Minnesota Lawyer
As HR manager at Fish & Richardson, Brandy Wolf has responsibility for the human resources function for both legal and non-legal staff in the firm’s 14 offices in the United States, China and Europe.
She came to the job nine years ago via a want ad, and was impressed with the HR team the firm already had in place.
“I was promoted a year ago to HR manager,” she said, “but the generalist title still fits — everyone in HR wears a lot of hats. You just adapt to the needs of the firm at any given moment.”
As one might expect, Wolf’s job became more demanding in 2020. She worked to increase mental health support and programming to help employees deal with the stresses of pandemic life and work. That included the creation of a mental health resources intranet page, development of virtual wellness events and planning and executing of several wellness-related webinars throughout the year.
Wolf also worked with Fish’s benefits department to expand back-up child and elder care benefits during the pandemic. That included spearheading the firm’s increase in the number of annual allowed visits and adding a crisis care benefit which gave employees the opportunity to find in-home caregivers on their own and receive reimbursement. Fish employees used the back-up care almost 1,000 times in 2020, about twice as much as it had been used the year before.
“It’s gratifying to be able to work with management team and give them the resources they need to be successful,” Wolf said.
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