2026 Finalists
People
Rising HR Star
Co-op Program Senior Specialist McKenney's Inc.
Racheal Attaway-Howard, Co-op Program Senior Specialist at McKenney’s Inc., has focused her HR career on helping early-career talent develop meaningful relationships, gain confidence, and build a path into the industry. Over the past year, she has strengthened both the recruiting and developmental sides of McKenney’s co-op program, using data and partnership to expand its reach and improve the student experience.
To address challenges in brand recognition and understanding of the co-op model, Attaway-Howard developed a strategy centered on three areas: social media branding, direct student engagement and education, and new university partnerships. She approached the work from the student perspective, emphasizing that McKenney’s engagement with university partners and student groups was intended to support career development even when a student ultimately chose another employer. The strategy contributed to a 20% increase in offer acceptance and helped McKenney’s earn recognition as a Handshake Early Talent Award winner.
Once students join the program, Attaway-Howard focuses on ensuring they receive meaningful work, strong mentorship, and opportunities to build practical skills. She identified administrative burdens affecting mentors and partnered with mentors and IT to automate portions of the program, freeing mentors to spend more time on relationship-building. She also co-created delegation training materials now used by the Learning & Development team to help mentors set expectations and provide stronger guidance.
Student engagement scores have reached 93%. Attaway-Howard has also developed a broader curriculum of training and networking opportunities, creating a stronger pipeline into permanent roles across McKenney’s. Her nomination reflects a rising HR professional who connects recruiting, mentorship, learning, and community partnership to long-term workforce development.
HR and Communication Business Partner
Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority
Celeste Stephens, HR and Communication Business Partner at Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority, has emerged as a highly capable early-career HR professional whose impact extends across training, employee relations, leadership development, and organizational culture.
Over the past year, Stephens took significant ownership of CCMWA’s training function, conducting needs analyses, developing learning objectives and course materials, and measuring outcomes. She also co-created a Leadership Development Series for managers covering executive presence, data-driven decision-making, difficult conversations, and HR risk essentials.
Her influence extends beyond CCMWA. Stephens co-created and co-facilitated a three-week course on Ethics & Policy in Public Sector HR for the Public Sector HR Association’s national Power Learning Series, contributing her expertise to the broader HR profession.
Stephens has also taken on complex employee relations work, including helping improve the culture of a division that had experienced longstanding morale and conflict challenges. Her nomination highlights her ability to build trust with both employees and senior leaders while helping strengthen engagement and stability.
She actively mentors other emerging HR professionals and continues investing in her own development. Stephens holds an MBA with a concentration in HR Leadership, is SHRM-CP certified, and is a certified mediator through Kennesaw State University. She is also pursuing a doctorate in business administration, with applied research focused on talent strategy and workforce resilience.
Through her combination of initiative, judgment, learning agility, and commitment to developing others, Stephens is building a strong foundation as a future HR leader while already making meaningful contributions to her organization and profession.
Talent & Inclusion Program Manager
IHG Hotels & Resorts
Brianna Williams, Talent & Inclusion Program Manager at IHG Hotels & Resorts, has spent the past year expanding talent programs that connect employees, strengthen development, and improve the experience of new and emerging talent across multiple regions.
Williams launched a redesigned mentoring cohort that grew to nearly 480 participants across the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Canada. The program included 175 one-to-one mentoring relationships, 25 group mentoring pods, and participation from more than 23 senior leaders at the vice president level and above. She also changed the matching process from randomized pairings to participant self-selection, allowing individuals to rank preferences. Satisfaction increased from 86% to 93% following the redesign.
She also led a multi-year onboarding refresh that has supported more than 375 new employees across the Americas since July 2025. The experience includes monthly virtual sessions opened by senior leaders as well as a new Design Center Networking Experience, giving participants firsthand exposure to prototype development, quality engineering, and build and conversion offerings.
Williams has extended her impact into employer branding through IHG’s Story Suite, creating TikTok and LinkedIn content focused on the colleague experience. The nomination reports more than 12,000 views, 4,000 likes, and 6,000 followers associated with this work. She has also contributed to employee journey stories and helped plan IHG’s HR Summit, including the conference app and attendee experience.
Her nomination highlights an emerging HR leader who identifies program gaps, uses metrics to improve design, and creates experiences that are both scalable and personal. Her work has strengthened mentoring, onboarding, leadership visibility, and IHG’s external talent brand.
HR Executive of the Year
Large Organization
Chief Human Resources Officer Gwinnett County Public Schools
Cathy Hardin, Chief Human Resources Officer for Gwinnett County Public Schools, leads the people strategy supporting approximately 24,000 employees across 143 schools. Over the past year, her leadership has strengthened workforce stability, leadership development, employee engagement, benefits, and HR operations while reinforcing the connection between a strong employee experience and student success.
Workforce results have been significant. Teacher vacancies entering the school year remained at 20, compared with more than 230 three years earlier. Completed teacher applications increased to 9,967, paraprofessional applications reached 3,376, and university partner placements grew to 1,468. The district also increased the number of student teachers transitioning into permanent teaching roles, while its Educator Diversity Index rose to 61.6%.
Hardin has also made leadership readiness a priority. Through the Quality Plus Leader Academy, 76 emerging leaders participated in the Aspiring Leader Program, with 66% already serving in leadership roles. Nine leadership coaches supported 173 novice principals and assistant principals. The nomination reports that 100% of first- and second-year principals and 98% of first- and second-year assistant principals earned proficient or exemplary effectiveness ratings. Her team also provided professional learning to 975 school and central-office leaders.
Employee engagement reached 84% on Gallup’s districtwide measure, and GCPS received the 2025 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award. Hardin also expanded employee support through an enhanced Employee Assistance Program and benefit savings. Her division processed thousands of hiring transactions, contracts, and onboarding activities, while accurate workforce reporting supported approximately $1.286 billion in state education revenue. Her work demonstrates HR leadership at substantial scale with measurable workforce and organizational impact.
Vice President of People
SPB Hospitality
Tedesha Henry, Vice President of People, has spent the past year building a dedicated people infrastructure for Krystal Restaurants within the SPB Hospitality portfolio. Serving both corporate and frontline populations, Henry oversees the full employee lifecycle, including talent acquisition, total rewards, payroll, benefits, employee relations, performance management, and organizational development. Her work has focused on creating systems designed specifically for Krystal’s workforce rather than relying solely on a generalized shared-services model.
A central accomplishment was the launch of the organization’s first full performance management cycle, supported by structured tools and a calibration process intended to strengthen consistency, accountability, and employee development. Henry also built out the people team through intentional hiring and onboarding, creating greater capacity for the function to support the business.
Recognizing the communication challenges of a largely hourly and frontline workforce, Henry led implementation of an employee communications platform that reaches both restaurant and office employees without requiring technology setup on the employee side. The approach was designed to make important information more accessible across a dispersed workforce.
Henry has also worked to connect HR strategy directly to business priorities. She presented a merit investment proposal to senior finance leadership that balanced meaningful compensation increases with fiscal stewardship, and she partnered with outside legal counsel on complex employee relations matters to support fair and compliant outcomes. Her executive-level contributions have extended into organizational design, people strategy, and investor-facing conversations about organizational maturity.
At the center of Henry’s approach is culture. She has developed systems that recognize employee tenure, support frontline workers, and build leaders from within, with the goal of creating an environment where employees feel seen, valued, and connected to the brand.
Chief Human Resources Officer Brasfield & Gorrie, L.L.C.
Jodi D. Taylor, Chief Human Resources Officer for Brasfield & Gorrie, leads the enterprise HR function for a nationally distributed construction workforce of nearly 5,000 employees. Drawing on more than a decade of experience as a construction and employment attorney, followed by service as the company’s Associate General Counsel, Taylor brings a distinctive combination of legal, workforce, and business expertise to executive decision-making.
Her responsibilities span talent acquisition, talent management, total rewards, HR operations and analytics, employment compliance, federal contractor obligations, and leadership of a 60-person HR department. Among her major strategic initiatives is Brasfield & Gorrie’s first enterprise-wide compensation philosophy project, a multi-year effort addressing job architecture, career levels, and compensation design.
Taylor’s workforce programs have produced measurable results. The company’s student program grew from 277 participants to 499, with 91% of participants accepting full-time offers over five years and early-career offer acceptance improving 6% year over year. The Field Apprenticeship Program she launched has expanded across 10 offices, strengthening the company’s skilled workforce pipeline. Benefits and wellbeing initiatives also increased participation in high-risk condition management by 132% and caregiver resource utilization by 21%.
Beyond Brasfield & Gorrie, Taylor contributes to construction workforce strategy through industry committees, professional publications, legislative work, and national speaking engagements, including the Gartner Southeast CHRO Summit. Her community leadership includes serving as Board Chair of the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired, where the organization exceeded its fundraising goal early and raised $490,000 through its most successful gala. Her nomination reflects strategic influence across business, industry, and community.
HR Executive of the Year
Small and Mid-Sized Organization
Human Resources Director
City of Peachtree City
Dr. Teaa Allston-Bing, Human Resources Director for the City of Peachtree City, has led a broad modernization of the City’s people practices, transforming HR from a primarily transactional function into a strategic partner supporting organizational performance, employee engagement, workforce development, and culture.
One of her most significant accomplishments was implementation of the City’s first comprehensive Human Capital Management system. The new platform modernized talent acquisition, onboarding, benefits administration, learning, performance management, employee self-service, and workforce analytics, creating greater efficiency and improving access to workforce information. She also designed and introduced the City’s first formal performance management program, establishing clearer expectations, stronger supervisor accountability, and more consistent employee feedback and development.
Employee wellbeing has become another strategic priority under Allston-Bing’s leadership. She developed a comprehensive health and wellness program averaging four initiatives each month across physical, mental, emotional, and financial wellbeing. The City’s work in this area contributed to recognition as the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s No. 1 Healthiest Employer in its category.
Allston-Bing also created structured opportunities for employees to shape workplace decisions through focus groups spanning multiple departments. Those insights were shared with executive leadership to inform priorities and strengthen employee voice. She established affinity groups to foster connection, inclusion, professional development, and collaboration across the workforce.
Additional initiatives include a paid summer internship program, expanded leadership and professional development, enhanced employee recognition, updated HR policies, and succession planning. Her professional leadership extends beyond the City through service in Georgia public-sector HR associations and as President-Elect of SHRM-Atlanta. Her nomination reflects an executive who has paired modernization with a sustained focus on employee experience and organizational capability.
HR Executive - Chief Executive Office
Bradley Alliance Group and Kennesaw State University
Yasin Bradley is recognized for a leadership approach grounded in strategic HR partnership, employee advocacy, professional development, and service. Nominators describe Bradley as a trusted advisor who helps leaders align people strategy with business priorities while maintaining a strong focus on integrity, fairness, and employee experience.
Over the past year, his work has included organizational redesign, workforce planning, performance management, succession planning, executive coaching, employee relations, and talent reviews. Nominators credit him with helping leaders improve team structures, strengthen leadership capability, reduce organizational risk, and make more informed workforce decisions. His use of workforce analytics and emerging AI tools has also supported more data-informed approaches to talent management and organizational planning.
As Chief Executive Officer of Bradley Alliance Group, Bradley has been recognized for building and sustaining a business while creating opportunities for others. The nominations emphasize his collaborative approach, responsiveness, and ability to tailor HR and career-development support to the individual or organization rather than relying on one-size-fits-all solutions. One client described his assistance with career positioning and résumé strategy as both highly personalized and empowering.
Bradley’s leadership is also characterized by mentoring, continuous learning, and community service. Nominators cite his commitment to supporting others through professional transitions, developing leaders, and creating cultures of accountability, growth, and respect. He is also pursuing doctoral study while managing professional and personal responsibilities.
Taken together, the nominations portray Bradley as a people-focused HR leader who combines strategic thinking with hands-on execution and who seeks to improve both organizational performance and the experience of the individuals he serves.
Director of Human Resources and Risk Management
Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority (CCMWA)
Patrick Henley, Director of Human Resources and Risk Management for Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority, has built a people strategy centered on listening, internal development, innovation, and long-term workforce sustainability. Over the past year, he led organization-wide listening sessions across every department and division, modernized internal communications through a comprehensive SharePoint redesign and expanded video and print capabilities, and strengthened outreach to schools and community groups to introduce future talent to careers in water, HR, and risk management.
Henley has also brought an experimental, business-focused approach to emerging technology. During an organizational AI pilot, he independently evaluated six leading platforms and delivered an enterprise-focused analysis to IT leadership, expanding the scope of the original initiative and helping the organization assess practical workforce applications.
The strongest evidence of his impact is CCMWA’s talent pipeline. Employee turnover has remained below 5%, with prior years below 3%, and more than 90% of management roles have been filled internally. The nomination attributes those outcomes to Henley’s succession planning framework, career conversation programs, and leadership development strategy. CCMWA’s total rewards approach includes compensation reported at 15% to 20% above industry averages, employer-paid health benefits, 100% tuition reimbursement for job-related education through the doctoral level, a defined-benefit pension, paid parental leave, and a voluntary sick leave donation program.
Henley’s influence also extends beyond CCMWA. He has presented at SHRM’s national conference, participated in public-sector and water-industry forums, mentored HR professionals, and taught HR and employment law. His nomination reflects a leader who combines operational results with a sustained commitment to developing people and advancing the profession.
HR Consultant of the Year
Founder, Managing Director
RHJ Consulting Group, LLC
Robert H. Johnson Jr., Founder and Managing Director of RHJ Consulting Group, has spent the past year helping organizations strengthen leadership effectiveness, workplace culture, employee experience, and psychological safety through consulting, facilitation, and leadership development.
Johnson’s work has supported organizations including Amazon, Lucid Motors, DoorDash, Capital One, Priceline, and Hines. A central component of his consulting approach is the proprietary TACT Leadership Model, focused on Trust, Accountability, Communication with Intent, and Taking Action. The model gives leaders practical tools for difficult conversations, team effectiveness, communication, and creating workplace environments where employees feel safe, seen, heard, and valued.
Through Amazon’s Leading Courageous Conversations program, Johnson helped equip more than 400 leaders with skills designed to strengthen trust, inclusion, and communication across a workforce exceeding 70,000 employees. The nomination reports participant satisfaction above 99%.
Johnson also serves as Head of Culture & Belonging at Lucid Motors, supporting culture initiatives for more than 7,200 employees across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. His work has included strengthening employee resource group governance, increasing participation, and connecting culture programs with broader business priorities.
His influence extends into the HR profession through speaking and thought leadership. In 2026, he presented at SHRM-Atlanta’s SOAHR Conference and participated in the Management Leadership for Tomorrow National Conference. He is also a TEDx speaker and author of Safe. Seen. Heard. Valued. His nomination reflects a consultant who consistently connects human-centered leadership with measurable organizational performance.
Executive Coach, Speaker, Growth Partner and Founder
Shatanese Reese Global Ltd.
Shatanese Reese, Founder of Shatanese Reese Global Ltd., is recognized for her work as an executive coach, facilitator, and strategic HR partner helping organizations strengthen leadership capability, culture, communication, and succession readiness.
Her nomination highlights a multi-year consulting relationship spanning leadership development, executive coaching, organizational change, conflict navigation, and employee listening. Reese has designed and delivered components of CCMWA’s Professional Development Series, including sessions focused on emotional intelligence during high-stress situations and leading organizational change with transparency and trust.
She also provides sustained one-on-one coaching to emerging and established leaders, helping participants strengthen executive presence, confidence, communication, and leadership effectiveness. Rather than focusing only on individual development, Reese provides organizations with recommendations for reinforcing growth through clearer roles, direct feedback, and opportunities for leaders to apply new capabilities.
Her work has also addressed sensitive workplace culture challenges. Reese has conducted confidential employee listening sessions, identified common themes, and facilitated team discussions designed to improve stability, professionalism, communication, and trust while maintaining appropriate boundaries between facilitation and management responsibility.
The nomination emphasizes her use of structured feedback tools, including post-training surveys, listening-session reports, and coaching summaries, to measure results and refine her approach. Her facilitation style is described as inclusive, creating space for employees across roles and levels to contribute candidly.
Reese has earned the trust to support some of CCMWA’s most sensitive leadership and cultural challenges, reflecting a consulting approach grounded in discretion, adaptability, practical guidance, and sustained partnership.
Associate Director, Human Resources
Harvard University
Olga Sanchez-Ramos serves as a strategic HR consultant to Harvard University’s technology organization, providing embedded HR advisory support to a distributed workforce of more than 750 employees. Working remotely from Atlanta, she partners with senior leaders on workforce strategy, organizational change, employee relations, compensation, performance, and future workforce planning.
Over the past year, Sanchez-Ramos helped lead a multi-phase organizational restructuring involving approximately 40 position eliminations and broader reporting and role changes. She advised leaders on organizational design and implementation while helping maintain consistency, fairness, and operational continuity during a sensitive transformation.
She also developed a data-driven compensation strategy designed to strengthen recruitment and retention of technology talent. The nomination reports a 25% improvement in offer acceptance rates and a 10% decrease in voluntary turnover. Her multi-year workforce planning work also contributed to approximately 10% operational savings while maintaining service delivery.
Sanchez-Ramos strengthened performance management through manager consulting, structured Performance Improvement Plans, and clearer performance differentiation. She also created forums such as an IT Summit and monthly Manager Community Connections to support communication, leadership alignment, and shared learning across a distributed workforce.
Looking ahead, she is leading a Workforce Intelligence Pilot that uses artificial intelligence and job architecture data to identify emerging skill gaps, workforce risks, and development opportunities.
Her nomination reflects an HR consultant who combines analytical rigor, trusted executive partnership, and practical implementation to help leaders navigate complex workforce decisions and position their organizations for future capability needs.
HR People Leader Impact Award
AVP, HR Business Partner
Cox Enterprises
Kim Alfonso, AVP and HR Business Partner at Cox Enterprises, has led through a year of significant organizational transformation by combining strategic business partnership with a deliberate focus on the employee experience. Her nomination highlights her role in guiding a team of 10 HR business partners as they support organizational design, workforce transitions, and enterprise planning during complex change.
When Cox announced the sale of a major operating division, Alfonso helped create the people-side playbook. She shaped workforce communications and manager talking points, coached HR partners through difficult employee conversations, and worked to ensure leaders had the tools needed to support their teams. She has also represented the people perspective in enterprise operating-model and strategic financial-planning conversations, using employee listening insights to inform decisions related to engagement, inclusion, and resilience.
Alfonso has invested heavily in building the capability of her own team. She developed an HRBP Performance Framework with weighted capabilities covering business consulting, executive influence, people leadership and organizational development, and enterprise mindset. Twice-yearly client experience surveys provide feedback that informs development plans and team priorities. She has also championed AI-enabled HR practices, data storytelling, mentoring, coaching, and stretch assignments designed to increase the team’s strategic contribution.
The culture within her team reflects that investment. Co-worker support was rated 9.5 out of 10, and the nomination describes a working environment built on candid dialogue, psychological safety, accountability, and shared learning. Alfonso also supports employee resource groups and inclusion efforts and extends her service beyond Cox through community volunteerism. Her nomination reflects a leader who develops others while helping the business navigate change with clarity, empathy, and discipline.
Principal HR Consultant
Maven HR Advisory Group, LLC
Whitney Robinson, Principal HR Consultant with Maven HR Advisory Group, is nominated for her ability to translate people strategy into measurable business and workforce results across multiple organizational settings. Over the past year, she has worked as both a strategic advisor and hands-on HR leader during periods of growth, change, and transformation, with a focus on strengthening culture, developing leaders, improving employee experience, and building scalable HR practices.
The nomination cites several measurable outcomes associated with her leadership, including a 46% improvement in employee retention, a 155% increase in staffing levels, operational efforts contributing to more than $2 million in revenue growth, and a 70% improvement in workplace safety outcomes. These results were supported by employee engagement, accountability, proactive risk management, and closer alignment between workforce strategy and business priorities.
Robinson’s work has also included strengthening compliance, employee relations, leadership development, communication, and organizational culture. She partners with executives and operational leaders to navigate workforce challenges and create more consistent processes, combining data-informed decision-making with an emphasis on empathy and practical business judgment.
Through Maven HR Advisory Group, Robinson has expanded that impact to small and growing businesses that may not have access to a full internal HR function. Her consulting work helps leaders address talent challenges, improve compliance, strengthen HR infrastructure, and build workplace practices that can scale as their organizations grow.
Across these efforts, Robinson is described as an accountable, innovative, people-first leader who balances organizational performance with employee needs. Her nomination emphasizes not only short-term metrics, but also her work to build stronger leadership capability, healthier workplace cultures, and sustainable people systems across the organizations she serves.
Sr. HR Consultant - Grady Health Systems
Danielle Howard-Norman, Senior HR Consultant with Grady Health System, is recognized for combining strategic HR expertise with an inclusive, service-oriented leadership style. Nominators describe her as a trusted partner who uses data, process improvement, and strong relationships to improve organizational performance while supporting employees and leaders through complex workforce challenges.
Over the past year, her contributions have included talent acquisition improvement, workforce capacity planning, employee wellness, compliance, and cross-functional collaboration. One nomination describes her work with a construction and service client to strengthen resource-management practices by standardizing time tracking, clarifying billable and non-billable work, and creating more transparent workload planning. That work reportedly increased average employee utilization from 65% to 80% while helping identify over-allocation before employees reached unsustainable workload levels. The approach also supported stronger worker-classification and federal-contracting compliance.
Her nominations also highlight her ability to develop others. She mentors colleagues and emerging talent, encourages new ideas, and works to create an environment where employees feel supported, respected, and accountable for results. Her leadership is credited with strengthening collaboration across departments, improving execution, and helping teams align more closely with organizational priorities.
Beyond technical HR work, Howard-Norman is recognized for professionalism, empathy, communication, and community service. Nominators cite her commitment to mentoring, volunteerism, inclusion, and the principles of service and scholarship she demonstrates through her community involvement.
Taken together, the nominations portray a people leader who blends strategic thinking with practical execution and who consistently works to improve organizational outcomes while creating an employee experience rooted in trust, fairness, and support.
Organizations
HR Team of the Year
Grady Health System’s HR Operations team has spent the past year supporting major organizational transformation while helping strengthen the systems, workforce strategies, and employee experience needed to support Grady’s continued growth.
Among the team’s most significant accomplishments was the successful implementation of a new Human Resources Information System. The initiative modernized key HR processes, improved data accessibility and integrity, streamlined experiences for employees and leaders, and created a more scalable technology foundation for future workforce initiatives.
The team also played an important role in Grady’s expansion across metro Atlanta. HR Operations partnered with organizational leaders on workforce planning, consultation, and change management to support the launch of a freestanding Emergency Department in South Atlanta. The team also helped support the opening and staffing of neighborhood health centers and clinics, initiatives designed to expand access to primary and emergency healthcare services throughout the region.
These expansions required HR Operations to balance strategic workforce planning with the practical demands of identifying, staffing, and supporting skilled professionals across new locations.
At the same time, the team continued focusing on employee experience and leadership support. Through process improvements, responsive consultation, and service-focused HR partnership, the team has worked to strengthen engagement and position Grady as an employer of choice. The nomination notes Grady’s recognition by USA Today as a Top Workplace for two consecutive years based on confidential employee feedback.
Together, these efforts demonstrate a team capable of modernizing HR operations while helping an organization expand its workforce, services, and impact across the Atlanta community.
The Gwinnett County Public Schools Department of Substitute Management has transformed substitute staffing from a primarily transactional function into a strategic component of the district’s broader workforce-development and talent-pipeline strategy.
Working closely with the GCPS Recruiting Team, the department has created pathways that identify high-potential substitute employees and help prepare them to move into permanent teaching positions. This approach allows the district to address immediate classroom staffing needs while simultaneously cultivating future educators who already understand the organization and its schools.
The nomination highlights the importance of this work amid continuing educator shortages. By helping substitutes transition into permanent roles, the department contributes to filling difficult-to-staff positions, reducing vacancies, supporting continuity of instruction, and decreasing the time and expense associated with external recruiting.
Professional development is also central to the team’s strategy. Its signature development event provides substitute employees with structured learning opportunities, career growth, and greater visibility into pathways toward full-time education careers. These efforts are designed not only to improve substitute preparedness but also to reinforce a sense of belonging and connection to the district.
The department’s work has helped elevate the quality, reliability, and engagement of substitute staff while supporting the district’s larger workforce needs. By treating substitute employees as a potential source of future talent rather than simply temporary staffing, the team has created a model that connects day-to-day workforce operations with longer-term talent development.
Their nomination reflects an HR team using collaboration, development, and workforce strategy to strengthen both employee opportunity and student success.
The City of Peachtree City Human Resources Department is a five-person team supporting approximately 400 employees across administrative, professional, operational, and public safety roles. Over the past year, the team has undertaken a significant modernization effort designed to improve HR service delivery, employee access, organizational efficiency, and workforce decision-making.
At the center of that transformation was the implementation of the City’s first full-service Human Capital Management system, UKG. Launched in January 2025 and fully implemented by January 2026, the platform integrated recruitment, onboarding, benefits, learning and development, talent management, succession planning, and performance management into a single system.
The implementation moved Peachtree City away from fragmented and highly manual processes and gave employees greater access to self-service HR tools. Recruitment was redesigned as a digital process from job posting through onboarding, while the City’s first fully online benefits enrollment experience reduced paperwork and administrative burden.
The team also activated centralized learning and performance-management capabilities, providing employees with improved access to training and giving managers better tools for goal setting, feedback, development, and workforce planning.
The nomination highlights the significance of achieving this transformation with a small municipal HR team and limited public-sector resources. Benefits include reduced manual processing, improved hiring efficiency, fewer benefit enrollment errors, greater transparency, and stronger access to workforce data.
Through this work, Peachtree City Human Resources has demonstrated how a small HR team can use technology and thoughtful process redesign to deliver more responsive, efficient, and employee-centered services across an entire organization.
Culture & Employee Experience Award
Builders Insurance Group’s People Operations Division has continued a multi-year transformation focused on creating a high-performing, inclusive workplace where employees feel connected, supported, and equipped to grow. In 2025, the six-person team helped deliver a fifth consecutive year of declining voluntary turnover, reaching approximately 4.2%, with zero voluntary turnover during the fourth quarter. The nomination credits this progress to a deliberate focus on employee engagement, leadership alignment, development, and experience design.
The team has worked to embed equity, diversity, and belonging into daily workplace practices through an employee impact group, employee storytelling, leadership engagement, and industry participation. Cross-functional events, refreshed onboarding experiences, and enterprise culture programs have further strengthened connection and collaboration across a multigenerational workforce. Reduced turnover has also helped preserve institutional knowledge, lower hiring costs, and improve operational continuity.
People Operations paired its culture work with significant infrastructure improvements. The team implemented UKG as a modern HR platform supporting payroll, benefits, performance management, and workforce analytics. The rollout was intentionally designed as an engaging employee experience, using a creative “road trip” theme to encourage adoption and reduce change fatigue. The division also expanded its role in internal communications to better align leadership messaging and workforce strategy.
Additional investments include leadership development, cross-functional business case experiences, performance enablement, financial wellness resources, mentorship pilots, and a new learning management system. Together, these efforts have supported a workplace centered on connection, growth, and purpose, contributing to Great Place to Work certification and recognition by Fortune as a Best Workplace in Financial Services and Insurance.
DeKalb County Government’s Human Resources & Merit System Department introduced an innovative Eldercare Leave policy designed to support employees who care for aging relatives. According to the nomination, DeKalb is the first public-sector agency in the United States to create a policy that explicitly expands sick leave to cover non-medical, routine caregiving activities. The policy recognizes that caregiving may include essential responsibilities such as meal preparation, housekeeping, grocery shopping, and other day-to-day support that falls outside traditional medical leave definitions.
The program launched in January 2025. During its first year, 84 employees across 22 of DeKalb County’s 43 departments used a combined 1,743 hours of Eldercare Leave. Employee feedback cited the benefit as an important source of flexibility, work-life balance, and support during critical moments involving aging parents and relatives.
The nomination also highlights the program’s operational practicality. Eldercare Leave is treated as an expanded use of existing sick leave rather than a separate paid benefit requiring a significant new funding stream. Staff administration is comparable to standard sick leave processing, and overall sick leave usage reportedly decreased after the new policy was introduced. Existing controls remain in place to address attendance and prevent abuse.
Rather than being created to satisfy a legal mandate, the policy was developed as an extension of DeKalb County’s employee-centered culture and total rewards strategy. By responding to an emerging workforce need with a practical and inclusive solution, the HR & Merit System Department has created a model intended to strengthen employee wellbeing, belonging, retention, and productivity while potentially offering a blueprint for other public employers.
Over the past year, the Emory Healthcare Human Resources Team has advanced a systemwide effort to strengthen culture and employee experience while supporting the organization’s broader mission of delivering exceptional patient care. The work began with a clear premise: caring for patients starts with caring for the people who serve them. In response to employee feedback about compensation, Emory committed $270 million to workforce investment, with 93% of employees receiving pay increases, beginning with patient-facing roles. First-year turnover declined from 40.3% two years earlier to 24.4% in FY26.
The team also helped define and activate a shared Emory culture. In 2025, 150 senior leaders came together to establish four Cultural Beliefs: One Emory, Own It, Lead Change, and People Centered. HR then led a rapid culture cascade across the health system. Within four months, 2,300 leaders completed culture sessions, followed by approximately 18,000 additional employees. The sessions earned a 93% likelihood-to-recommend rating and were delivered internally by learning professionals and frontline culture champions.
Employee survey results provide additional evidence of impact. About 80% of employees reported that their teams demonstrate the new cultural behaviors, 84% would recommend Emory as a good place to work, and intent to stay increased from 66% to 73%. By connecting compensation, leadership behaviors, employee voice, and culture activation, the Emory Healthcare HR Team has created a comprehensive employee experience strategy designed to strengthen retention, engagement, and the care environment. The work demonstrates how HR investment can influence both workforce stability and the broader experience of care delivery.
Talent & Workforce Development Award
The Talent Development Team at Boys & Girls Clubs of America is a two-person team responsible for building learning and leadership systems that support a national organization’s workforce. Despite its small size, the team has developed a comprehensive approach connecting succession planning, leadership development, onboarding, performance management, and enterprise learning into a coordinated talent strategy.
In 2025, the team expanded succession planning beyond senior leadership to additional levels of the organization and established clearer benchmarks for critical roles. The goal is to create a deeper, more sustainable pipeline of leaders and improve organizational readiness as roles change or become vacant. The nomination notes that the rigor of this succession work has been recognized by both internal leadership and governance bodies.
Leadership Forward has become a central development program, supporting career progression, internal mobility, and retention of high-potential employees. The team has also placed greater emphasis on manager effectiveness by introducing targeted development programs, organization-wide goal alignment, and expanded learning cohorts. These efforts are designed to help managers coach employees, develop talent, and create more consistent performance expectations.
The team has broadened access to learning through targeted campaigns, mobile-enabled resources, and enhancements to the Talent Development Center. These tools support communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and employee development across the organization. Learning is reinforced by a structured performance management process and an onboarding experience that continues to evolve based on employee feedback.
Together, these initiatives demonstrate how a small talent team can create systems with enterprise reach. By building development into multiple stages of the employee lifecycle, the BGCA Talent Development Team is strengthening leadership capacity, internal mobility, manager capability, and a culture in which employee growth supports the organization’s long-term mission.
Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority has built a workforce development strategy around a practical reality: with only 119 employees serving nearly 900,000 metro Atlanta residents, every leadership vacancy and skills gap can create operational risk. Over the past year, CCMWA continued to expand a build-first talent model focused on developing employees internally, strengthening succession readiness, and preparing the organization for retirements and future growth.
The Career Conversations & Mentoring Program is a central part of that approach. The five-month cohort combines personal branding, executive presence, résumé development, mock interviews, and one-to-one mentoring with senior leaders. Since 2019, 38 employees have participated, and 13 of the last 15 open leadership positions have been filled by program graduates, including the General Manager role.
CCMWA has also expanded leadership development beyond formal cohorts by giving non-supervisory employees opportunities to lead committees and task forces. Development is measured through indicators such as completion, mentoring consistency, competency growth, internal fill rates, bench depth, and time to readiness. The organization’s internally developed leadership competency model is built around Relationship Management, Professionalism, and Business Acumen and guides development from first-time supervisors through executives.
The broader learning catalog includes leadership, workforce technology, financial wellness, and inclusion. More than a dozen employees have gone on to present at professional conferences through the Communicating Excellence initiative. Turnover has remained below 3% for multiple years, and CCMWA provides 100% tuition and fee reimbursement for job-related education from associate through doctoral degrees. More than 10% of employees have used the benefit in the past five years. The nomination reflects a disciplined talent strategy designed to keep critical skills, leadership capability, and institutional knowledge inside the organization.
The Emory Healthcare Talent, Culture and Learning Team has built an integrated leadership development strategy designed to strengthen organizational resilience after years of workforce instability, turnover, contract labor dependence, and leadership burnout across the healthcare industry. Rather than relying on isolated programs, the team has treated leadership capability as a core lever for culture, retention, succession, and operational performance.
The strategy supports leaders across the full performance spectrum. Leadership Essentials was created for leaders needing the greatest support, providing practical skills, clearer expectations, and focused development. Approximately 250 to 350 leaders participate each year, bringing total participation to nearly 1,000. The nomination reports that unfavorable leader index scores declined from 12% to 5%, while employee intent to stay increased seven points to 73% over two years.
In FY26, 1,405 active leaders participated in internal development programs spanning onboarding, career transitions, culture activation, executive development, and coaching. Participants reported a 94.6% intent to apply what they learned and a 97.6% likelihood to recommend the experience. Culture programming reached 92% of leaders and approximately 18,000 employees, with shared beliefs and leadership expectations embedded into performance, compensation, hiring, and recognition practices.
For high-potential senior leaders, the team created Leadership Elevate Academy, a year-long experience combining assessment, learning, executive coaching, and capstone work on real business challenges. Of the 30 participants, 90% became nominated successors in the FY26 Talent Review. The nomination also reports a 6% increase in top talent, 92% retention of top talent from 2025, and individual development plan completion for 76% of director-level and higher roles. The result is a scalable leadership pipeline tied directly to Emory’s future workforce needs.
Partners
Strategic HR Partner of the Year
LinkedIn - Patrice Williams-Lindo
Patrice Williams-Lindo, Founder and CEO of Career Nomad, has spent the past year helping HR and business leaders understand one of the most disruptive workforce questions facing organizations today: how artificial intelligence is changing the value of work. Her approach reframes the conversation from whether AI will replace jobs to how it is repricing roles, skills, and workforce risk.
Drawing on more than 20 years of experience with Accenture, Deloitte, and KPMG, Williams-Lindo advises CHROs, COOs, city managers, and senior people leaders. She developed the Workforce Signal Intelligence Audit, an enterprise diagnostic designed to help organizations with roughly 500 to 10,000 employees identify where AI may be changing role value before those shifts appear as attrition, compensation compression, or capability gaps. She also created the Proof, Positioning, Pay methodology to help leaders articulate and demonstrate workforce value.
Her work has extended into the public sector. Williams-Lindo partnered with the City of Stockbridge and Mayor Jayden L. Williams to deliver Built Different, an AI economic-readiness event at Stockbridge City Hall. The engagement received formal recognition from the City and led to an invitation to present to Henry County leadership. The nomination reports that the municipal engagement also generated a pipeline of approximately 20 enterprise and public-sector relationships.
Williams-Lindo’s perspective on AI and the future of work has reached broader audiences through more than 115 media placements across 17 countries. She also serves on the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council and is active within Atlanta business and small-business networks. Her nomination reflects a strategic partner translating emerging workforce disruption into practical frameworks for employers, communities, and HR leaders.
Flex HR is nominated for its work as an outsourced and fractional HR partner helping organizations build stronger people practices while managing compliance, payroll, recruiting, benefits, employee relations, and organizational development. Over 25 years, the company has supported more than 2,000 businesses, with a model designed to give clients access to dedicated HR expertise without requiring them to build a full internal HR function.
During the past year, Flex HR expanded both client service and workforce education. The team hosted HR boot camps, participated in SHRM-Atlanta’s SOAHR conference, and delivered webinars on topics including artificial intelligence in the workplace, remote and hybrid work, payroll tax compliance, workplace violence prevention, and employee retention. One boot camp developed in partnership with VSG has reached more than 400 veterinary practices across the United States through hands-on HR training and support.
The nomination describes Flex HR’s model as a “white-glove” approach in which each client works with a dedicated HR expert rather than a generic service queue. This structure is intended to give consultants deeper knowledge of each organization’s culture, workforce, and business goals. Flex HR estimates that organizations can save approximately 20% to 30% by outsourcing HR functions while still receiving support for mission-critical people responsibilities.
The company’s history includes recognition on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest-growing private companies and acknowledgment as a promising HR outsourcing provider. In its 25th anniversary year, the nomination emphasizes Flex HR’s continued focus on client relationships, practical HR education, and scalable people solutions. Its candidacy reflects a strategic partnership model built around accessibility, business alignment, and long-term support for organizations across industries.
LinkedIn - Landing Well Atlanta
Katja Morgenstern, Founder and CEO of Landing Well Atlanta, is developing a workforce strategy focused on an often-overlooked factor in employee relocation: whether employees and their families successfully establish stability in a new community. Her work starts from the premise that relocation outcomes depend on more than logistics. Family routines, community connection, identity, education, and emotional capacity can directly influence retention, productivity, employee experience, and long-term assignment success.
Over the past year, Landing Well Atlanta has worked to define this challenge as a new discipline within talent mobility and employee experience called Family Integration. The approach applies systems thinking and human-centered design to the personal factors that can determine whether a relocated employee ultimately thrives and remains with an organization.
Landing Well developed a Five Stability Pillars Framework covering Routine, Community, Identity, Education, and Emotional Bandwidth. Building on that model, the organization created two proprietary tools: the Family Lifestyle Assessment and the Relocation Stability Index. These tools are designed to convert traditionally hard-to-see relocation risks into measurable indicators, giving organizations and families an opportunity to identify potential instability before it affects engagement, performance, or retention.
The innovation is a shift from treating relocation as a transaction to treating it as a workforce-stability issue. Rather than focusing only on getting an employee from one location to another, Landing Well focuses on the conditions that support successful adjustment for the employee and family after the move.
Morgenstern’s nomination reflects a strategic HR partner creating a structured approach to a workforce challenge that is usually managed informally. The model is designed to improve retention, accelerate time to productivity, strengthen wellbeing, and increase the long-term success of relocated talent.
The Winner Will Be Revealed at the Gala!
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