Primera’s commitment to employee engagement took the spotlight last week at global staffing firm Aerotek’s Panel Event. Human Resources Manager Kendahle Artis participated in the panel discussion on hiring talent and the retention and engagement of employees. Kendahle was invited to share insights on Primera’s employee engagement practices and commitment to empowering women in engineering given Primera’s successful transition from being a Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE) to a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE). She was joined on the panel by CME Group Senior Director Diana Toscas, Villa Healthcare’s HR Director Lorna Harvey, Aerotek Chicago’s Director of Business Operations Ryan Cleaveland, Aerotek Midwest’s HR Manager Caitlin Morrissey, and the VP of HR and Talent Management from Wi-Tronix, Sue Schultz.

Long before Primera’s change in ownership to now President and CEO Erin Inman in March, Primera has been passionate about diversity and inclusion in our workplace. Through a progressive environment encouraging employees to grow both professionally and personally and a dedication to promoting a strong work-life balance, Primera views employee engagement as an ongoing effort that we’ll always continue to move forward on. We value diversity and have created an environment which respects, acknowledges, and promotes inclusion within the company.

As Kendahle explained during the panel discussion, “despite the dominance of males in the engineering field, our strategy is to develop a culture of good people and support, develop, retain, and empower those people.” Now that we are a WBE, not much has changed in regards to how we recruit; we have always focused on finding the right talent, regardless of the individual.

We recently re-engineered our women’s group to give it a fresh new feel and approach. Meeting monthly and open to all employees, the group is designed to engage and empower women in our industry. With a growing workforce that includes more than 50% minority and female employees, Primera is proud to have powerful women in key leadership roles heading up our consulting and utilities divisions as well as our business development, accounting/finance, human resources, and project support practices among others.

Proceeds from the panel event supported the University of Iowa’s Women in Business student organization.