Columbus Business First Magazine is well known for recognizing employer excellence — EASE is honored to be a recipient of many of its awards over the years. The magazine has expanded its Best Places to Work program this year to celebrate the professionals who labor tirelessly behind the scenes to develop the policies and practices that attract and retain the best people for their organizations.
We are proud to share that our own Ashley Duning, Human Resource Manager, is one of the 20 Central Ohio human resource professionals being honored with this inaugural HR Impact Award.
Ashley was hired in the fall of 2017 as the first HR Generalist, transitioned to also be the first HR Resource Manager and most recently has taken on the role of HR Business Partner. Her solid knowledge of human resources, hard work ethic, and moxie make her a driving force in the company as it continues to experience accelerated growth. In her first six months alone, she single-handedly hired 45 employees. As the first person to hold and develop this position from the ground up, she was instrumental in establishing strategies for attracting top talent and sustaining a strong functional team through effective recruiting, training, coaching, team building, and succession planning.
While firmly established in her current position as a manager, Ashley continues to take her experience as a generalist to heart. She doesn’t consider anything that comes into her view as being “outside her job description.” Instead, she takes in the information and considers the potential impact on the company — positive or negative. Ashley has proven herself as someone who can be relied on when and where needed, from taking EASE’s retention rate to an all-time high during a worldwide pandemic, quadrupling employee headcount in just three years, to helping out when the office needs straightening up.
Ashley is committed to always going above and beyond to do what it takes to attract, cultivate, empower, support, and ultimately retain the right people for EASE. Understanding that an employee’s wellbeing extends beyond work hours, she wants to ensure that everyone feels valued, safe, has fun, and more, all while protecting the company and mitigating risk.
Some of the initiatives and policies that Ashley has contributed to at EASE include paid family leave, extended considerations for bereavement leave, a no-bullying policy, and numerous monthly wellness, volunteer, team building and engagement activities.
Human Resources involves the exquisite art of maintaining balance at all times — transparency with discretion, friendly with stern, the needs of executives with those of employees, and hard work with earned play. During her time at EASE, Ashley has mastered this balance. Most of all, Ashley understands that the most important asset to any company is its employees.
Congratulations, Ashley, on your well-deserved HR Impact Award. We appreciate your persistence, hard work, dedication and commitment to making EASE a great company to work for.
For more information about the Columbus Business First inaugural HR Impact Award and its recipients, visit https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2021/09/21/hr-impact-awards-honor-20-columbus-hr-professional.html.
