Meet Morris Scott, Vice President of Human Resources and Facilities at Boundless Learning. Morris leads the human resources department and is responsible for the upkeep of our office locations globally.

Morris joined us to discuss his educational and career background, why he’s passionate about human resources, and the impact technology has on HR, along with his perspective on the Boundless Learning values.

“I went to Valencia Community College in Orlando, and I graduated in 2006 with an associate degree in human resources management. I started as a recruiter with a security company. While working as a recruiter, I went to Kaplan University for my bachelor's in HR, and then a master’s degree.

I later worked for Kaplan University, and it was cool to work for my alma mater. That's where I got my start with higher education. I worked for them for five years as an HR Business Partner. From there, I went to Walmart Health & Wellness and worked in HR there for almost three years. Next, I was hired by Pearson.

I’ve been in my current role as Vice President of Human Resources and Facilities at Boundless Learning for one month. It's an awesome challenge. I don't know it all, and I never will, but I have an amazing team. They are super supportive of me and understand that there will be a learning curve. Prior leadership also helped set me up for current success.

People leadership is rewarding when you see employees continue to excel around you. I never thought I'd sit in the seat that I'm sitting in now, but it's awesome.”

“Prior to earning my associate degree in HR management, I spent a decade in the restaurant industry. Being with and around people in the customer service environment has always been a passion of mine. I love people, so that's always been there. But in some cases, you see individuals who are underrepresented or not treated as fairly as they could or should be. That's part of what made me say, ‘Hey, listen, if I ever become a person who can help people and the business together, then that's a role I'd like to sit in.’

I also admired the VP of HR at the company I was working for at the time. He was a really cool dude, and he did a training on the five love languages, and I thought that was awesome. That was my introduction to human resources.”

“Workplace culture is a combination of a couple different things. At its core, it's how you treat people. It's always about treating people with dignity and respect and letting people know you care about them.

I tell my coworkers today that I love them. During the coronavirus pandemic, I had a vice president of HR at Walmart who told all of us HR leaders in a meeting that he loved us. And when he said that to us on that call, that changed something in my life. He wasn't being inappropriate, and it actually led me to believe he cared about me.

So, when you begin to talk about building a workplace culture, you have to create an environment where people feel that somebody cares about them, and that they're not just another number or statistic.

It plays into work-life balance. You must have leaders that buy into that culture and believe in taking care of people while also encouraging them to perform at a high level.

You do your best to make sure individuals are engaged — that they come to work for more than just a paycheck. You do your best to make sure everyone feels like they're a part of something bigger, and that they're welcomed and respected.”

“I tell people all the time, even when I teach, the most important thing you do in life, period, is manage relationships. It doesn't matter if it's with a parent, sibling, significant other, higher power, coworkers, or person at the grocery store. Whomever it is, building relationships is the most important thing we ever do.

From an HR perspective, we build relationships by making sure we build trust with the partners we support. You have to build trust, you have to be responsive, you have to be timely, and you have to let your business partners know that you're here to support them in navigating through whatever we're doing together.

When you build that trust and have those solid relationships, and you’re firm, fair, and consistent, that's what matters.

“Everyone is always looking to tap more into AI. Even something as simple as the way we build job descriptions, AI can help us in that space so we don't have to re-write them from scratch.

I think HR will tap into AI to help us with the administrative pieces of our work. I don't think AI is ever going to build those relationships we were just talking about, and they'll definitely never replace the human element of being in human resources.

For a lot of the platforms that we're using, like our HRIS (Human Resource Information System), AI can help speed up processes and how we do things quicker and make sure we utilize all the right tools. Even for our Employee Resource Groups, there are tools coming out to help us facilitate those in a virtual or hybrid setting.”

“If a company does not have values in place, that’s like attempting to cook something without the ingredients to make it. Values are foundational. They help us formulate where a company is going; their entire mission and vision should be based on their values. All companies need a roadmap of who they want to be and where they want to go — and the values are the principles of how they’re going to get there.

The Boundless Learning values are respect, ownership, and innovation.

Respect is everything. Unfortunately, we live in a society now where people are not as respectful as they need to be to everyone. So, for a company to emphasize respect as a foundational value of theirs means that we put treating everyone as a human being who deserves some dignity and respect at the foundation of who we are. That's our baseline.

When it comes to ownership, one of the things we're looking to do is continue to build a high performing culture. You've got to own your piece regardless of what your job is. All our jobs and roles are important, but you have to own it, which means when you make a mistake, you own that mistake and commit to doing better.

Innovation is inevitable. It has to happen. Anyone can develop something or put an idea forward that helps solve a problem. To me, that's part of innovation. As an organization, we ask, ‘How do we get better at doing something? How do we solve a problem? How do we make things a little bit better? And we need to continue to be creative as an organization to stay true to our values.”

About Morris Scott: Morris is an experienced human resources leader with nearly two decades of experience in the field. Prior to his role as Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Facilities, Morris was Senior Human Resources Manager at Boundless Learning. Morris has also held roles at Pearson, Walmart Health & Wellness, and Kaplan University, among others.

In addition to his role at Boundless Learning, Morris is an adjunct online professor at Florida Technical College and is earning his PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University.