Nikki Milum is our stellar Senior People Operations Partner! She excels in managing everything from benefits and compliance to HR systems and leave. With a background in pre-law and a master's in human resources and organizational development, she seamlessly integrates her insights into her role, ensuring a smooth and efficient workplace for everyone. When she’s not working with her team to enhance the employee experience, you can find her walking her dog Ted around the neighborhood, or traveling the world with her partner.
Read on to learn more about why Nikki thinks runZero is different from any place she’s worked before!
Q&A #
► Tell us something about your professional development journey.
I didn't intentionally go to school for HR. I kind of found it along the way. I did my undergrad in pre-law, took the LSAT, and was applying to law schools, but my uncle, who is an attorney, talked me out of that very quickly! After I graduated, I took a year off trying to figure out what I wanted to do and realized I kept leaning towards HR-type jobs. There was some overlap with compliance and employment laws so I decided to get my masters in human resources and organizational development!
My first job out of my master's I worked exclusively in benefits and leave, so that's a strong area for me - that job had 25 different benefit guides that were different for each group of people. This is my first B2B company and I’ve liked getting to do a bunch of different HR things and grow my career as an HR generalist. At runZero, I deal with benefits, HR compliance, onboarding/offboarding employees, managing our HRIS system, our culture events, and more. I’m passionate about making the employee experience better because we spend a significant amount of time working, or “at work” and I would like to make that easier for people.
► What makes runZero different from other organizations that you've worked at?
I really like the people who work here. One benefit of being in a startup is people are willing to try things that they haven't tried before and I think that's unique and fun for us as a People team as well! I also think we practice what we preach. There are a lot of companies that will advertise that they want you to have a good work-life balance, and they want you to take time off, or they are focusing on culture, etc., but then you get in there, and it is not what you thought it would be. I think we genuinely care about those and follow through with action.
For example, in May for Mental Health Awareness Month, internally we pushed more information out for people to utilize health benefits and various programs available. We also geared our social hour that month towards mental health and sent attendees gifts they could reuse. There’s care and thought put into the details. Another example is our yearly summit. We aren't in meetings the entire time because there's an emphasis on personal relationships, having time to recharge, and not having your social battery run out. I think a lot of places again would have booked that solid of meetings, not doing anything fun or interactive like we try to incorporate each year.
► How do you or your team innovate or work to improve your processes?
As the People team, we're constantly trying to improve or innovate anything that we've previously done - like we're always trying to one up ourselves! We will have versions 1, 2, and 3, and we’re regularly updating and changing things based on employee feedback or trends we see as a team. We really do try to put the employee first, and Madison, my direct manager, and the VP of People, makes it okay to fail. She creates a safe space to share different ideas, and new concepts, in our team meetings or via Slack - and I think we work well together to try to make those ideas a reality. I've worked with managers where you're terrified to even put a period in the wrong place! So I like being able to have the freedom to throw any idea against the wall that you want. Opens up a lot of opportunities to do new kinds of things. I like the openness to new ideas and the ability to voice those without concern to my team.
► What was the last show you watched?
I'm currently watching it because it's airing weekly but it's RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Star Season 9. I would say I’m rooting for Angeria and Vanji.
