for Detroit’s most under-served communities,” Wainaina said, adding that before joining LIFT, she was a member of Detroit’s workforce and entrepreneurship ecosystem for almost 10 years. “As a serial innovator and a proud Detroit native, my professional career has been rooted in my belief that the welfare of any community begins with service.”
Wainaina also said that she even uses her experience as being a millennial to shape her work trajectory.
“I have the unique experience of growing up in a world intersected by digital and analog lifestyles,” she said. “That intersection has brought about advantages and pitfalls, along with my professional career, however the most influential part of that is existence is my ability to adapt.”
Wainaina said that the traditional conventions of recruitment and retention are moving rapidly and “changing as we know them.”
Recruitment has transitioned from traditional resume submissions and lengthy interview processes to five-hour hiring events with on-site HR enrollment and screening,” she said, adding that recruitment is a much faster and competitive process than it once was, too.
“Employers are now challenged to keep up with the looming reality that any candidate can be courted 24-hours a day from anywhere around the world, and it is with that knowledge we have to craft our hiring practices,” Wainaina said, adding that retention has changed, too.
She said that with retention, her millennial generation is often pegged as what some call the “Job-Hop” generation.
“To some degree they are correct,” she said. “As a generation, we are resolute on one thing and that is if we do not see growth with a company, we will leave. Low engagement and lack of autonomy in the workplace are two of the leading factors that cause our emerging workforce to leave a position.”
Wainaina added that awareness is not a bad thing because with that knowledge comes power, and the possibility for change, which she is helping lead the way on.
“Over my career I have encouraged my teams to fill their space within the organization while giving them the support they need to do so. I have challenged my colleagues to do the same; revise their recruitment practices and ensure that every step aligns with a direct outcome for the position and take time to succession plan with your team,” Wainaina said.
Along with that recruitment comes the responsibility of finding proper representation, which in “any arena will always matter,” she added.
“As a first-generation college graduate and professional, having mentors and leaders who look like me is both rare and necessary, so it requires some ingenuity,” Wainaina said, adding that many of her closest professional mentors are women (who look like her) who she met at a conference or after they spoke on a panel and she initiated conversation. “They weren’t the supervisors for my internships or even my bosses at the time, but they were women who, like me, built a legacy without a roadmap. My ability to see myself in any role has come solely from mirroring the Black women who have commanded these spaces before me.”
Wainaina added that while her career path has been less than traditional, it’s one that many others (more than likely) can relate to, and it serves her well in her bid to help others.
“I believe that my experiences have empowered the way I view recruitment and retention. I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in interviews across several industries including education, health care, government, and law. Each of these industries has different ways to quantify recruitment and retention efforts, but my goal is always to intersect the best practices across these industries while scrapping the unnecessary steps,” she said. “Retention practices should be anchored to verifiable data, is there a return on your investment for working with us?”
She added that for future (or current) C-suite professionals on their own journey, it’s one traveled with some uncertainty at times.
“Follow your internal compass,” she said. “The idea that your professional career has to be a linear path is a defunct one. If you follow that compass the work will get done and the opportunities will inevitably present themselves.”
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