In this interview, Anissa, a summer volunteer intern with Be Complete, talks with Stephanie Shanley, the sole HR generalist at Infinex Investments. Stephanie outlines her broad HR responsibilities—payroll processing, employee relations, benefits administration, and serving as the primary HR contact. She shares that the most rewarding aspect of her job is helping employees navigate benefits and personal challenges, building relationships in the process. The conversation shifts to wellness initiatives run with Be Complete, including virtual exercise sessions, walking/step challenges, and incentive-driven team competitions. Stephanie notes that these programs raise awareness of physical, mental, and emotional wellness, though participation can be low, especially in a remote work setting where virtual events see less engagement than in‑person ones. She offers career advice for aspiring HR professionals, recommending entry‑level roles such as HR assistant, coordinator, or internships to gain hands‑on experience and networking. Finally, Stephanie strongly endorses Be Complete, praising its ease of collaboration, tailored program design, and assistance in coordinating with providers like Cigna, positioning it as a valuable partner for companies seeking wellness solutions.
Chapters
Okay. Hi everyone, my name is Anissa. I am a summer volunteer intern with Be Complete, and today I will be interviewing Stephanie Shanley, who is an HR manager at Infinex Investments. So today she'll just be giving us a little more insight into her career and some of her experience with Be Complete. So let's just get into the questions. So question number 1: Stephanie, what is your job position and some of the main responsibilities you have at your job?
Sure. So as you said, I am a human resources professional at Infinex. I have— my official title is HR generalist role, which means I basically do a little bit of everything. So, and it can vary from company to company. There's many different aspects of HR from benefits and compensation, recruiting, employee relations. Let's see what else. Training and development. So there's different areas, you know, that human resource professionals can specialize in, but as a generalist, you kind of get exposed to a little bit of everything, which I, I do enjoy. And so here at Infinex, this role has a primary focus on payroll, so processing payroll and handling any of the ask— some of the accounting aspects after that. And then also I am the main point of contact because I am the only HR person at the company. So any HR-related questions come to me. So I do handle any employee relations issues that come up. And then— but I'm also responsible for doing some fun programs, and that's where, you know, Be Complete comes in for the wellness. Aspect.
Awesome. Okay, so my next question I have for you is, what do you enjoy most about your role?
What I enjoy most about my role is helping people. That's really why I think I got into human resources in the first place. And if I think back of, you know, I always say, oh, I think I, I got here by accident. I didn't really intend to come into human resources, but what I like about it is helping people, um, whether it's with benefits you know, helping, walking them through how to enroll, explaining the benefits, because that does have an impact on their personal life. And you start to build relationships with people and assist them. And also on the benefits side, you know, people could be going through a hard time, you know, personally, maybe they're, they need to go have a surgery or they're going to go out and have a baby or something like that. You know, it's, you're, you're helping them, you're walking them through, you're a contact person, you're a resource for them. So that's what I enjoy most about the role.
Very nice. OK, so my next question I have for you, what kind of wellness activities do you enjoy doing?
So I would say I enjoy the challenges. I think that brings out the competitiveness of the group. And I like to see how people develop teams together and work together. And if you offer some type of prize or some type of incentive, that's always a bonus. But I've always enjoyed— administering the challenges with Be Complete and seeing how that all turns out.
Very nice. Okay. So, and what events have you done with Be Complete and what was the feedback that you got from employees?
Sure. So, hmm, trying to think of the recent ones we did. You know, we've been doing obviously a lot of virtual events. You know, we did the— we just did a virtual exercise session. In terms of the challenges though, I think we did a challenge in the past. I think I've done like a walking challenge or an activity challenge, based challenge, you know, getting in your steps, you know, to see who could earn the most points, whether individually or as a team. And trying to think what else we did. I know we've done a few, but right now it's escaping my memory.
That's okay. Very nice. Okay, so what would you— what do you feel is the biggest takeaway from wellness programs in general?
I think, you know, just making people more aware of wellness. You know, they might not make huge changes, you know, in a 4-week period, but at least I think they're more aware of it, even if maybe they don't participate, they could see, all right, you know, the company's sponsoring this type of event. And I think it's just trying to bring awareness to people of really how important it is to take care of your wellness, whether it be mental, physical, emotional. You know, that all impacts our lives. You know, we don't work just in a vacuum. Like everything is all intertwined together and everything affects each other. So I think that's the most important aspect.
Right. Okay. And then what challenges, if any, have you faced in the past with any wellness programs you've done and introduced to employees?
I think the biggest challenge we've had at Infinex is the participation rate. And I don't know if that's because we're still working from home and a lot of the events have been virtual. We did have a few challenges when we were working in the office. And I think just with the employee group that we have, it seemed that they were participating a little bit more when it was in person. Virtually, I thought, you know, people are in the comfort of their own home, so maybe they'll hop on, you know, the exercise, you know, virtual exercise session we have or yoga. But that's been a challenge, you know, to get people to kind of stop working. I feel, Some people, you know, working from home, they might work longer hours, right? And those are the people that really need it. They need to take a break and do some stretches and some exercises. So I think participation and getting people to participate has been one of the challenges for us.
Okay. Okay. My last couple of questions for you. What advice would you give anyone interested in human resources?
My advice would be, you know, start off, you know, if you can, as an HR assistant or as an HR coordinator, you know, if you're early on in your career. And that will give you a good idea of what goes on. It brings you in at the ground level. You could even do a human resources internship, which I did, and that will also expose you to, you know, what happens, you know, in an HR department, and then you can get a— can get a feel to see if that's something that you would like to do. Or, you know, maybe do some networking and find some HR professionals that you could reach out to and, and talk about their experience. But I feel like hands-on experience is the best. So that would be my recommendation.
Awesome. Thank you for that. And my last question for you is, what would you say to companies who are interested in working with BeComplete?
Well, I can't say enough good things about Be Complete. I, um, I connected with Beryl back, uh, in my last position, and then when I made the move over to Infonex and they wanted to start a wellness program, I immediately contacted her because she's very easy to work with. She makes my job a lot easier, and her and the team make the job a lot easier for me setting everything up, coming up you know, with— or introducing new ideas. And just really learning about— taking the time to learn about the company and to see what would fit best. And, you know, she's also helped coordinating with our providers such as Cigna and being, you know, an interface between them as well. So everything from soup to nuts, you know, she helps with. So that's been really, really Fantastic.
That's great. Okay, so those are all my questions I have for you. Thank you so much, Stephanie.
