Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast, where we dive deep into the tools, laws and processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. We help organizations all across the USA, streamline, awfulize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies, thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. 

Today we're going to be interviewing Jacqueline Throop Robinson. Did I get that name right? Jacqueline? The Thoop Robinson?

That is correct.

Awesome. And she is the founder and CEO of Spark Engagement. A Spark Engagement is a Global Analytics Company in human resources. They focus on employee engagement and passion. So we're going to be talking all about that today and we can't wait. Before we do, I want to give you a quick reminder to subscribe to us on your favorite podcatcher of your choice, whether that's iTunes or Google play. Check us out on our social media. We'll have links to Jacqueline's social media on the website peopleprocesses.com and we can't wait to see you there. 

So Jacqueline, here we are. Got the interview together.

Yes. Wonderful. Thank you.

I'm excited to have you here today. Now, I always ask this question because we're in kind of an interesting field because HR world of ours, not many little girls and boys dress up as HR people as children. So I have to know, how did you wind up where you are, how'd you get to running a company that's focusing on this analytics and engagement for your clients?

Well, you're exactly right. It is not what I thought I would be doing when I started to get my master's in English literature. But however, interestingly, I ended up working for a very, very large corporation in my mid twenties and I had absolutely no HR background and yet I found, I just gravitated toward it. So I think because I was given a fairly senior position at a very young age. I didn't have any baggage. So I really had to rely on the people who were reporting to me to do their jobs, to do it well. I could not give them advice from a technical point of view. I'm only in one small facet of what we were doing and they had the expertise elsewhere. So it really led me to nurturing the relationships and ensuring that I removed obstacles for them and to really enable them to do their job to the best of their ability. And seeing the magic of that is what started to lead me to look more into formal HR processes and education. And so I really went from being a senior manager in a field operations into a head office position in human resources. So it really just naturally evolved.

That's really cool. You know, a lot wind up in HR one way or the other. And it's so fun to kind of see the through lines. And I've heard that many times that the reason we're here is because we were put in a position where you were forced to realize that your people are the most important thing. It's not about how much you personally know skilled wise, but to really grow an organization, it's about the quality, the talent the abilities, and passion of the people you bring on.

Yeah. So it does and it's just so interesting because really I was recruited because the manager felt I would learn quickly and I would have a different perspective, but I really didn't have the formal training. And it's so funny when I think about it, I just kept listening to my parents' voices and saying, "Trust people, just trust the people you're with." And I let that guide my decision making and it's really quite amazing to see how that mantra has just kind of evolved into this whole employee engagement business and really looking at passion at work and just how much those two ideas connect.

Really a world-class career. I mean, you have clients, not just in North America, but I mean in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, all over the world.

Yes.

Do you get to travel to meet with...