About humanworks8
Our Values
Champion People
Lift people up. Never lose sight of who makes everything possible in the first place.
Be Authentic
Follow your instincts. Honor your vision. Stay True to your dreams
Elevate
Never settle for the easy answer. Pave a better, brighter path.
Breathe
Pause & reflect. Find energy in balanced well-being.
Wonder
Be curious & be in awe. Always believe in what could come next.
The 8
The “8” in our name represents eight universal truths about people. Every solution, every service, every relationship we have begins with this understanding.
Organizations flourish and bottom lines improve when these eight truths are recognized and elevated.
Everyone’s Unique
Activate Instincts & Discover Talent
When you can work in a style that feels natural, you thrive. So how do you discover someone’s natural ways of working? Using proven processes, we’ll help you understand each individual’s passions and instincts, so you can activate their most fluid and productive ways of working. That’s how you find, welcome and engage the right person for the right role.
Everyone Believes
Identify Values & Create Vision
We all depend on our values and beliefs to help us make decisions in life. It’s easier (and more fulfilling) to get up and go to work when we feel like we’re doing it for the right reasons, and contributing to a common good. How can you tap into that human motivation? By revealing your unique culture and core values, we create a clear beacon to inspire, encourage and guide your employees.
Everyone Connects
Develop Relationshipos & Foster Teamwork
Two brains are better than one. But how do you create pathways to partnership and foster an environment of collaboration across a sprawling organization? It all starts with building trust and support. We’ll help you create interactions among team members that develop and unite well-connected, high-performing, diverse teams.
Everyone Contributes
Question Together & Communicate Clearly
We love a good question, because that means a great conversation is right around the corner. A good question reminds us every person has a voice, and every person has a valuable point of view. Are you ready to honor and listen to your unique thinkers? We’ll help you create a communication framework that inspires them to speak up and fuel your business with fresh ideas.
Everyone Rises
Energize Systems & Inspire Leadership
We all want to give our very best. So how do we create processes that help us naturally rise to the challenge? By embracing the people that work within those processes every day, you can refine and elevate systems in a way that creates clarity at every level of operation. We’ll help energize core processes and unique ways of working that produce confidence, accountability and the discipline of true leadership.
Everyone Learns
Improve Performance & Encourage Development
Tomorrow requires new knowledge and creative solutions. So how do you boost personal development and progressive performance? We believe the same drive that motivates a learner empowers them to teach. We’ll help you create a learning environment—driven by your employees themselves—that celebrates discovery, personal growth and positions talent for tomorrow’s needs.
Everyone Thrives
Boost Well-Being & Enliven Community
We’re not robots. We all find energy in different outlets and feel at home in different environments. So how do we create an atmosphere that promotes fulfillment? Focusing on harmony and community, we’ll help you crack the wellness code to establish balanced, energizing environments in which everyone can live their best life.
Everyone Matters
Bring Work to Life & Life to Work
We believe each person is inherently significant. Everyone’s dreams, talents, instincts, quirks and characteristics play a vital role in bringing your business to life. Your employees produce the pulse of your company, and when they’re nurtured and elevated, business grows—and potential expands. We’ll help you facilitate conversations and actions to create an environment of belonging and inclusion across your talent canvas.
Our Team
Our team exists to end the idea that work happens apart from life. The four of us spent much of our careers building and living in an award-winning culture that celebrated individual strengths, championed unified systems and prioritized well-being. We designed a people-first workplace where every action was aligned to “gutsy” core values that echoed the lived experiences of real employees. After seeing how delicate and vital a people-centric culture was to the success of the business, we made it our mission to help leaders create organizations where people can breathe, belong and grow.
Shawn Gulyas, Founder & The Thought Catalyst
Shawn exists to design and facilitate creative experiences that challenge one’s thinking and action – helping individuals and companies find their authenticity, breathe into their well-being, and elevate their people touchpoints. After a career filled with growth and learning in Human Resources leadership, Shawn decided to venture out and get his hands dirty with other organizations in need of bringing their work to life through championing people. Think of Shawn as a “jump-starter” of ideas around the belief that everyone matters and as a leader who creates cultures and communities where values, natural instincts and well-being are the essence of success. Other things Shawn believes in: Peace, Wonder and Yoda.
Rebecca Swanson, Co-Founder & The Talent Connector
Rebecca’s ability to make optimistic human connections with ease and foster meaningful relationships has contributed to a recruiting career that has spanned more than 20 years. She is an employer brand ambassador, linking all talent actions back to the organization’s core purpose and values to ensure she’s connecting the right people to the right opportunities in partnership with hiring leaders. Rebecca has a demonstrated history of securing talent in a variety of disciplines and has had focus on human resources, compensation management, career development, and talent lifecycle engagement. At humanworks8, think of Rebecca as the talent connector, weighing in on all things talent lifecycle – from first impression to onboarding. When she’s not professionally networking, Rebecca appreciates time spent socializing with friends and family, practicing yoga, and enjoying life with her husband and three dogs through good food, hiking and travel.
AJ Kruse, Co-Founder & The Concept Illustrator
AJ needs to make things make sense, not only for himself, but for you as well. His resilient curiosity is illuminated by people and discovering how they work. This quality, along with his knack for joining backstage design and front stage presentation has guided him through a dynamic professional career that began in elementary education and has continued in organizational development. For humanworks8, think of AJ as someone who holds fast, lighting the path to improvement and handing you tools to make the journey a success. What else makes AJ tick? Faith, family and Friday night pizza
Sarah Marshall, Co-Founder & The Experience Architect
Sarah breaks down the big picture into calculated actions. This can be said for whatever she’s working on – from building an intranet site to kicking off a new strategic plan of action. Sarah excels at envisioning, planning and executing strategies around organizational communication and employee engagement, and loves tapping into her creativity for core values and team development engagements. At humanworks8, Sarah serves as the experience architect, building the roadmap for communications and people experiences. During “me time,” you can find Sarah enjoying the great outdoors, on a Peloton ride, or organizing something into a spreadsheet.
Jeanna Bunke, Business Growth Leader
With a background in recruitment, education and non-profit work, Jeanna brings her passion for relationship-building and dot-connecting to humanworks8. Using her capacity to connect with people from diverse backgrounds, Jeanna meets people where they are at, with an emphasis on respect and trust. At humanworks8, Jeanna spends her time creating, nurturing and maintaining relationships in an authentic manner. Her creative ideas and passion for telling the humanworks8 story contribute to the growing community of business leaders leveraging people-centric solutions to help their organizations elevate culture and efficiency. Jeanna also enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter, exploring Milwaukee’s food scene and singing in the cover band, Stray Voltage.