Kristi Yowell wasn’t looking for a new job. She was looking for a new job at Loyola University Maryland or nothing at all.
“I was an HR assistant at Loyola in 2000,” the current chief people and culture officer recalls. “I started my higher ed career here and fell in love with not only the profession, but the institution as well. Even after I left to further my career, this place stayed with me.”
There are more than professional memories at play here. Yowell was only a little over a year out of college, newly married, and she remembers getting a call on a Thursday. A toddler on her husband’s side of the family was going into foster care if another family member was unable to take him in. Yowell and her husband would need to pick the child up on Saturday. That gave them a resounding day-and-a-half to prepare their house for a child who was just over a year old—and to prepare themselves to be parents.
Yowell remembers going to tell her supervisor about the massive change that would be taking place in her life.
“She said the most important thing right now was taking care of a little boy who needed a family,” Yowell remembers. Yowell recalls that while she felt her work was valued in the workplace, her workplace made it clear that the most valued thing at that moment wasn’t the work; it was family. Yowell’s supervisor, Paula, asked, “How could we help?” They threw her a baby shower the very next day. Yowell took six weeks of leave. Yowell said, “You want to talk about an institution that values its people’s lives? That was the message I got from Paula. ‘How can we help?’”
The people have changed at Loyola since 2000, but the culture hasn’t. Neither had Yowell’s commitment to finding her way back to the university.
The person that returned to Loyola in December 2023 was not the person who started in 2000. Yowell came to Loyola with the skillset to transform the university culture, for the better. To make a great place all the greater. And the list of Yowell and her team’s accomplishments over the last year is staggering, it is lengthy, and it is, on a fundamental level, transformative.
It started with the name.
“This used to be Human Resources,” the executive explains. “We wanted the name of this department to mean something deeper. We became the Office of People and Culture. ‘HR’ meant something else to the people here. We wanted to create a new relationship.”
The office was previously hard to find, located off campus and not providing the welcome for employees that was desired. The team was able to move directly on campus, and the office, from its green and grey carpet to the imagery of the campus in its reception area, feels welcoming and reflective of Loyola’s culture. But the name and new digs are only aesthetic changes unless real change follows—and in this case— it has.
It’s difficult to capture all of the changes already underway and those still in the pipeline. Yowell’s team led a comprehensive compensation study as part of a broader strategy to make Loyola a destination employer. The broader study included exit interviews, climate surveys, satisfaction surveys, and employee feedback, all which highlighted compensation as an area for improvement.
Transparency was key. Yowell wanted to pull back on the curtain on a process that seemed to sometimes happen in the shadows, ensuring the new compensation structure was visible and broken down for employees in an understandable way, including the innovative CompCorner podcast developed and rolled out by her team.
For new hires, start dates were moved to Mondays to foster a cohort mentality amongst new employees. Yowell now wants to “borrow” a texting protocol she found both welcoming and innovative during a recent hotel stay.
“I got a text telling me the hotel was excited for my stay, and then when I got to my room, I got another one making sure that I had everything that I needed,” Yowell explains. “Why aren’t we doing this? Providing a campus map just in case. Ensuring a new hire has everything they need. If their manager happened to miss something along the way, they have a contact they can reach out to. It also just acknowledges that we recognize it’s their first day, and that we’re excited to have them.”
These are a handful of what amounted to at least twenty-three ongoing initiatives, big and small. A monthly optional manager information exchange that averages fifty-five manager-level employees on a call, just sharing experiences. Continued onboarding evolution. Data-driven insight implementation from the compensation study. Employee assistance program (EAP) and benefit awareness efforts. A monthly newsletter welcoming new employees and highlighting employee successes and upcoming events and quarterly newsletter focusing on employee wellness. Social media usage, namely Instagram and LinkedIn, to better engage with employees. Defined employee value proposition.
These are changes that are happening at a pivotal moment for Loyola, which is deep in the implementation of its strategic plan, Together We Rise. The changes within the Office of People and Culture are a key component of that plan—as well as changes to strengthen the university’s academic programs, including the launch of a new nursing program in partnership with Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. Similar to Yowell’s focus on employees, the nursing program showcases the university’s commitment to holistic nursing education, steeped in the Jesuit tradition of care and social justice.
In all things, Yowell seems determined to give back the feeling she got from Loyola in her early twenties. The appreciation, dignity, and care she found in her first higher education HR experience changed her. And she’s ensuring that each person who dons the green and grey today feels the same. Yowell has become a best-in-class people officer out of genuine care for the people around her.
Strong communities thrive when people feel cared for—something Loyola University Maryland and Hilb Group have advanced together for nearly 15 years. Guided by the Jesuit value of cura personalis, care for the whole person, our approach integrates data-driven plan design with population health and wellness strategies that support employees across life stages, from new hires to growing families and those nearing retirement. Lynn, a Loyola alumna, brings insight shaped by both experience and shared values. This perspective drives thoughtful stewardship and measurable impact, including sustaining a 4.2% year-over-year healthcare cost trend for Loyola’s community. Contact Lynn Argenbright, largenbright@hilbgroup.com.
