Lisa Isaac HR Professional Services

When Lisa Isaac found her personal values didn’t match with those of the company she worked for, she decided to branch out on her own. “I had not planned to start my own business that soon,” says Lisa, who founded Lisa Isaac Human Resources (HR) Professional Services on July 17, 2018. “My plan was to do some other things for a few years and then start my own business. That two-year time frame was cut down to four months.”

Lisa was set up with her first client through a referral and the client was quite supportive, understanding that she was still learning the business side of HR. “I learned a lot in that first little bit,” Lisa says. “What I do is consulting for small- and medium-sized businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and First Nations across Canada. I have been in HR for well over 10 years and I am especially passionate about the diversity and inclusion space which I accidentally found myself in through volunteering through one of my employers when I was in university. What I found was I had actually been doing HR for years and it wasn’t until I was 25 that I learned that is actually a career and somebody would pay me to do it.” Lisa says her original plan was simply to get enough work to pay her monthly bills. However, her business grew so fast that within three months she had to hire someone. Her team is currently up to six members with two more contractors. She says she loves running the show. “When you work for a company, you have to work with the other people they have hired,” Lisa says. “When you are an entrepreneur, you find organizations that believe in what you do and you are able to find the people that are really your champions and who support what you do and how you work. I am lucky to be surrounded by fantastic people.”Lisa Isaac HR Professional Services always offers a free discovery meeting. “Companies come to me for one of two reasons,” Lisa says. “One is they understand the value that doing HR well can add productivity to their organization. So, there is the proactive group that knows they need to do it well or things will happen. Then there is the other side that comes to me when, ‘Oh my goodness, something has happened and I need to clean it up and I don’t know what to do.’ I find most of what I do is really just pointing people in the right direction for the resources they need. I don’t make anything up. HR is not rocket science.”

Lisa, 38, of Moose Deer Point First Nation, ON (about two hours north of Toronto), moved around a lot growing up, spending much of her youth in Ontario, then ventured west to Nunavut and Alberta, before settling in Sarnia. Lisa attended Lethbridge University and the University of Ottawa. “The most rewarding part for me is my values are the values of the company,” Lisa says. “I worked in organizations where that wasn’t necessarily aligned. It ultimately comes down to being able to help people businesses and organizations be better. When that happens their employees are happy and everybody benefits.”