Julie Luetjen on Human Resources Management

Inside AASA

Julie Luetjen is rarely sighted by AASA’s members — but her behind-the-scenes work keeps the organization fully staffed and working effectively. As the association’s human resources manager, she is responsible for all employee staffing, benefits, compliance and community projects.

Luetjen has worked for AASA over 20 years, not always full time. Today, she works 32 hours a week. She took a full-time administrative assistant job with AASA in 1997, then became an HR specialist. She left AASA in 2001 when her son was born, but returned within two years as a consultant. In 2007, she took on the human resources post full-time.

While her role and hours have shifted at times, she has always lent a hand when AASA needed work that couldn’t easily be picked up by someone outside the organization. And AASA has accommodated her life as well, she says: “One of the great things about this place is that [my supervisor] really understands how important the flexibility is, and how important it is for me being there for my family.”

The following interview of Luetjen by freelance writer Joetta Sack-Min has been edited for length and clarity.

The job of a human resources manager is multifaceted and wide ranging. Can you tell us about the array of duties relating to personnel at a professional association? 

I would consider us a small association — we only have 36 employees.  I am the only H.R. person here, I consider myself a department of one, but my supervisor has experience with H.R. so she’s a great person to work with if something comes up where a second person is needed. 

I facilitate the hiring process. We have a process where we create the job description and post the job, then we do team interviews, which is common in the education field. I feel it’s an efficient way to meet the candidates and get a sense of the person, get a sense of their personality and skills. Then I do the reference and background checks, and I work to narrow down the applications and then to negotiate an offer. Because we are a small organization, we don’t have the technology that a larger organization or school system would have, so I have to create my own way of functioning. For most jobs we get about 150 resumes.

I also manage the benefits — medical, dental, and the pension plan. I’ve learned a lot from doing all those things, with continuously changing legislation there is a lot to know and it can be very confusing. And I work on company policies, laws, compliance and the employee orientation process.

I also coordinate the staff holiday party. We’ve gotten a little more involved with our social planning group, and we’ve also tried to do more philanthropic giving. For instance, over the holidays we adopted a family, and we also have done donations for Toys to Tots. We had a toiletry drive for a shelter in D.C. after AASA’s annual conference. We’ve been trying to do more community things like that, and team building activities.

How many people do you typically hire in a year?

It totally depends — we have a very low turnover in general, but things happen, like we might lose a grant. There’s not a lot of room for upward mobility in a small association, so people move on. It tends to be the busiest time for hiring when we get new grants.

What are some of the behind-the-scenes duties that we may not know about? Is there anything such as a typical day, and what would that look like?

There’s lots of little things that go on, we’re always trying to find ways to better serve the group. For instance, we started an intranet — even though a lot of technology isn’t economically affordable for our group, we went and figured out how to find affordable ways where we can better function as an association.

A typical day is like most jobs — I begin by going through e-mail to determine whether if anything is urgent. Depending on the time of the year, and if we’re hiring, that urgent thing can monopolize my day. There are times when we have to do pension reports, or a census for the audit, or look at compensation surveys and contribute to those. There are a lot of projects that go on throughout the year.

How does your role assist AASA in its vital services to members? What are some of the services you provide directly to AASA members?

The only service that I directly provide to the members is a life insurance policy for the executive board. Working directly with members is something I miss out on in my role so it’s nice to have opportunities to meet them. 

In 2016, I got to participate in the Memory Mission sponsored by Lifetouch. This is a mission trip where every year, they take superintendents and AASA staff to the Dominican Republic and help them build schools. The country needs schools and the government doesn’t supply them. That was great because I got to meet some of the AASA members and work alongside them. Years ago I also coordinated a walk-run at the AASA annual conference.

Besides that, I feel I am here to support all the people who support our members, to make sure they have what they need, the right staff, to help them do their jobs.

How has working at AASA changed over your time here? 

Things are constantly changing — the needs of the members are changing. Going back to 9/11, that changed people’s travel plans for going to the conference. Then there was the big crash where budgets got slashed in school districts, and some people weren’t allowed to travel out of state for meetings. Our challenge has been trying to figure out how to work around that. Now, certifications are a big benefit for the field.

What changes do you foresee for the human resources field and for your role at AASA?

I think the role of technology can make a difference — but it also can be hard for people to accept the technology, there is a learning curve and trying to get that acceptance can be hard sometimes.

Tell us about your efforts in attracting qualified candidates for job openings.

We don’t have a lot of money for hiring, so we look at the job, and see where the best place to advertise would be based on the job. For instance, most regular office jobs we might advertise in The Washington Post or INDEED. For most jobs I try not to look outside the area because we don’t offer relocation. If it’s a grants job we look different places depending on what the job is, if it’s a policy job then we would look toward one of their publications. We try to advertise in as many free places as available, and we try to keep track of where people come from so we can go back.

What advice would you have for anyone who is applying for a job at AASA?

Follow the directions for applying, and make sure we understand what you can give to AASA and how your experience relates to the job.  I tell people that you need to include a cover letter and a lot of people just don’t do that, and if you don’t you just won’t be considered.

Some people just apply to as many places as they can, they don’t necessarily look at what’s involved. But we want to see how you write, that you’re looking at us, that you want to work for AASA, and that you know something about AASA — you can tell when someone sends a cover letter and they don’t even know who we are.

We get a lot of resumes when we advertise, and probably half of them don’t include cover letters, and a third to a half have probably never looked at our website.

What are some of the factors that make AASA a great place to work? 

No. 1, the mission — education is important to everyone, whether you have a kids or not. We are doing what we can for the leaders to provide the best schools that they can. Second, it’s a really good place to work, it’s flexible, people care about each other and they’re accommodating for things like taking care of a sick child or parent, 

Also, being able to work from home once a week, having a very good leave package, 11 paid holidays, and you start with two weeks of vacation but after five years you can get four weeks. You also get two personal days, 10 sick days. That’s nice, as a lot of places have [paid time off] and when you look to transition to a PTO plan, it’s not going to provide as much leave. 

We also try to make the insurance plans as affordable as possible … but it’s hard to make decisions because we don’t know what’s coming down the line with legislation.