On the first Tuesday of every month, we’ll announce a new Female Founder, including a video interview of them sharing their business story. Want to be featured as a Female Founder?
Contact Memberships for more details. The Female Founders Program would not be possible without our Title Sponsor, Scotiabank.
To learn a little more about the Scotiabank Women Initiative, and why they’ve chosen to sponsor this program, see the video below.
The next Female Founder we’re featuring is Julie Newman, Founder & Principal of Willow Hall HR.
Julie Newman is a Certified Human Resources Leader with over 15 years of experience dedicated to building better workplaces. As the Founder and Principal of Willow Hall HR, she is passionate about creating and supporting environments that are welcoming, inclusive, and psychologically safe. This commitment was honed during her 11 years in senior leadership at Camino Mental Health + Wellbeing, a non-profit organization in the Waterloo Region.
Julie brings a unique perspective to her work, drawing from an Honours degree in Kinesiology and a Masters of Medical Science to develop practical solutions for complex challenges. She excels at balancing HR best practices with the specific operational needs of an organization. A well-rounded professional, Julie has deep expertise in building organizational culture, performance management, recruitment, employee relations, and health and safety. As a certified facilitator of both DiSC® and The Five Behaviors®, she leverages these powerful tools to help organizations enhance productivity and create better places for people to work.
Her approach is grounded in a philosophy that embeds organizational values into effective business operations, with a focus on strengthening both leadership and followership to build high performing teams.
A lifelong learner, Julie applies knowledge from a broad range of operational areas—including risk management, quality, communications, privacy, and customer service —to effectively solve business problems and unlock opportunities. She is committed to fostering the next generation of leaders in her field as part-time faculty at Conestoga College, where she teaches and supports future HR professionals.
Outside of work, Julie enjoys connecting with family, cottaging in Muskoka, and all things basketball. Her work and life are guided by a core belief, perfectly captured by Michael Jordan: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships”.
To learn more about Julie’s journey as a Female Founder, watch the interview below (or read the written format).
My name is Julie Newman, and I am the Principal and Founder of Willow Hall HR. Willow Hall HR is an HR advisory and consulting firm that supports primarily small and medium-sized businesses. Our vision is to help create workplaces where people and their business thrive.
Tell us about your business
You can think of us as a strategic HR department for small and medium-sized businesses. We support businesses with things from leadership and organizational culture development, through to the day-to-day HR tasks like recruiting, HR compliance, and performance management. What sets us apart is that we combine an evidence-based approach with our core philosophy of embedding leadership and followership in the organization.
And this helps us create workplaces where people genuinely want to work. And that’s important because when people want to come to work, they’re engaged in their work, and that translates to a meaningful, positive impact on the businesses that they work for.
Where did your business idea come from?
The idea for Willow Hall HR really came from my passion to create inclusive, welcoming, and psychologically safe workplaces.
This was cemented for me during 11 years of my career that I spent working for a local non-profit organization. There I saw firsthand that when you put the needs of your people first, that organizational success naturally follows. And I saw a gap here for small and medium-sized businesses.
Often, businesses that are smaller in size don’t have an HR department, or they don’t have someone with the HR strategic expertise. And so, Willow Hall HR was designed to bridge this exact gap to help bring that strategic level of HR, whether that’s in something that you’re looking at more strategically, or bringing that strategy into your day-to-day operations, so that small and medium-sized businesses can benefit from those strategies.
What were you doing before you started your business?
My undergraduate degree is in kinesiology. And I went on to do a master’s in medical science, and I was going to be a professor. I was going to complete my PhD, and I was going to teach at the university level. But as I started on this journey, I decided that was not the route for me.
And so, after doing a lot of soul-searching and a lot of informational interviews, I landed on HR. And HR has been my home ever since, and I feel like I’ve really found my calling. From there, I was able to leverage my expertise in kinesiology and worked in disability management in the return-to-work fields, before I entered the non-profit sector.
And there, I spent 11 years there working for a local non-profit organization. And I got exposure not only to HR, but to other aspects of the business. Privacy, quality, also had the opportunity to look at communications and administration for a little bit.
And so, I gained this really breadth of knowledge of business that I wouldn’t have had if I went to a larger employer. And that is really one of the strengths that I bring to Willow Hall HR’s clients, that I can bring this generalist level of expertise and understanding of other aspects of the business that pure HR professionals sometimes can’t or are not as talented as bringing.
What have been some of the highlights of your entrepreneurial journey so far?
I think the biggest highlight for me in my entrepreneurial journey is starting Willow Hall HR. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and I always had this idea that I wanted to have my own business. I just didn’t know what that would be. So, seeing Willow Hall HR come to life and come to fruition is definitely a highlight for me.
Other highlights include having the opportunity to be a two-time speaker at Disrupt HR KW and share innovative ways on how we can approach HR differently with a broader audience. And having the opportunity to share a story about embedding a leadership-followership model throughout a whole organization and our learnings from that and having that published in a journal titled “Developing Leaders Quarterly”.
What are some of the challenges that you faced so far?
In terms of challenges, I think I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the challenge of being a female entrepreneur along with being a wife and a mom of two kiddos.
Trying to find the balance of when to invest time and energy into your business versus your family life is something that I’m still trying to figure out. So, if you’re a female founder and you have that figured out, I want to hear from you. Please reach out. Let me know on that secret.
Some of the other more practical challenges that I’ve had are coming from a science background. I didn’t have the full breadth of knowledge in some of the other business areas like accounting. So, learning how to invoice, do HST and taxes was challenging for me. However, I was so fortunate in that my husband is a CPA and helped provide some guidance and expertise along the way.
Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would do differently?
One of the gifts that I had was that I started Willow Hall HR sooner than my life plan. And so, that was very fortunate. However, that came with the challenge of trying to get things off the ground very quickly. And I didn’t spend the time up front thinking about how I would communicate and articulate the services that Willow Hall HR offers as well as the value that we bring.
And I would have really liked to spend some more time up front figuring out how I would articulate those as I think that would make a huge difference in the initial stages of starting up the business.
What methods have you used to grow your business?
In terms of growing the business, joining the Chamber is one of the first things that I did. I was invited as a guest to attend one of the events and was encouraged to join.
Best decision I made. I also joined one of the Chamber Plus networking groups with the Chamber and I had the opportunity to help develop business leads there and connect with fellow entrepreneurs, which I’ve really enjoyed. Most of my business comes from word of mouth. So, I do lots of networking, but the best thing I can do is provide a great experience and work with amazing people and have them share that with others.
How do you define success?
Success for me comes down to delivering on Willow Hall HR’s values and our vision of creating workplaces where people and businesses thrive. And when you think about an employee’s work experience, that’s not one single thing. It’s a collection of small individual experiences. And so, success for me is helping organizations create a collection of small individual experiences that the employee remembers and creates to building a more positive organizational culture.
What are some of the core values that you have integrated into your business?
So, there’s three core values that Willow Hall HR is built on. Humans first are #1, better together is #2, and always moving forward is #3. So, humans first means that we act with compassion and authenticity in every interaction. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have difficult conversations or make difficult decisions, but when we do that and we communicate those decisions, we do so with empathy, compassion, and authenticity.
The second, better together. So, that’s twofold for Willow Hall HR. Our clients and their success, they are better because of the individual gifts of their employees and the people that work for them.
And so, they are better because of all the people that work as part of that organization. And it also applies to Willow Hall HR in our work. We are experts in HR, but our clients are experts in their own business. And so, when we’re trying to find innovative and simple solutions to HR challenges, we are better when we combine both of our expertise and find something that is tailored to meet the business needs. Third value is always moving forward. And the HR field is constantly evolving and changing, and so is the landscape for the businesses that we support.
And so, that means that we need to constantly think about how we are moving and where we’re going to go next, so we continue to offer progressive and innovative solutions to our clients.
What are some of the important strategies for recruiting talent?
So, I think there’s three foundational elements that you should even think about before we talk about tactical strategies to build teams and recruit talent. So, the first is creating a foundation of psychological safety. And when I say psychological safety, most people think that I mean making people feel comfortable. And that is not at all the case. That’s not at all what I mean.
What I do mean is about creating an environment where people feel that they can ask questions, raise concerns, make a mistake without feeling that they’re going to be subject to retribution. And really, it’s about creating an environment that is around growth. And when we’re growing and learning and developing, we are rarely comfortable. And in fact, if you’re comfortable, you’re probably not learning and growing. So, psychological safety, I think, is a good foundation to start to build a team or recruit your talent.
The second is leadership followership and creating an environment where we recognize that people, regardless of their role or their job title, use leadership and followership skills in their day-to-day work. So, for example, a frontline employee uses leadership skills when they’re sharing their expertise with a client or trying to make a sale. And then they use a followership skill when they are reporting to their boss, for example. But we use these skills throughout our day and interchange between those roles.
And followership skills are actually more tightly linked to organizational success. And pretty much when you train organizations on followership skills, you have increases in pretty much every single organizational metric. And so, I think valuing and recognizing those two roles is something else that’s a really great foundation to build your team on.
And the last is shared purpose and shared values. Shared purpose comes easy to nonprofit organizations. It can be more difficult to articulate that when you are a small or medium-sized business. And so I think deciding on what your shared purpose is and communicating that to your people can be one effective way of bringing people together. And then combining that with shared values. And when I say shared values, I don’t mean one-word generic values that are maybe posted on a plaque on the wall that no one can articulate or explain what they mean or how you use those in your business.
I mean values that are meaningful, that your employees can explain what those mean, how they live those values on a day-to-day basis. And those are kind of three foundational elements that if you get that right, then the strategies for team building and recruiting your talent become much simpler and easier to implement. And they become much more effective.
Have you used those strategies here in Waterloo Region?
Yes, I have absolutely used integrated shared purpose and vision into recruiting strategies in Waterloo Region. One of the first questions that I ask employers that I work with is, “could I please see your vision, mission, and values?”
And then I design questions around those to make sure that we are finding talent that aligns with what your business represents. And when we do that, you’re more likely to have someone that’s aligned with your business and that’s going to stick around.
What inspires you?
So, what really inspires me is doing great work with amazing people. And when you do great work with amazing people, just great things come from that. I love the feeling of leaving a facilitation session and feeling the energy of the participants where they’re ready and inspired to integrate their new learnings. Or leaving an interview and knowing that we found just the right candidate for a vacancy that my client was concerned about filling. And knowing that that candidate aligns with the business. And those are the feelings that keep me going and inspire me to do great work in our community.
I love working with amazing people and delivering great work with them.
What advice would you give to other aspiring business owners?
The first piece of advice I’d give is to continuously learn, whether that’s formal learning or informal learning. I’d encourage you to continue your learning journey. Continue to develop your breadth and depth of knowledge in whatever areas you’re interested in. Sometimes those areas that you develop in, that you don’t really see a link to your business initially, end up helping you later down the line. Or become foundational to your business down the line.
So, continuing to learn and grow I think is one of those. The other piece of advice that I would give is to think about your competitors differently. Often, we think about when we’re in a business that we are competing for clients, for sales, whatever it is that your business is based on.
But thinking about your competitor differently, there’s typically enough business to go around in the community. And I know that I have found a great community with fellow HR practitioners that have their own businesses. And it’s a sense of community that I have. Someone that I can call up and ask questions. Or at times even collaborate with and deliver even more innovative solutions than I could on my own. So that would be another piece of advice that I would have is to think about competitors in a different light.
What goals do you have for your business?
I would love for Willow Hall HR to be the go-to place that organizations come to grow and take their business and their people to the next level. On top of that, there are two conversations in HR that I would love for Willow Hall HR to be influential in shifting. The first is around psychological safety. We talk so much about physical safety in the workplace. And historically, there’s absolutely the reason to do that and continues to do that. But we rarely talk about psychological safety.
Most people don’t realize that Canada was one of the first countries to come out with psychological safety standards for the workplace, which is almost 10 years ago. And they’re rarely implemented, used or, you know, used by employers. And I would love for employers to be able to see the benefit of talking about and implementing psychological safety standards.
So that’s number one. The other conversation that I’d love to be influential in shifting and changing is one around leadership. We talk about leadership training as being, you know, a privileged training that you receive.
You’re sort of at the top level of your organization and recognizing that everyone in organizations, regardless of your level, can benefit from leadership skills and use those leadership skills and thinking about developing leaders earlier.
Where can we find out more about your business?
You can learn more about my business at Willowhallhr.com or feel free to reach out to me directly at willowhallhr@gmail.com.
