Unlocking the Power of Healing and Hiring: Insights from HR Expert Dana Neiger

Hiring people in times of uncertainty is difficult, even for the most successful companies. But if you treat your people well and give them what they deserve, there’s a higher chance they’ll stick with you through thick and thin. Our guest today is a true expert on hiring talent.

Meet Dana Neiger. Dana is the Co-founder at HIVE Talent Acquisition Firm Inc., which is a female-owned, global search, staffing, and Human Resources solutions firm. HIVE provides top-notch talent to its clients in all areas, from entry-level positions to top executive positions. As the CHRO and Co-Founder, Dana focuses on diversity and inclusion initiatives, and her experience covers a wide range of industries that serve a global clientele. In addition, Dana is a published author. She recently published her first book called ‘Before I Knew It, They Were Gone: A Jewish First-Generation American Woman’s Journey through the Darkness,’ a touching autobiographical memoir where she shared her story about losing her parents, dealing with grief, and eventually healing herself.

Dana is all about treating employees with respect and giving them the recognition they deserve. And she definitely practices what she preaches in her own company too.

In this episode of the Think Business with Tyler podcast, we chat about the importance of healing, how to use the power of your brain to your advantage, different tactics for hiring strong employees, and why you need to take care of your employees.

If you want to get some practical tips for hiring staff and managing people, make sure you tune into this episode to hear what Dana has to say.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Dana Neiger

💡 What she does: She’s the Co-founder at HIVE Talent Acquisition Firm Inc.

💡 Noteworthy: Dana is a published author. She recently published her first book called ‘Before I Knew It, They Were Gone: A Jewish First-Generation American Woman’s Journey through the Darkness.’

💡 Key Quote: “Go deeper. Don’t just reduce a human being to a piece of paper. That never gets you anywhere.”

💡 Where to find Dana: LinkedIn

Key Insights

Healing is essential for our well-being. Healing is an important part of life. It can be a big driver of change and a huge stepping stone to happiness. Whether you had a traumatic death of a loved one or you experienced abuse in your childhood, you must heal to move on with your life.

Dana depicts perfectly the process of healing in her recently published book. She explains, “This is about getting the book out there because there are plenty of other people in this world, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a trauma from loss, a trauma from some kind of abuse, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, any trauma, anything. We must heal. If we don’t, those traumas will manifest in some awful way because our brains try to, I guess, protect us, if you will, from things that are happening, and sometimes our brains don’t always protect us in the mental health awareness space.”

Put your brain to work for you. Your brain is a powerful thing, so don’t underestimate it. If you let it, it might lead you down some dark paths. But if you learn to use it to your benefit, you can live a healthier and happier life.

Dana talks about her healing tools and mental health exercises. She says, “Manifestations and meditation is huge. The brain is a powerful tool, as we’re kind of all told, but until you really sit and focus multiple times… You’ll start off slow, five, 10 minutes that you can handle breaking into 30 plus into an hour. If you can actually do it for more than an hour and you’re heading towards two or even three hours, it’s physically and mentally exhausting. But what you’re doing in that space is you are healing yourself. Your brain is capable of these things.”

Read between the lines. Let’s face it; it’s not simple to find a strong and reliable employee. You often need to do a lot of trial and error until you find the one. But what you definitely shouldn’t do is reduce human beings to a piece of paper. Instead, give them a chance to show their worth. Dana suggests reading between the lines and trying to see the whole picture when recruiting new employees.

She says, “The person may not be the best fit on paper at first, but read between the lines. If you’re looking for someone who’s loyal and you’re looking for someone who’s got certain skills that are not trainable, but then there are some trainable opportunities in there, these transferrable skills will make excellent employees and teammates to everything.”

Treat your employees well. We can finally forget about the ‘carrot and stick’ approach because it no longer works. People need more than rewards and punishments. They’re motivated by different things now, such as positive workplace culture, strong teamwork, constant learning, etc. So, if you want to keep the good ones in your company, you need to treat them well and give them what they deserve.

Dana explains,  “Set yourself up for success somewhere new by exactly that, asking very intentional, open-ended questions about the culture, about the group you’re going to be doing, what’s expected of you, short term and long term. […] These are the things that actually matter these days to the generations after mine, which is Generation X. So Millennials, Xennials, and Alphas, they want to get paid for what they do and what they’ve accomplished and what they bring to your table, and they’ll stay loyal if you pay them what they’re worth. When you undercut people these days, they know it.”

Top Quotes

“This book was an accident, truly an accident. I had journals from all the years of therapy that I had to go through to help heal myself, and I’m still working on my healing process, and the culmination of all those journals turning into a manuscript was all very serendipitous.”

“I honestly didn’t realize that everything sort of flowed together in a situational meant-to-be type thing. If one thing hadn’t happened, then another might not have happened. And honestly, my husband and some close girlfriends of mine talk about that all the time. Would I even be here in this moment if it wasn’t for, unfortunately, some of the very sad and traumatic things that had happened?”

“I have learned from these trainings and from this meditation and from the love of my husband and support there, to be perfectly honest, it is okay to show emotion. It is okay to cry, and if you don’t, it comes out in other ways that are not positive.”

“I would say it’s very cathartic to write down all the nasty thoughts that you’re having, and sometimes you’re writing with real vigor. It’s almost like expressing it through any way, shape, or form that can really help emit and get rid of those negative and toxic feelings.”

“If you’re not wanted, why fight to stay? I didn’t think that I wasn’t going to be able to find another opportunity, and I was already on this path. And I will say now that I own my own firm and I’ve been a manager and a leader, and a been leadership, I have never forgotten how that made me feel, and I would never make someone feel that way. I would never put an employee, a teammate, a colleague of mine in a situation like that.”

“Everyone is going to do what’s best for themselves in all things at all times. The only way that you can overachieve beyond that and perhaps even solidify something is to force someone into a contract. And that is not, and it has never been me or my business partner at Hive Talent acquisition firm’s mentality on team membership.”

“There are way more candidates available now for the opportunities than there are opportunities. There used to be way more opportunities than there were candidates available. So this is a good market for job seekers, not necessarily the best market for hiring.”

Links

‘Before I Knew It, They Were Gone: A Jewish First-Generation American Woman’s Journey through the Darkness’ by Dana Neiger

’Trust and Inspire’ by Steven Covey

HIVE Website

Personal Website