Power of Self-Care in the Workplace: Strategies for HR Professionals with Optimal’s Eloise Lepesqueur

Better People Podcast

In this episode, Chief People Officer at Optimal, Eloise Lepesqueur talks about the emotional labor involved in HR, the risk of HR professionals experiencing burnout, and how to encourage your team to practice self-care.

Eloise Lepesqueur’s career spans over 20 years of building programs and strategies to support and grow diverse organizations.

Eloise is an accomplished Chief Operating Officer and Chief People Officer who has worked across mission-driven public and private sectors, focusing on people to build diverse and inclusive teams that repeatedly achieve operational success whether it’s in public affairs, marketing, change management, or digital advertising technology. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Better People Podcast:

• What a Chief People Officer does.
• How to handle different generations in the workforce.
• The importance of self-care in the workplace.
• The emotional labor involved in HR.
• The risk of HR professionals experiencing burnout.
• How to encourage your team to practice self-care.
• The role HR plays in mergers and acquisitions.
• How to show your employees you care about their opinion.

Resources:

• Optimal
• MidAtlantic Employers’ Association (MEA)

Connect with Eloise Lepesqueur:

• LinkedIn

Connecting with the host:

• Holly DePalma on LinkedIn
• Margaret Uhrich on LinkedIn

Quotables:

• 4:46 - “How are we working together so that we have safe places to work to be our authentic selves frankly during the work day, we spend so much time at work I don’t want it to be where we take off our hat and become a different person for the 8ish hours that we work that we can actually be our true selves at work as well.”
• 9:05 - “My experience with the Gen Y and Gen Zs work hard absolutely but I’d say from my experience little better at boundaries little better at setting boundaries and expectations and wanting more clarity and these were all things that were uncomfortable for me.”
• 14:10 - “We as the human resources people we put the human in human resources so we’re the people who really do care about the work we do we gravitate towards this field because of our interest in helping people the best they can be in their work days.”
• 15:31 - “It can be kind of lonely to be an HR professional but at the same time it can be incredibly valuable to know that you’ve been helpful to help someone along in their career or be that person to help them navigate a difficult situation but with that comes all that effort.”
• 17:25 - “When things are going really well people stand by you but when things go bad you stand alone and that’s where it can be a little bit hard.”