My favorite HR policy? Love people hard.

For HR professionals, the temptation to address individual needs with sweeping policies or organization-wide initiatives is strong. Our impact is often most visible on a macro level.

And while it’s important to think holistically and act scalably, the moments I feel most useful are not the moments I hit “send” on company-wide announcements, but rather the moments spent in intimate conversation with individuals.

They’re the moments in which I feel lucky to witness the intersection of our work lives with our humanity.

The moment when a team member steps into my office, asks “Do you have a minute?” then tells me, through joyful tears, that she’s pregnant with a much prayed-for child and has questions about the parental leave program.

The moment a star performer tells me he’s thrilled to have been offered his dream job, the one that aligns with his calling… at another company. And asks for my advice on how to break the news to his manager and team.

The moment a team member reveals to me that her year-end bonus allowed her to start planning the vacation she and her family had been dreaming of.

The moment a team member tells me he has a brain tumor and needs to understand the company’s medical leave and health insurance benefits. And the moment, months later, when he comes out of surgery successfully.

Any trusted HR professional might experience hundreds of these moments in a year. Moments that, by their very nature, may not be widely visible. And yet, it’s in these moments that I experience the purest form of what I view as the responsibility of HR: to see people as people — and to love those people hard.

Love is difficult to measure. It doesn’t often have its own KPI. It’s hard to capture love in a slide deck and it’s not something we include in the board report.

But that’s okay.

The trust of my colleagues and the opportunity to support and serve them during what might be the most important moments — not just of their careers, but of their lives — is measure enough.

If we’re lucky, we get to spend our days doing work we love.

If we’re really lucky, we get to do that work with and for people we love.

And sometimes, love is the work, and those are the luckiest moments of all.

This article first appeared Jun 16th, 2017 on Analiese’s Medium account. Follow her here for more great posts!