The Outcomes

100% of Penfield Children’s Center team members completed the Kolbe A™ Index

85% completion of quarterly goals for 12 consecutive quarters

Recognition for core values work via Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce’s True Colors Award

Student enrollment increase of 1% and UW-Milwaukee Charter School renewal for Penfield Montessori Academy
Client Profile

Child Development & Early Learning
240 Employees
Non-Profit
Founded 1967
Milwaukee, WI
Penfield Children’s Center (PCC) is focused on elevating the effectiveness of its operations through improved strategic planning and leadership development. They are also committed to building a strong internal culture and people practices that align to their organization core values and capitalizes on their employees’ natural strengths. While they’re in the business of transformative work in children, they looked for support around culture, leadership and strategic planning.
humanworks8 Solutions
Culture Elevation

Through Values Discovery Sessions, we worked with the Penfield team to create brand new core values. Today, you’ll see the values on building signage, at fundraising events, on social media, in job postings and more. Internally, the core values can be found on everything from staff t-shirts to performance reviews and coaching documents. Two of the core values have been the naming inspiration for internal programs as well, including Grow With Us, the performance management practice, and Better Together, Penfield’s DEI programming.
Talent Optimization
Beginning with the Penfield leadership team, we introduced the concept of Three Parts of the Mind to the organization. In a roll-out that spanned two years, we introduced the concept to over 115 team members across the organization’s departments and levels, working alongside HR to ensure every employee knew their instinctive, conative, strengths and could apply them to their work, relationships and life (during the COVID-19 pandemic). We then used this learning to guide hiring decisions for four leadership roles, and have continued to do so for various roles since. Today, all incoming team members complete a Kolbe A™ Index and participate in an onboarding workshop to understand their results and how to apply them at work, jumpstarting progress and relationships from Day 1.
Strategic Planning
As an organization with one united mission, but two distinct entities, Penfield had to strike a balance between consistency across the organization and meeting unique needs of the center and Montessori school respectively. For the center, we facilitated board meetings, quarterly strategic planning sessions and executive coaching. These efforts included discussions around role accountability, succession planning and operating system tools. In addition, we strengthened weekly staff meetings through redesigning agendas and temporarily serving as meeting facilitators.
Leadership Development

Leaders at Penfield Children’s Center kicked off a renewed focus on leadership development with interactive skill-building qworkshops designed and facilitated by our team. As we collaborated to create the Penfield Leadership Model, defining what it means to be a leader at Penfield, the team built on foundational components including core values, instinctive strengths, and “Innerview” topics before diving into performance management, relationship building, communication and strategic planning.
Client Feedback

The team at humanworks8 has guided Penfield on an extraordinary journey to coalesce around shared values, align the talents of our team and focus on immediate and strategic, mission-driven priorities. humanworks8 created intentional space and opportunity for staff, board and leadership to identify our long-standing, shared values and unite around organizational challenges. Penfield’s core values provide a framework for how we work together, treat one another and interact with our constituents. With the guidance of humanworks8, Penfield has strengthened all its processes and culture around recruitment, hiring and retention of our most valuable asset-people.
Christine Holmes
Former President, Penfield Children’s Center
New Capabilities

Integrate values into additional people practices, including external communications, talent attraction and internal processes.

Leverage new core values to guide all future strategic planning, positioning Sun Prairie to be an employer of choice and city of choice.

Build learning roadmap and content for individual and group training; Strengthen the coaching capabilities of people leaders