HR Innovator Award
Winner
Krystal Holmes
Vice President of Talent, All In One Accounting, Inc.
All In One Accounting’s HR infrastructure was “a fragmented tech stack of disparate systems,” says Becky Lewis, chief operating officer at AIOA. But within 12 months, Krystal Holmes transformed the firm’s entire HR ecosystem through the smart, scalable implementation of technology.
By spearheading the move to a new HRIS platform and digitizing fundamental HR processes, she brought efficiency to once time-consuming manual processes and enabled the company to grow from 85 to 110 employees — a 29 percent increase — without adding HR headcount.
Holmes also introduced technology that allowed leadership to identify areas for improvement based on employee input and transitioned the company from a fully funded group medical plan to a self-funded plan with stop-loss coverage.
But to the judges, what set Holmes apart was her revamp of the candidate experience. In what Lewis calls Holmes’s “most creative innovation,” Holmes completely reimagined candidates’ journeys with AIOA. She created and systematized an experience that features custom web pages for each applicant that offer personalized videos throughout the recruitment process.
The new system also provides a resource library to educate candidates on AIOA’s mission, culture, and operations before interviews, transforming interviews from surface-level exchanges into meaningful dialogues, leading to better hiring decisions.
The judges were impressed by Holmes’s creativity, efficiency, and willingness to think beyond traditional HR technology solutions. According to Lewis, Holmes’s work exemplifies the qualities the HR Innovator Award recognizes and “positions All In One Accounting for continued growth while ensuring exceptional experiences for every person who interacts with the organization.”
Finalists
Sarah Johnson
Compensation & Benefits Manager, Pipestone
As the sole benefits manager at Pipestone, Sarah Johnson leverages technology, builds strong vendor partnerships, and prioritizes the employee experience. This past year, Johnson led a digital transformation of the company’s benefits administration process, eliminating common pain points and improving accuracy. Johnson helps Pipestone remain competitive by evaluating Pipestone’s benefits and compensation package against market benchmarks. While her technological improvements are notable, Johnson’s dedication to fairness and accuracy set her apart.
Michelle Lemahieu
Director of HR and Strategic Services, Gillette Children’s
With more than a decade of leadership experience in health care systems, Michelle Lemahieu excels in strategic planning, staff development, and fostering employee engagement. Recently, Lemahieu and her team collaborated with leadership at Gillette Children’s to implement an innovative scheduling solution that helps anticipate demand, optimize schedules in advance, and offer open shifts across units. To ensure a smooth transition, Lemahieu and her team redesigned workflows and aligned policies and practices with the new technology.
Krishna Sallman
Director of HR, Securian Financial
In addition to leading several capabilities for Securian’s HR team — including Learning and Development, Talent and Leadership Development, Associate Relations, and Talent Analytics — Krishna Sallman is the HR liaison for the company’s technology team. In this role, she willingly takes on the hard behind-the-scenes work of improving the company’s tech and data foundations. In the past year, Sallman has significantly enhanced features and functionality within Securian’s primary HR system, Workday, including AI enablement.
Koni Thomas
Director of HR, Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities
By reimplementing Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities’ existing human resources information system, Paycor, Koni Thomas has made tracking, reporting, and decision-making faster, easier, more informed, and more accurate, from fully integrated performance management and open enrollment systems to training modules with automated enrollment and reporting. Thomas’s improvements have saved hundreds of hours in manual data entry and report consolidation, revealed deeper and more helpful analysis and insights, and greatly improved the employee experience.