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Live United by Erin Haag

My boy is a big fan of breakfast. Eggs and toast is his favorite meal. His daddy goes to work before sunrise, but on the weekends, our boy will be marching through the house, “eggs and toast! Eggs and toast! Eggs and toast!” It has become something of a tradition: Dad cooks up a big breakfast on the weekends. It might be eggs and toast, but sometimes it’s pancakes or French toast. A bad day can be turned around with eggs and toast for dinner. To be fair, he’s a big fan of food in general, never going through a picky eating stage like many kids do. The school lunch helpers comment to me that they know he’ll clean his plate and then come back for seconds.

He’s old enough now that he’s learned how to make his own eggs and toast, under supervision. One early morning, he was home with just me, and I asked him if he wanted to make his favorite eggs and toast while I did a little work. Way to start his day right! He offered to make me eggs, too, and I gladly accepted. That’s when it began. I’d just be hitting my stride on the thing I was working on, and he’d come back with a question. Never all at once. Each individual question was a separate trip from the kitchen to where I was working. “One egg or two?” “Would you like ham with it?” “Would you like cheese on your eggs?” “Do you want toast?” “Cinnamon toast or the regular toast?” “Butter or no butter?” I also got regular updates. “The eggs are done, now we’re just waiting for the toast.” “By the way, I’ll need you to divvy out the eggs because I don’t really have that skill yet. You got two eggs, I got four.” When did breakfast get so complicated?

Things often tend to be more complicated than they seem. Sometimes we need to take it down to basics, and sometimes we need to take it more seriously and realize the thing is more than what it seems. While my experience has been wide and varied, I’ve never had formal training on how to manage people. Manage a classroom of 4-year-olds, absolutely. Manage adults in the workplace? Nope. Nada. Managing adults is a large part of my jobs over the past several years, so I needed to figure some things out. At first, I was just acting on instinct. My first management job was hiring through a program that was geared towards young college graduates, usually taking a year before starting graduate school. I had to develop policies for our day to day working relationship. One day I sat down and typed up a dress code policy. Then I erased half of it and rewrote it. I tried to imagine the different scenarios and be broad enough to cover the possibilities, but yet not so specific it was ridiculous. Finally I had a verbal conversation. I told my new hire that they were an adult, and they should dress in a way that reflected their particular job of the day. I advised them that paying attention to what others in our workplace wore would be a good measurement, and not being an outlier in either direction would be generally considered safe. One employee was so relieved that she didn’t have to go out and buy new clothes for her job. I only regretted that once, but to be honest, that employee had way bigger issues than the dress code. I’ve learned a lot about being a manager in the years since, and especially in the last five years. Dress code, absence policies and how to establish expectations and provide feedback. I’ve tried to learn the best ways to support and advocate for my teams, while upholding the boundaries of what’s best for the organization. It’s a work in progress. I haven’t always been successful. There’s definitely situations that I would have handled differently — but I would hope that any manager thinks that. No one should be perfect or think that there was no room for improvement.

Being a manager is as much about developing my own managerial philosophy as it is the actual policies. What is my management style, what are the areas that I’m willing to compromise on, and where am I not able to compromise? Here’s an example: I have this firm belief that the workplace should provide you the tools to do the job. End of story. If we can’t provide you with the tools to do your job, then we can’t afford the position. If we can’t afford the staff to do the job, then we are over capacity. Sounds simple, but it’s surprising how often a team person will want to pick up supplies on their own dime, or use their personal equipment, or volunteer off the clock. This sounds minor, but what happens when that employee no longer wants to do that? We now don’t have a good understanding of the true cost of the program, or the true workload of the program. Then we’re left trying to strategize how to add in the extra cost. Sometimes it’s the cost of a new laptop and sometimes it’s the cost of legal pads. Either way, it’s a slippery slope. We see it every day in classrooms across the nation — according to the National Education Association it’s predicted that teachers will spend up to $800 out of pocket this year on their own supplies.

That’s a deep-rooted issue that has it’s own complexities, but I’m determined that it doesn’t happen with our teams. Nonprofit work is underpaid, undervalued and underestimated. As a manager, I feel like it’s my job to ensure that the team has what they need to do their job. As a leader of nonprofits, I feel it’s United Way’s role to find ways to support other nonprofits beyond annual grants. We’re not in this just to raise money. Let’s help our nonprofits learn about how to be managers, how to support their teams, how to tell their story. Let’s tackle common challenges together. In early 2025, United Way is issuing an invitation to area nonprofit leaders. Once a month, we invite our leaders to gather and talk. Me being me, I’m going to make sure we’re throwing some good snacks in there, too. Stay tuned, good things are coming. To learn more or ask to be updated, please email uwfc@unitedwayfc.org or call us at 507-373-8670.

Erin Haag is the executive director of the United Way of Freeborn County.