Employee Spotlight: Ruth Hurwitz
As the Director of Professional Development & Administration, Ruth Hurwitz utilizes her extensive background to connect FRT employees globally and strengthen core values. Ruth joined FRT fulltime in 2019, after several months as a consultant, successfully working with employees to promote self-awareness through weekly coaching sessions. With Ruth at the helm, FRT develops programs and initiatives for employees to reach their highest potential, in turn encouraging a consistent gold standard in client service.
1. What are your top priorities and biggest challenges at FRT?
My top priorities are twofold. On one hand, I’m assessing how professional development can flow through all our offices, meaning how can FRT as an organization reach and support FRT employees around the world. We’re attempting to culturally tether people, create a community, and make everyone feel included no matter what office they work in. This is not an easy feat. You must also remember that small but important details affect the outcome of your efforts. For example, if employees don’t have a camera on their laptops for video conferencing how are they able to “connect” in other ways? I’m trying to, with the help of our TechOps department, maximize the use of all the great AV equipment we have because when you can see someone’s face and they can see yours it’s such a different experience than emailing or talking on the phone.
Then there’s another priority of mine which is the administrative, day in and day out support. Because I currently manage our facilities, I’m coming up with ways to best support and fulfill FRT offices physical space needs. The biggest challenge with that is working with so many different people to understand our growth, to foresee where we’re growing, to examine which departments are growing fastest, and to keep a hand on the pulse of what’s happening in our offices abroad. It’s a big task to make sure so many people in so many different time zones, five within all our offices, feel linked to one another.
2. What does your typical work day look like?
Monday and Friday, I’m often working remotely and doing things that require my utmost attention, such as writing curriculum, reading up on mindfulness, and further developing our programs. Tuesday and Thursday, I’m in the office in back to back meetings and doing a lot of prep work with the Emerging Leadership Program and other pieces. Wednesday is my coaching day,so I’m prepping, then coaching for four hours, then following up with people regarding coaching assignments.
3. What is your biggest achievement to date at FRT?
My most visible achievement at FRT was moving the Boston office this past fall from our old site to a brand-new building as soon as construction was complete. However, I feel a bigger achievement personally was the launch of the Emerging Leadership Program. I collaborated with other members of FRT’s HR team to create, tweak, launch, and pilot a curriculum that’s completely ours, totally unique to FRT. To me, that’s a great achievement for myself and the company. The Emerging Leadership Program a 16-week program designed to look at leadership from many difference angles, from the social-emotional to the tactile, covering aspects of delegation, motivation, etc.
4. What is FRT doing to ensure that they’re adapting to the changing landscape of class action recovery industries while continuing to meet the needs of our current and future clients?
FRT’s investing in our employees with regards to professional development and coaching. We take a well-rounded approach to training and development and one of our hopes is that our professional development menu will be something that we can talk about in the FRT interview process. In this respect, we attract candidates who are interested in these types of holistic career benefits, as it’s becoming increasingly more competitive to hire and retain. It’s also a benefit to our company as well because these benefits improve employees as well as the company, we’re paying it forward. We’re offering training for people to better themselves through a menu of courses, classes and workshops. People enjoy growth and to know that they’re achieving something.
5. What is one piece of advice that has changed your professional career?
Be forward thinking. There was a point in my life where I wasn’t sure of my career path because I kept shifting my focus. My aunt, who was the VP of HR at Gillette for a long time, suggested that I explore a career in professional development. This is what steered me towards coaching and examining the psychology of a workplace. It’s focused on a more of a forward looking thought process instead of trying to analyze the past, which I’m a big fan of, but that felt a lot more doable; so, I shifted my career trajectory because of her advice and am very happy I did.
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