The NBOA Professional Achievement Award recognizes the invaluable contributions made by independent school business, finance and operations staff who are not business officers. These staff members distinguish themselves every day and make exceptional contributions to their schools and the independent school community. The highlights below come straight from their colleagues' nominations.
Title: Director Of Human Resources
School: Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, Philadelphia, PA
Years in Position: 9
Years in an independent school business office: 19
Going the extra mile: Faermann is always ready to help on any task and solve any problem with a manager. "The pandemic forced us to reinvent almost every process and procedure at SCH,” said Head of School Steve Druggan. “Liane has helped us do this in addition to managing all the HR needs and stepping up to do lunch duty every day (to give our faculty an added break)." Frank Aloise, CFO, noted on numerous occasions, Faermann dedicated extra time to ensure that an employee had the right benefits, understood their pay, and helped them through difficult disability or workers comp issues.
With precision and care: All of her responsibilities are carried out carefully and correctly. “From instituting new benefit plans to making major changes to the budget (including reducing employee salaries this year and TIAA match), Liane is careful and thoughtful about explaining everything to our employees,” said Aloise. “She is respected by her peers, who call her for advice, and she truly understands what it means to be an HR Professional.”
Best practices: Faermann had primary responsibility for implementing the school’s Predictive Index Program, which has helped hire better people and build better teams. Aloise points out Faermann was a key player as the school looked to reduce staff when it merged, and help identify the vital employees to retain. She worked to train managers on supervising best practices, often assisting them in difficult conversations with their employees. “From coming up with new benefits to offer employees such as legal advice as a benefit to managing the annual flu shot clinic to training managers in the use of Predictive Index, I cannot imagine another employee could better fit the description for this Professional Achievement Award,” said Aloise.
See a full list of the 2020 recipients and read more about the NBOA Professional Achievement Award. Net Assets will post additional profiles of award winners throughout the spring — check in to learn more about other recipients.
