The Empathy Deficit
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Leaders are struggling to reconcile empathy gaps with employees. The pandemic response has changed employee expectations and IE&D/DEI efforts are not consistently reaching or resonating with them. Join SHRM's IE&D Council to learn how to assess your empathy level and help your organizational leaders minimize the empathy deficit.
Mary Cheddie, SHRM-SCP
Mary Cheddie, SHRM-SCP is divisional director, East for SHRM. In her role, she is responsible for member acquisition and retention, leadership development for volunteer leaders, chapters, and state councils, and creating the value-added proposition for SHRM.
Cheddie has more than 35 years of domestic and international experience in all aspects of human resources and training. She has extensive experience with strategic planning, M&As, and in starting and turning around businesses.
Prior to joining SHRM, she served as senior vice president of human resources for Interval Leisure Group, Inc. and its affiliated companies. The company was publicly traded on NASDAQ and the leading provider of vacation services with a global consumer membership base of nearly 2 million member families, more than 2,500 member resorts in over 75 countries worldwide, and has oversight for about 14,000 employees.
Cheddie also served as senior vice president, people with PRC, as well as vice president, human resources, strategic planning, office services, and facilities for The Orvis Company, Inc. in Manchester, VT.
She earned her MBA from Upper Iowa University, a bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey, and is certified as a SHRM-Senior Certified Professional.
Cheddie received the HR Award of Excellence, Hospitality in 2016 from South Florida Business & Wealth. Business Leader Magazine named Cheddie one of the 2011 Women Extraordinaire and in 2012 the National Diversity Council awarded her the Glass Ceiling Award.
She serves on the Board of Trustees for Upper Iowa University, Chairs the Human Capital Committee and is a member of the Governance and Advancement Committees, Chaired the Keiser Career College’s Advisory Board, was a member of the Board of Directors for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) from 2003-2008 and chaired SHRM’s governance and compensation committees. Cheddie has more than 35 years of SHRM volunteer leadership experience at the national, regional, state, and local levels. She also served on the Waldorf College Alumni Board from 2004 through 2008 and was the President of the Dallas HR Association in 2000 (one of the largest affiliated SHRM chapters). She resides in South FL.
Felix Massey
With more than two decades of Human Resources corporate leadership, Felix Massey, SHRM-SCP, has provided innovative “people solutions” and HR best practices for small to mid-size organizations in industries to include: consumer services, aviation, retail, entertainment, and distribution for Blockbuster Entertainment, Paramount Parks, G2 Secure Staff, LLC and HomeTeam Pest Defense. Felix studied Business Management at University of Louisiana; received Management Leadership certification from Center for Creative Leadership. Felix joined SHRM as a corporate employee in 2018 as Director, Field Services (SE Region) and in 2019 became Sr. Director of Customer Experience.
At SHRM, Felix oversees and leads a virtual and outsourced customer experience operation which supports and propels SHRM’s customer centricity and growth strategies. Creating and sustaining a world-class omni-channel platform, accomplished via the efforts of a diverse team of virtual agents residing in 16 countries. The Customer Experience team is charged with providing swift resolution to customer/member inquiries, and driving revenue growth through new customer acquisition, retention, and higher engagement.
Felix lives in Arlington, TX with his wife, Cecelia and son, Bryce. You can contact Felix at felix.massey@shrm.org; LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/felixmassey; Twitter: @SHRMFelix.