How Sunil Asija Established Trust Within HR While Becoming Employer of Choice

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Sunil Asija, Human Resources Director at Oakland County, Michigan government. Now Oakland County focuses on delivering essential public services, ensuring health, equity and inclusion for nearly 1.3 million residents.

and supporting over 39,000 local businesses. offer a wide range of initiatives from public safety to workforce development to help community members thrive. Sunil stepped into his role on February 1st, 2023, bringing years of experience in employee engagement, leadership development, and performance management. He holds an MBA from Edgeworth University and a BA in organizational.

communications from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. Sunil is also certified in the ProSci AgCar methodology, which helps organizations manage change effectively. Under his guidance, HR strategies align with Oakland County’s vision to boost educational attainment to 80 percent by 2030. As a passionate leader and mentor, Sunil shares insights with students and professionals.

shaping the next generation of HR talent. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription meds. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the company’s too.

One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Now results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the Human Resources Director of Oakland County, Michigan, Sunil Asijja. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Sunil Asija (02:18)
Thank you Anthony, looking forward to it today.

Anthony Codispoti (02:21)
So Sunil, you’ve got an interesting work background, right? You were at Kraft Foods for 20 years, initially in sales, but eventually worked your way into accounts payable and managing audits. You’ve been an adjunct professor at two different universities. You’ve owned your own business. And now you’re the human resources director for a pretty sizable county in Michigan. Help me connect the dots on how all these interests evolved.

Sunil Asija (02:46)
Yeah, I wish I could connect them as easy as possible, but it was just through growth and understanding and ⁓ you know, I fell in love with the human side of the business. That’s why I got into change management. Started my career, like I said, at Kraft Foods where I learned to manage people. I moved my way into, like you said, customer service, transportation, and then an adjunct professor. So as I learned through the years and my managers, good and bad, I learned how to…

strategize and how to make a business better. So when I got hired here as the Chief Learning Development Officer, my goal from the executive was to make us a learning organization. So I wanted to bring in my learning experience, my education experience, all my years of management and bring it to Oakland County. So I did that within the first year. I stopped all virtual training and went in person. COVID of course was there. So I wanted to bring everybody together as one.

bring our community back and that came with trust and that’s where ProSight Change Management comes in. It first starts off with trust. My employees need to trust what I’m doing, what I’m trying to do. I communicated everything I was doing to eventually a year down the road I had an opportunity to take on this director role. So now my role is more strategic, bringing change, we’re bringing data into something that’s not part of government.

To help me answer your question, Anthony, it was a process I didn’t expect to happen, but it one of the best things I ever

Anthony Codispoti (04:17)
I mean, some sales experience, some finance experience. This is not the typical path into an HR role. How did that door, that opportunity at Oakland County government open up?

Sunil Asija (04:28)
Yeah,

it’s one of my favorite stories I tell my students and I tell everybody as I speak is when I first got hired it was for learning and development, right? It was the chief learning development officer and I noticed my boss, Deputy County Executive April Lynch, doing both roles. So she was doing her job and also a director job and I realized, you know, she’s got a lot on her plate and I straight out asked her, I said, you know what, I can do the director of HR position. She straight out said no.

I see you doing that. You are my chief learning and development officer. So I took that as an opportunity, Anthony, and I saw to learn from her. She’s a great leader. She is a great mentor of mine. And I just said, let me help you out. Give me some things that I can do to help you load less. I started helping. I started doing little things. And again, like I said, within a year, she realized my potential, my strategic thinking, my ability to learn and my ability to manage people.

A year into the date I was hired, was promoted or appointed to the director of HR.

Anthony Codispoti (05:29)
And let’s take a step, ⁓ a sidestep here just for a second. ⁓ What specifically does the Oakland County government oversee? What are the services that you guys are delivering to your citizens?

Sunil Asija (05:40)
So we do a lot. do police. We do ME office. We do medical examiners. We do the clerks. We do courts. We also have internal. So we also do economic development. We do equalization, is house assessing. Of course, we support learning and development to our communities. We provide that to them. Finance. We also provide finance. So we have a big group, about 5,000, a little more than 5,000 employees.

We also have the parks. We have very high level of park recruitment that we deal with. So we have a big environment that we deal with.

Anthony Codispoti (06:18)
Where is Oakland County in Michigan?

Sunil Asija (06:20)
Sure, it’s close to Pontiac, Michigan. So it’s just kind of north. Yeah, you gotta hold up the vent, correct. Yeah, so we’re right here. Give or take, we’re pretty close to about that area.

Anthony Codispoti (06:26)
You gotta hold up the mitten.

Okay.

Okay. You guys emphasize a lot of health, equity, and inclusion. Has that become more challenging to embrace these ideals in today’s climate?

Sunil Asija (06:46)
It is, and again, that’s another one of our bigger groups that we deal with. Health division is really big and just the economics and not to go political, but also because of what’s happening through grants and funding, it’s getting limited and we have to do, I hate to say it, more with less. ⁓ it just, COVID really changed how we did things, ⁓ which is actually a positive and negative. We’re able to support more via online. We have a lot more.

⁓ opportunities for people to learn online, to also medical advice online. ⁓ So there’s just a lot that we deal with and just the economic development going on around here. It’s challenging for us and we have to find unique ways to do.

Anthony Codispoti (07:31)
medical advice that you’re delivering. This is to your employees, to your citizens, both.

Sunil Asija (07:37)
Yep, so we also provide it for our employees and then citizens if they have a hard time coming. We have a lot of locations, we kind of keep it open for them to come in, but we do have that opportunity to go either door-to-door. We can go visit them or we can try online and discuss them.

Anthony Codispoti (07:53)
at what kind of medical advice is being provided.

Sunil Asija (07:55)
Very

general, nothing, you know, we support, you know, where we can give shots or different things. We don’t provide the medical advice as a doctor. Sorry for any confusion. It’s just more of support where we can connect, where they can come, hours of service and different things like

Anthony Codispoti (08:12)
Now, I think it’s probably safe to say, Sunil, that there can be a little bit of a negative stigma to working in government. Why is that?

Sunil Asija (08:22)
It is, ⁓ because think like we don’t do anything, right? And I hate to say that so bluntly, but that is completely false. I’ve never worked so hard in my life and I worked for big organizations, but we work very hard. And one, it’s more of the passion of what we do, right? So going into government’s a different mindset. It is slower, it is getting faster, but it’s more of providing a service and helping people.

That’s one reason I wanted to get into government. Before I came here I was at the state of Wisconsin and I realized the passion of helping others. It’s not all about money. I know we do support that but we have a great balance of benefits. ⁓ Personal life that we also work like balance is great here. It’s just a stigmatism of when in the old days when somebody gets hired, go into government, you’ll never leave. You’ll have a job for the rest of your life. That is still the case. We still provide safety. ⁓

still provide stability, but now it’s in a different mindset. It’s more of growth and it’s just not doing the same thing over and over again. I joke about it and I say we used to be paper pushers. Now we’re just moving into the electronic world and using AI and using data and data is not a common thing in the government, at least for Oakland County. So we’re bringing that in. So we’re bringing a lot of information to make it new because what we want to track for the younger groups. We’re at a stage

at our company right now of Oakland County that about seven to 800 retirees are going to happen in the next five years. So we need to either start thinking succession planning and bringing the younger group in to help them understand what they can.

Anthony Codispoti (10:03)
And how do you do that? How do you attract that new generation?

Sunil Asija (10:07)
I’m gonna go back to my 1996 sales job. selling it. I’m selling Kraft Foods. I’m having my employees sell what we learned for Oakland County is just sell HR, sell Oakland County and what good we are. We brought in videos, we’re going networking, we’re meeting any recruitment position that we can get into. We’re going local colleges. It’s really selling what Oakland County can do and what it can.

Anthony Codispoti (10:35)
Really trying to change what that current stigma is.

Sunil Asija (10:39)
Yeah, and that’s another thing I’m bringing in customer service. So a lot of times it’s always the fear of, ⁓ HR is calling. Now I’m trying to bring in, let’s sell it. Let’s be more collaborative with our employees or our customers. And I’ll say that politely. ⁓ Let’s be consultants with them. Let’s help them through these. Let’s be a partnership. It’s just not, here’s what HR says, let’s do it. Because everybody has unique challenges. We want to be supportive. We want to be there. One thing, again, I joke about is,

It was, I hate the pass along. So when somebody would call, they would pass it along to the next person and the next person. I wanted the answers done there at the time. So if you don’t know the answer, go find it and reach back out to them. So there’s one point of contact. ⁓ Another cool thing that I brought in because I heard a lot of people saying, I don’t know who my HR people are. Well, I brought in a calendar. So it’s an HR calendar showing each department that we have, each person’s picture on there and contact information. So.

Anybody can flip through that calendar, they’ll know who to reach.

Anthony Codispoti (11:42)
What’s the project you’ve been involved with that you’re most proud of today?

Sunil Asija (11:48)
That is great. So again, my whole background is leadership and growth. And I realized here that unfortunately, employees didn’t get the training to become a good leader. I’m not saying that they’re good leaders now, but I wanted to provide that training. So the reason I left the state of Wisconsin was I was able to bring in a leadership academy. What that means is working with a local college to support leadership. So we have a 16 week course where we have executives teach leadership.

and also have a college teaching leadership. So people will go through this cohort, they’re hand-picked, they have to go through a survey, they have to go through a requisition to get into the class, and we graduate through the local college, and they leave the organization, or they leave the college and the leadership academy with a leadership ⁓ certification. Not just from Oakland County, it is from a reputable.

⁓ University where they could take that leadership certificate anywhere They’re not just here But it gives them that opportunity to learn what Oakland County does how to grow as a leader and take it to the next step So we are at our fifth core cohort and we’re packed every cohort. We do it twice a year included in that we developed a Emerging leaders so the people that aren’t leaders yet, but want to be leaders They’ll go through this emerging leader, which is another 16 week course

working with the university, and then bringing them to the next level. So once they complete that course, they have an opportunity to get into the Leadership Academy. ⁓ Third, we got another Leadership Academy with another local university, ⁓ just a different kind of aspect. It’s more of a condensed version, because some of the people, we realize some of them are busy, and we want to make sure they gave an opportunity to them as well. So we have a lot of training going on. It’s just really supporting our…

Anthony Codispoti (13:45)
Just to clarify, this training is available to your 5,000 internal staff.

Sunil Asija (13:50)
Yeah, they’re internal staff. We are starting to now reach it out to our villages and our townships. We have a big community. So they’re more of a sub group of Oakland County that we’re also starting to provide for them.

Anthony Codispoti (14:05)
Talk to me about your goal to increase the percentage of residents with post-secondary education to, I gotta check my numbers here, to 80 % by 2030?

Sunil Asija (14:16)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. So our goal on that is like our executive culture ⁓ kind of has taken it from the Michigan, state of Michigan of ⁓ getting 80 % of residents, including employees, educated. And it could be a two year, it could be anything. So what we did is we now we have a scholarship program for my employees where we fully fund pretty much their education to a certain dollar amount. So

If they are accepted into a college, have great discounts with colleges, local universities, and we provide them. there’s the good thing about it is our goal is to have them graduate and then get into that. We’re at 71 % right now. And our goal is 80-20, which is 80 % of the community.

Anthony Codispoti (15:09)
So not just your employees, but also the residents of your county.

Sunil Asija (15:12)
residents as

well. So we also provide some information for them as well to help them support. We have a workforce group that also provides that.

Anthony Codispoti (15:21)
And where does the funding for that come from?

Sunil Asija (15:23)
⁓

We have a lot of grants that are coming through also government but also ours part of ours is we set aside funding for our employees to

Anthony Codispoti (15:32)
I mean, this really goes into, think what you were saying before about wanting to change that negative stigma around working in government. And it seems like this has got to be a great way to attract that new generation, young people in. This is a place you can grow, you can learn. If you want to stay here, there’s stability in working for the government. But if this is a stepping stone for you to somewhere else, this is a great place to come to learn, to grow, to get a good portion of your education paid for.

Sunil Asija (16:02)
No, exactly right. And the good thing is what I didn’t want them to do is have to stay here a certain amount in order and they don’t have to pay it back. Again, these are employees I’m talking about and I want them to really take, hey, I learned this from Oakland County. I am fine with that. I just want them to learn and grow as you said, Anthony and become part of, cause a lot of them go back into the community, right? And if they can say where they came from, it just makes us more powerful. And the reason I really pushed really hard for this is again,

nothing against the older generation of government that was kind of executing us and supporting us. But the new leadership is more about learning, about growth, about opportunity. So I wanted to really focus that and give my employees any opportunity they wanted to ⁓ get trained. And the good thing is we also have opportunity to bring people in to train employees as well.

Anthony Codispoti (16:57)
So you and I were not spring chickens, but we’re not the old guard quite yet. Does some of this innovative thinking come from just being a little bit younger than some of the folks that came before you? Do you think it comes from your corporate experience? How has this kind of bubbled to the surface?

Sunil Asija (17:16)
Yeah, I think it’s a little bit of both. That’s a great question, Anthony. I think it just comes from really where I came from. Education has always been a powerhouse in my house and you need to be educated and learn. And I had great managers growing up and they had really mentored me to become who I am today. And again, I wouldn’t be here without those and I want to make sure people have that opportunity. So I’m not saying that it wasn’t given before. just wasn’t. It was you stay what you’re doing.

and you’re happy in what you’re doing. It was just a different mentality. ⁓ And I just want to bring a new group into it. I came in and I joke about it. And I see when I came in, the lights were off in HR in human resources. And now I can see the light on. And now I’m building relationships that were not there in the past. For example, some of the courts didn’t like HR or ⁓ some of the other police even didn’t like what HR did. was just a previous.

group of people that managed. wanted to bring a new set into it. I wanted to turn the light on and show you know what we are here. We’re here to collaborate. And when I came in to be honest with you Anthony, we did a survey of our employees and HR was considered only 37 % trustworthy. So that killed me inside. So that was the number one step for me. So as I did the last two years, continued surveying them. Now we’re well over 70%. So

It has been a big change, has a big impact, and again, it’s just who I am. I didn’t do anything different than just being me.

Anthony Codispoti (18:51)
I’d like to hear a little bit more about some of the practical steps that you took to go from 37 to well over 70%. I mean, I hear you talk about turning the light on, but what does that look like in terms of what you changed?

Sunil Asija (19:03)
So again, it starts with collaboration and it goes out there and I mentioned it and I joke about it but I sold HR from day one. I met with leaders, introduced myself, I have a conversation with them, I told them my game plan, I told them what I try, what I’m planning on doing, how I want to change human resources, how I want to change Oakland County. That was my goal. I went to the board of commissioners as well and saying, you know what, my goal in the next few years is to become

Employer of choice. How am I going to do that is you need to trust me So what I did is I want them to trust me so I build trust with them I figure out who they are what their needs are it’s really simple is just selling me and Being trustworthy and when they ask me a question, I responded very quick or I answered their question I also helped them through difficult times I’m a trustworthy person and I wanted to make sure if you’re having difficulties meaning

let’s say a director’s having difficulties, you can call me and let’s talk through this. as I meant turning on the light, it means very simple of just turning on the light and saying, I’m here. I’m here to support you. I’m here to be part of your partnership. And I’m here to help you through what we’re trying to do. But on the other hand, I’m here for you to do me a favor, help support what HR is trying to do. So it was a give and take. And now, like I said, some of the great people I had were our enemies. And now I’m building relationships.

We do have lunch, we do talk about how we can improve their department, how we can improve Oakland County. So I take their.

Anthony Codispoti (20:38)
So in the past, was it the case that maybe HR was seen as…

bit of a sour puss like a this is just like an enforcement arm you only hear from them when they’re gonna you know wag their finger at you and tell you you’ve done something wrong.

Sunil Asija (20:55)
That’s exactly right. Again, we still follow policy. We still make sure we maintain that. We still make sure that our employees are safe. That’s still there. That is not gone. It’s just a different angle that I’m coming around. One thing I asked my manager, I so what happened in the past that you want to change? It was this. It was build those relationships, break those bonds. So that’s all I did is I just did again who I am. This is me.

So was just a perfect fit at the time. My favorite thing is as I go golfing, people will tell me, ⁓ HR’s here. We can’t drink or we can’t swear. No, we’re humans. We can enjoy ourselves. I’m HR, but we can enjoy ourselves.

Anthony Codispoti (21:40)
And so were you leaning on your ProSci AddCar change management certification throughout this time?

Sunil Asija (21:48)
I I followed it to a T exactly. So, ADCAR is a, it’s very cool, it’s very simple. And another great example, I love examples, I can tell Anthony, but another example is ADCAR and Change of Interns, it’s even in the Olympics. So they start promoting the Olympics now. We already know when it’s happening. So ADCAR is just the way of communicating. is, you know, the ad part of it is getting people aware of what you’re doing, right?

Awareness of letting know here’s what’s happening. Here’s what’s going on. Then the D is Helping them understand what is coming next and then it flows through the process of what it is for reinforcement So I continue reinforcing I continue communicating letting them know what’s happening. What is going on? We can almost be as possible as saying I’m being upfront as possible, right? But again as HR we still have to follow policy. We still have to follow our book of

requirements that are needed to run a business, but it’s coming across in a different

Anthony Codispoti (22:51)
Can you give a specific example, a success story where following this change management framework made a transformative impact?

Sunil Asija (23:02)
for sure. So I’ll give you a great example without naming any names. Our courts hated us, hated HR. So my first goal is I got to break that ice, right? I want to make sure that’s not the case. So I started building a relationship and the first time I met the administrator of the court, we had an argument right away. It was just a fight. It was nothing against us. It was just the jobs that we were in, right? It was nothing personal.

But then I realized, all right, you know what? I cannot end it this way. This is not how I do things. I continue building relationships. I continue to talk to him little by little. And what flipped the switch one day was, and I’ll never forget it, is I was afraid to call him, but we were going to close campus because of a weather storm. So I thought, you know what? I’m going to email him. No, and this is about 10 o’clock at night, because the next day we wanted to close campus or let him know that we’re having an opportunity to close campus because of weather.

So I called him at 10 o’clock instead. said, you know, I’m not gonna email him. Let me call him. We had the best conversation. We just broke the ice there. We apologized to each other. It was just where we were at at the time, what our history was for me being in HR, him being in the courts. Now he was one of my closest friends. Now he’s willing to try different things. We go to lunch once a month. We pick a different restaurant where we’re at. And the cool part about it is, know, as funny as…

I’ll have them come into my office and I want people to see that we have a relationship. So people are seeing that. And the other cool part is I’ll go into the courts and people aren’t seeing me there. And you can see us together. We’re at events together. So people are seeing the bond. That’s just one example that I did. I did it for other groups.

Anthony Codispoti (24:46)
What happened in that 10 o’clock phone call to change everything?

Sunil Asija (24:51)
You know, I think we were just humans. I think that’s what it came out. We started talking about things that he liked, some things that I liked. So one thing I learned too, the best way that you can build trust with somebody, ask somebody about themselves and how they got where they got. Cause that’ll open them up right away and they’ll tell you their whole life history and they’ll say, and that’ll break the ice a little bit. Then the questions will come up, well, what do you like to do? And we found a lot that we had in common.

Literally our conversation about closing the business and work was two seconds. That’s all it was. The rest two and a half hours was just us talking, getting to know each other. And we ended the conversation well. What a great conversation. And we ended it by saying, apologize for arguing with each other. It was the coolest moment. Great guy.

Anthony Codispoti (25:36)
Mmm.

What is it that you like to do outside of work, Sinu?

Sunil Asija (25:43)
I love golf so I’m a huge golfer. I love to do that as much as I can but I’m also kind of a video game nerd so I also play video games a lot and I also ⁓ I built my own arcade system so it’s kind of cool getting the old 80s arcade games together and that cheesy one I love my family I spend a lot of time with my family without them I would

Anthony Codispoti (26:06)
the

video game that you’re talking about, one of these platforms where you can play a whole bunch of games on the same system.

Sunil Asija (26:12)
Yeah, yeah. So I made an arcade. Actually, I know you told us your age a little bit kind of briefly, but I was a huge fan of Donkey Kong and asteroids and all that. So I built my own and kind of was able to play all those with no quarters.

Anthony Codispoti (26:29)
⁓ What does your role there as head of HR in Oakland County government, what insights does that provide you maybe into what’s going on in the broader economy there?

Sunil Asija (26:45)
That’s a good question. I see a lot. I hear a lot. see a lot because you know the trust part is great, but sometimes it gets too much right because then One of the best things I ever heard in my life, and I don’t know if this is gonna answer your question Anthony so I apologize, but it is ⁓ When HR has a difficult time who do they go to I? Don’t know who do I go to I’m not sure when I’m struggling so

I have a lot of people talking to me. Some of the deputies will come just to get an idea of what thoughts are, what’s going out there. You see a lot, you go out in the community and the cool part about it is I know what’s on the inside of it. I don’t go out there showing who I am and I hear people talking and I see what they’re talking about, what their struggles are. So then I can bring that back to our community and help say, here are some of the things that I’m hearing. Economy wise, it’s just so tough. COVID was such…

Again, I hate to say it because it’s probably just cliches. It was such a tough thing for everybody that people are still trying to get out of it. And part of that is the economy. And that’s why I want to make sure that if there’s any opportunity we can do as a county government to help support what they’re trying to do, I want to be part of it. And is it as simple of, know, retirees coming in, we were going to make a big change of doing everything online.

Well, we didn’t realize some of the people that are retired are comfortable with computers. So we made a stop and we realized by people talking, let’s keep those opportunities for people that just want to manually do it in because they’re comfortable that way. We don’t want to change that to sacrifice our constituents, I guess, if that’s the best word for it. So economy-wise, it’s very difficult because you hear so much going on. A lot of it is out of my hands. But what I can do is I can communicate it to my leaders.

Anthony Codispoti (28:28)
Yeah.

Sunil Asija (28:37)
to let them know here’s what I hear from, whether it’s our employees or whether it is from the outside, meaning our ⁓ residents of Oakland.

Anthony Codispoti (28:47)
Do you have much direct interaction with residents or business leaders in the community?

Sunil Asija (28:51)
I don’t know

I’m more internal so I’m not involved as much but when I do go out in public I do hear a lot and also I go to a lot of events because again I’m trying to support Oakland County and I’m trying to represent who I am I take this badge very to my heart and I make sure that I represent who Oakland County is and if I was not me and I was being something else let’s say I that would just make Oakland County not look as where I want it to be if that makes any

Anthony Codispoti (29:18)
Yeah,

yeah, a lot. So you’ve got a lot of people who come to you, different department heads and whatnot, like, hey, can we spitball this? Give me a little advice on the situation. Who do you go to for help?

Sunil Asija (29:31)
That’s a great question, I don’t know, I think I go to one of my mentors. So my mentor is when I first got into Kraft Foods, 1995 or six, when I first got hired. He is still a sales rep and I still call him all the time just to help him through it. He’s still a sales rep and I’m the director now and there’s still that bond of respect that I have with him. It’s like, let me pass this by you, because there’s no judgments on that. So I go to him a lot. I also go to my boss.

My boss, the deputy county executive is amazing. She listens to what I’m trying to say. She’ll challenge me on things, but it is tough sometimes, I’ll be honest with you. And I’m sure a lot of the HR leaders will tell you that it is tough. Where do we go?

Anthony Codispoti (30:17)
Where are things going? Do you think, you know, where do you see opportunities for HR innovation in government?

Sunil Asija (30:26)
see it going up, up and up. mean it is data driven, it is AI driven, it is networking, it is, again, I take HR into a sales job, right? I know that’s gonna sound really weird, but I gotta sell HR. The more I can sell it, the understanding people get, which includes government. So I just see it getting stronger and stronger. And I hate to say it rudely, but the old way of how HR was done is not there anymore. To me,

⁓ It is more of a relationship building and people collaborating helping them understand what’s going on and supporting our employees. So again, I just see it going up

Anthony Codispoti (31:07)
You said ⁓ it’s going to become more data driven, more AI driven. Can you talk about specifics there? How either you’re already using those or how you intend to use them going forward?

Sunil Asija (31:19)
Sure, no, that’s a great question. We’re newbies in the AI version of it and data. We’ve never been data driven. We’ve always been ⁓ kind of going based on our gut, which is nothing wrong. We still use that. But now we’re taking data. So we moved our whole platform into an ERP system where all our information is going to be utilized. We used to do everything hard copy. Now we’re into a system where data is coming better. moving into

recruitment software where we can see DEI numbers down to really the this to the employee level we’re looking at departments where they’re at so we’re taking that data and we’re generating how we interact with different communities right so if we see a great example if we see one certain community focusing on one specific job then we know hey you know what now we know where to target a little bit or take that target to another community where we can

bring more employees where they might not have a chance. instead of them coming to us, that data is helping us go to them and pick them specifically.

Anthony Codispoti (32:24)
You said something at the very beginning of our interview that I want to go back to because it’s kind of stuck in my head. You guys ⁓ went away from virtual training and have now do everything in person. Talk to me about why, first of all, and then second of all, how that transition has been received.

Sunil Asija (32:44)
Sure, sure. So now I’ll be honest with you, now we’re going a little bit of virtual, little classes we are. But the reason I wanted to be in, because it was about the time where COVID just ended, right? And people were home all the time. And what I realized is there’s no bonding around employees. want people, we’re so big. I want people to connect with each other. And the best way to do it is bring them in person. Having that opportunity where people get to meet each other in different departments. Yeah, we’ve talked virtual.

a lot but let’s meet in person. So I wanted to bring everybody in and show them, a great example is I brought our new employee orientation. It was online but I brought it in person and funny part was I was offering swag for people as the first one just to show how important it is. I build relationships with them. ⁓ Again that was the reason, it was a struggle at first. Don’t get me wrong, people were very comfortable to switch off their camera.

And I knew that and I wanted to stop that because I trained for about a year, virtual, and I hated when people turned that off. So I didn’t want to give them that option. So it was a struggle in the beginning, but as people started seeing it, wow, this is great. We like to be in person. We like to see these. And then the main thing is the interaction, right? So when I’m interacting, when people are training, even my trainers, there’s more one-on-one, there’s more personability and more understanding that we are people and not just a…

video screen. So it took a long time to build that trust but people are starting to love it, start to understand it. Now that we have that, now we can go little more virtual. Now we’re doing more hybrid. So some people are in person and some people are virtual. But our main goal is really more in person training.

Anthony Codispoti (34:31)
And the people that are virtual, are they sitting at home taking the trainings? Are they in the office, but maybe just a different office, different physical location?

Sunil Asija (34:39)
Yes, so both to answer your question. Some are remote, not 100 % remote. We are a hybrid function here. So some are working from home, some are in person, some are in the office. So it varies depending on where you’re at. That’s why we’re transitioning back to a little bit of both. Because some like it in person and then gives an opportunity. You can either come in person or you can be hybrid.

Anthony Codispoti (35:03)
So now, lots of career stops for you along the way, ⁓ moving to different parts of the country. I’m sure lots of life things happening behind the scenes. What’s a particularly big, serious challenge that you’ve had to overcome in your life? How did you get through that? What did you learn as you look back now from?

Sunil Asija (35:26)
Sure, that’s probably again one of my favorite things. So as you saw I was with Kraft Foods for about 20 years. Pretty stable. I was always taught you stick with a company and you’re there for the rest of your life. That was my goal. I made my way through sales, customer service, management got my way through that but then unfortunately Kraft Foods was bought out. Lucky for us they were bought in 2016 and I didn’t want to move my family to the next location.

I thought, know what, here’s my opportunity where I can try something different. ⁓ So I took, ⁓ I didn’t take the job down into where I was supposed to go in Chicago. And I said, you know, I’m going to try something on my own. Started applying, couldn’t find anything. But then I fell in love with the opportunity to be in change management. I had a professor for my ⁓ graduate degree. Hey, what do you think about change management? Got my first client, got certified.

Got my first client, so I did that about five years. And then I was just burnt out. My kids were so young, I was feeling like I was missing. I was just working so much. Money was great, don’t get me wrong. So then I took, I said, I’m done. I’m gonna try finding something permanent instead of looking for that next job. ⁓ I love what I do, but I got burnt out. And I was actually out of a job for about a year, year and a half. So I was devastated. And again, I still get the shivers to this day.

We were in financial trouble. We were almost bankrupt. I got in high credit debt. I was working at a local golf course just to make ends meet. I really demeaned myself as far as I could go. I would take any job really to work and I just had to say, I had to believe in something that was going to make it better. And I had this opportunity a year and a half to a year and a couple months to work for the state of Wisconsin. So all I wanted to do is just train. I didn’t want to do anything else.

just training and I took a huge pay cut. I was barely living but at least I had a job, right? So I started scratch all over again. I started fresh. Within three months, they asked me to become the manager there. I didn’t want to, I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to do it. I just wanted to train. But then I took the opportunity to become a manager there, started making some change. And then this opportunity came and I grew up in Wisconsin. So I was there pretty much all my life. And this opportunity came in Michigan.

Not once, not twice, three times. I kept on over, I just kept on passing it up. And then a buddy of mine that I went to college with, who was one of my best friends, says, you need to check it out. Try it, see what it looks like. Okay, I put my application in, got the interview, met all the people, went through four or five interviews. And I’ll never forget, one of the questions came from the deputy and she said, so how do you train our employees to change culture?

I said I can’t you can’t train employees that has to start from the top if you can start from the top top to change culture You have a vision. That’s how it goes dead silence amongst the whole group. I thought my god I’m not gonna get the job So then I talked to my current boss and she goes let me interview again. We talked again and Then well, okay. I didn’t expect anything. She was on here’s what happened. Here’s what we think Two weeks later. I get a call saying yeah, we would like to invite you to meet the executive. I never

I never visited Michigan only been there once in my life and I put a hundred percent trust in her and I met the executive he asked me one question goes what do you like to do? That’s all he asked. He said well I told him I like this and he just said you know what I’m trying to be learning organization how you gonna help that and all I told the executive is I will give you a hundred and fifty percent of what I have what I learned I learned in my craft days that I have to lead my craft tracks

What that means is I have to leave who I am and I have to leave Oakland County and bring Oakland County to where it needs to be at the next level. Long story short, I got hired here, moved here, left my family there for about six months just to test to make sure I made the right decision. Brought my whole family here within six months. Moved my whole family here after being pretty much born and raised in Wisconsin. Daughter was a senior in high school. My son was a freshman.

and they took a chance on me and they came.

Anthony Codispoti (39:53)
Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. You went through a bit of a roller coaster. there were some career changes along the way. I think the real big thing that first happened was you’re unemployed for a little over a year. On the verge of bankruptcy, ⁓ taking any job that you can just to make a few dollars. not that you’re above it, not that you’re

Sunil Asija (39:58)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (40:21)
better than people that are working these jobs, but to have your career kind of going up and to the right, and now all of sudden it feels like it’s fallen through the floor, that’s a big hit to the ego. That’s a big hit to your identity.

Sunil Asija (40:32)
Yeah, it was devastating.

Yeah, it was devastating. Again, the good thing is I’m not a big drinker, so I didn’t get involved in that, but I just got into other avenues. I started eating a lot. I gained a lot of weight, and you can see my health was gone. I was actually diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. So it was just a struggle through my family. through a lot. I couldn’t show them. Again, I had support of them, but they understood I needed to do something. And golf was what saved me, to be honest with you. That’s why I joined the…

That’s why I worked for the, she was, I was on the golf league. She was, you need a job? I will give you a job at $11 an hour. And I washed carts. So I put my pride aside. I’m a master’s degree holder. I was high post in Kraft foods. And I took my pride and said, you know what? I need this to get me through. So golf got me through that. And the person that was the golf pro has been a lifesaver for me. She’s been great. I still talk to her here and there, but yeah, it was, it was.

probably one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with. And I never thought I would, to be honest with you. I thought I was safe and secure.

Anthony Codispoti (41:44)
Who were you able to lean on for help during that time? You mentioned the golf pro, you mentioned getting that $11 an hour job, which helped and sort of, know, golf is an outlet for you, but who else could you go to? Who else could you lean on during this time?

Sunil Asija (41:57)
Yeah,

you know what? I hate to say it. My wife was there for very supportive. She understood what I was going through, but I really didn’t go to anybody. I just did it myself. I just had to keep going. I had to keep going through it. I just believed in myself because I had such a good background. I talked to a few people, but no one I could really lean on. didn’t want to show, and I know this is the pride in me, so I apologize. I didn’t want to show anybody that I was struggling. I wanted to show that I was still strong and I could still get through.

But on the inside, I was just burning inside. ⁓ It was a lot that I did on my own, to be honest with

Anthony Codispoti (42:33)
As you look back on that time now, knowing what you know, would you have done it any differently?

Sunil Asija (42:42)
No, because I wouldn’t be where I’m at. To be honest with you, at that time I probably should stayed with Kraft Foods. But then where would I be? would probably be in the same spot, probably not doing what I can do, what I love to do. So, no, I don’t think I would now at this time at this stage. Because this has been probably the best thing I ever did in my life. I still think back to my day. I was just thinking about it on Sunday. okay, I’ve never had this opportunity. I’m building these people, networking.

I’m having a podcast with you Anthony that would never have happened in the past. My name is out there now I’m hearing, hey, somebody knows you. I don’t even know who these people are. So my name is out there in the community and I don’t think I would be here today if what happened in the past didn’t happen.

Anthony Codispoti (43:29)
for people listening today that are maybe currently going through something similar, right? They had a pretty good job, pretty good career, and for reasons that may be beyond theirs, now they find themselves in a difficult situation. They’re unemployed, they’re underemployed. What advice do you have for them?

Sunil Asija (43:50)
Yeah, I wish I could give advice. I’ll do my best. What I’ll do is what I did is I trusted myself. Even though it’s hard, you beat yourself very hard, you send out so many resumes, you continue sending them, you get rejected or you never get a call, or you go through that third interview and you still don’t get it. All I can say is just trust who you are, trust what you got. If you do have that person, don’t go what I do. Find that person who will help you.

But really just trust who you are and don’t take anything that you think is belittling you at all. Again, I took that, I was washing golf carts, getting a $5 tip that made me excited. really just, it goes down to trusting who you are and your ability. It might not happen overnight, but something will happen. Here’s a great experience where I was just a trainer making very low money, made my way within three months.

made my way into a new city, a new state, became a chief learning and development officer, and now with the trust in my abilities, I became the director of human resources. That puts a lot of trust in somebody, and I joke about it, how long do you think I officially have Anthony of HR experience?

You tell me, just a quick question, a interview back to you a little bit. What do you think? Based on my experience? Exactly. So nothing, you can do a lot of things. If you can take your ability from day one, which I did from 1995, all the way up and I take that experience. I have great people under me that do the job, that know what HR is, but I’m here to make it a better place and make it to the next level of human resources. And I’ve been through a lot of training. Don’t get me wrong.

Anthony Codispoti (45:11)
⁓ Just a few years.

Sunil Asija (45:35)
I’ve had classes. Again, that doesn’t take you into the real world, but I learned from great mentors. ⁓ So yeah, you can do it. Just really sit back and I know my number will be out there. I’m here for support. If you don’t have that person, I am here. I gotta be honest with you. It’s just not Oakland County I support. I support whoever needs it, to be honest with you. Now what I try to do is I try to give back. I’ve had a lot in my life. Now my turn is to give back to others. I’ll pay it forward.

Anthony Codispoti (46:05)
What’s your superpower, Sunil?

Sunil Asija (46:08)
I love what I do now.

Pretty much, I love what I do.

Anthony Codispoti (46:14)
It’s a passion for your job.

Sunil Asija (46:16)
100 % I would not have it if I didn’t again going back if I didn’t lose what I had I didn’t know I had it I didn’t I don’t know how do you say that but Now I’m glad I have what I have because I lost a lot at that time I’m obviously I’m at a point where I was even surprised. I’m still sitting here. There was times where I thought

Yeah, it was tough. was a tough, gets me a little bit. Yeah, it was a tough thing. Yeah, yeah, it was dark and I feel it for everybody. Now I am also a coach. So I work for a company that coaches people through these about empowerment, about trust, and about when you go through struggles in life, how do you handle those? And again, I’m glad I did it myself. Again, I had support, but really it was down to me.

Anthony Codispoti (46:39)
⁓ It’s a dark tunnel.

Yeah. This wasn’t like a few weeks or a couple of months. This was over a year of, you know, and, for people who haven’t been through something like that, they don’t realize how confusing that can be. You’ve lost a piece of yourself. You’ve lost your identity. You don’t understand how you fit into the

Sunil Asija (47:24)
Yeah, you feel, and please don’t take this any other way, you feel worthless because you have a family that you support and you think, that is my role, right? My role is to support who my family is and how they get where they are and what they need. So when I started getting there, I told my kids, if anything turns out, you’re gonna leave college with no debt. And that’s still my goal is now when they leave college, I’m not gonna have them have any debt. I’m not saying that’s for everybody.

But they’ve through a lot too and it’s it’s tough. It still chokes me up every day and I think back and even to this day, I still get nervous if we’re spending too much money. I have a panic attack and my wife and now I have a therapist that I talk to and just helps me through it that we did nothing wrong. It’s just the circumstances that we are involved in. I’m glad I got through it to be honest with

Anthony Codispoti (48:18)
You know, and it’s interesting to me that in this time of hardship, this ⁓ opportunity to join the Oakland County government came up and you passed it at once, not twice, three times. What made you finally, why were you passing it first of all, all three times when you needed something? And then what was different about that fourth time? Are you like, all right, I’ll check this out.

Sunil Asija (48:32)
Correct.

The first time was I’m not good enough to be honest with you. I don’t have the capacity to do or capability to do it. I don’t have the background to do it. Number two is a little bit when I saw it again number two is the same reason why would it keep coming up? Why would this keep coming up? I’m not so I’m not qualified for it. There’s no way really the third time when it popped up again I thought okay this is a sign. Third time has to be a charm. It must think somewhere out there. I don’t know who it is.

I’m not really religious but something is bringing this back to me over and over again. I’m gonna try it. And that’s all it was. Let me see, I tailored to what I needed it to be. Long story short, I got it which is still just phenomenal in me. At that time it was just amazing. Even though I was working at the State of Wisconsin it didn’t seem… I deserve it. How about that? That’s probably the better word. I don’t think I deserve…

Hate to say to be happy, right? To enjoy what I’m doing. But the third time came and there’s a reason, there’s a sign. Something’s telling me, just apply. And then a friend of mine said, yeah, you got to just, he supported it, just try. Let’s see what happens. And that’s all it was. That was fear of rejection too. That was a lot that was, I was finally comfortable again.

Anthony Codispoti (50:03)
You comfortable? You were comfortable again?

Sunil Asija (50:05)
Well,

I had my job at the state of Wisconsin. I was comfortable. I had a job. I had nothing to worry about at that time.

Anthony Codispoti (50:08)
⁓ right, okay, right.

Do you think that initial doubt that you had would have existed if you hadn’t been unemployed for a year?

Do you think you were still carrying some of that with you?

Sunil Asija (50:27)
I so, yeah I think that was still, that was always there too and unfortunately that’s where I think I stuck with the same company for so long is I didn’t think I was good enough. ⁓ But yeah, what did it, when I became a change manager and I started running, I started realizing you know what, I have more capacity, I have more learning and I can be more of a change manager and a strategic leader and I just.

continued growing and I had a lot of reflecting to do when I lost my job. Like, wait a minute, some of the nights where I was depressed, but some of the nights were also coming, you know what, I am pretty good. I should be, I should be better where I’m at, right? I should be able to give back. And I never really looked in government. It was actually, it was the connection I made. my, when I worked at one of the local colleges in Wisconsin, my boss at the time,

left the college and went to the state of Wisconsin. He’s the one that called me and said you need to apply for this job. You’d be a great fit. So it’s the connections that I continued to make that started making me think you know what I’m kind of a good person. People trust me. People rely on me. They think I’m good at what I’m doing. That was kind of like the first step of me feeling more confident in myself. Granted there’s some days where I feel a little too confident.

That’s when my wife comes in and says, lower your head a little bit.

Anthony Codispoti (51:58)
You know, and this last point that you hit on, I think is the importance of the power of your network, your friends, your family, the people that you know, when you’re going through a time like this, because I know a lot of folks going through this now, where you’re looking for a job, you’re applying to 100 places, nobody’s responding, AI is filtering you out. It’s like, what do you do? And this is the power of your network. And the time to build that network, to build your friends,

Sunil Asija (52:17)
yet.

Anthony Codispoti (52:26)
isn’t in the moment of crisis, it’s as you’re just going about your daily life. And then the time to tap those people on the shoulder then is when you’re in a time of need.

Sunil Asija (52:38)
Yeah, I think that’s a good point and the good thing about it too is if you build those strong relationships, they’ll come get you. They’ll see that they’re there for you. You don’t have to reach out. You don’t, maybe you do, don’t get me wrong, but he reached out to me knowing that, I remember this guy. He was pretty good. Let’s bring him in. We need a new trainer. Let’s bring him in. So it’s those connections that you bring. And I said it before, that’s why I wanted to leave my mark everywhere I go. And I learned this from my mentor.

is when I used to go into grocery stores selling Kraft Foods, you can sell back and cheese, right? That’s not a problem. But can you sell yourself? So when I wanted to leave that area saying, you know what? When a manager would leave and say, hey, that’s my Kraft rep, I didn’t want that. I wanted, hey, that’s Sunil. He’s my Kraft rep. I wanted to leave my Kraft track somewhere. I want to leave my mark so they know who I am. I do that to this day.

Anthony Codispoti (53:33)
Any favorite books or podcasts that have been helpful to you that you would recommend to our listeners?

Sunil Asija (53:38)
Yeah, that’s great. So there’s this, I don’t know, one minute manager that I read a lot. It’s a very small book. I’m not really be honest with you. Podcasts are just getting into my life now. I’m more on the guitar side of it. So I’m learning a lot about guitar and playing. That’s another thing I learned when I was in out of a job in 2018 is I picked up the guitar to help me kind of find some avenue, get out of it, because it could have led to drinking. It could have led to other things.

but I took up the guitar because I always wanted to do it. So I listened to a lot of those podcasts, but this one minute manager is amazing. It just, it’s so cool. just puts it really perspective and it puts it down and different things, how to manage people, how to treat people, how to relate to people. And I don’t want people to think, that’s the director. I can’t talk to him. That book has helped me bring it down and speak to people at different levels and help them understand.

We’re just human here. We’re just trying to make this place better. Let’s figure out how we can do it together.

Anthony Codispoti (54:41)
Any daily habits that help keep you on track or get your day started?

Sunil Asija (54:46)
Yeah, I just actually talking to one of my employees. So when I go into the office and I learned this about, Holly, when I first started work is there’s a cabinet that I have, I turn on the key and that’s my work key. So when I get into the office, I turn on a key, literally physically turn on the key and I’m in that director role, right? And when I leave for the day, I close it and I go back to my personal role. I get back to who I am. Cause I truly believe even though people say it,

You have to either be the same or different at work. I’m different at work than I am at home. I can’t be a director at home. I can be a director at work. And that key has literally saved me in my life, has get me going. I do that every day. Even when I came into my home office, I turned on the key. And when I leave, I will turn off.

Anthony Codispoti (55:36)
What’s the biggest difference people would notice about you between your work and your home life?

Sunil Asija (55:42)
Like I said, I’m a big, huge nerd and I love video games and I love Star Wars if you can see it. I’m a kids fan. I bring that to work as well. it’s just a different thing. At work, I have to be myself, but not as strong, if that makes any sense. I have a great sense of humor. I love cracking jokes, but I have to show that I can’t show that as much as work because I want people to see that I’m here to work, but.

Have fun a little bit, I want them to be themselves. So that’s a tough one, but that’s what you’ll see behind me is Star Wars nerd, Kiss fan, and an arcade guy, that’s it.

Anthony Codispoti (56:24)
I love it. Sunil, I’ve just got one more question for you today, but before I ask it, I want to do three things. First of all, if you want to get in touch with Sunil, he’s given us permission to hand out his personal email address, or his work email address, I should say. And that is A-S-I-J-A-S, so his last name is Cija, and the first initial S, cjs at oakgov.com, cjs at oakgov.com.

You can also find him on LinkedIn. Just look up Sunil Asija, Oakland County, Michigan. And we’ll have links to both of those things in the show notes. And then also their general website oakgov.com, O-A-K-G-O-V.com, oakgov.com. And as a reminder for folks, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for your company, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you’ll take

Just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app. You will hold a special place in our hearts forever. So last question for you. So now one year from now, what is it you hope to be celebrating?

Sunil Asija (57:33)
We are going to be employer of choice.

We are ranked number nine within ⁓ Oakland County as the best places to work right now. that, we broke the top 10 so far. So my next goal is a year from now we should be employer of choice. We should be hopefully one or two, that’s my.

Anthony Codispoti (57:53)
And who puts out this survey or this information? Okay.

Sunil Asija (57:56)
There’s a bunch of groups that do it there’s local groups that put

it out there some other companies that are out there doing that too We’ve won a bunch of awards recently. So we’re making our way that we’re getting there. We haven’t won a lot of awards So that’s what also I bring in as well So that’s the goal is I want I want to be on the map not just Oakland County where people think is in California. It’s Oakland County, Michigan That’s where I want to be. I want to be on the map

Anthony Codispoti (58:22)
So, Neel, Sijai, I be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Sunil Asija (58:28)
Thank you very much. was just pleasure, Anthony. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Anthony Codispoti (58:32)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.