New Human resources director plans to re-energize department

Hunter Wallace
Staff Writer

Karen Paquette has been hired for the position of human resources director.

Paquette’s position makes maintaining peace among college staff and retaining a positive public image her new responsibility. Paquette is also responsible for 1100 employees, staff and faculty.

“I oversee all grievances, Title IX and affirmative action items,” said Paquette. “My role also includes compensation, civil service processes, training, recruitment, evaluations and employee engagement,” she said.

Paquette’s prior human resources roles have tasked her with leading employees within the hospitality, renewable energy and transportation industries. Paquette has also had HR responsibilities in every position she has held.

“In the past, my HR offices didn’t support me in the way I needed them to, so I usually just took over the HR functions and did it myself,” said Paquette. “It worked for me and I gained the respect of the people I led,” she said.

Paquette believes the college will experience major changes this year, due to the retirement of senior staff members, but feels she is prepared to respond to the change while making adjustments as necessary.

“I am already starting to make changes within the HR department, such as streamlining processes, more efficient ways to perform job searches and evaluating policies that reflect the current state of the college and its employees,” said Paquette.

Paquette plans to ‘re-energize’ the staff and faculty, engage employees to be involved, listen to employees and see what I can do to make their jobs less stressful.”

Paquette main goal is to take existing procedures, build on them, then modify them in order to fit the college’s needs.

“I plan on taking all the wonderful ideas and procedures from the former director, which are many, and incorporate them in building a new direction for HVCC,” said Paquette. “I will strive to make positive changes that I truly believe embody our informal title, ‘Harvard on the Hudson,’ and will make our college more successful than it already is,” she said.