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Work is a human experience.

HERD helps leaders build workplaces where people get to be fully human. The employee journey is made of moments people live through, and those moments are where culture is won or lost.

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What HERD stands for

Four things every workplace experience depends on.

H.

Human

Every employee is a whole person before they're a job title.

E.

Experience

Life and work are measured by the moments people live through, not only the outcomes they produce.

R.

Relationships

Culture is built in the connections between people, not in a policy manual.

D.

Development

Growth, personal and organizational, is the whole point.

Somewhere along the way, work started treating people like robots. HERD exists to bring the human back.

Policies, processes, and performance metrics matter, but people don’t remember the workflow. They remember the manager who checked in after a hard week, the onboarding that made them feel expected, and the team that made room for who they are.

HERD takes research on burnout and identity and turns it into practical HR work, so leaders can build workplaces where people feel seen, supported, and able to grow together.

Read our mission

How we work together

Consulting, coaching, and speaking.

For organizations

HR Consulting

Employee experience design, engagement strategy, performance management, organizational development, and change management.

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For individuals

Coaching

For leaders and high performers building self-awareness alongside skill, including Emergenetics® profile coaching.

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For events

Keynote Speaking

Talks on invisible work, the experience before day one, burnout, respect, and leading humans.

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For teams

Facilitation

Emergenetics® team workshops, leadership development, retreats, and custom sessions built to move people forward together.

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Meet the founder

Anissa Janae Mimms

A decade in HR. A doctoral researcher studying workplace burnout and social identity. A granddaughter who was taught that life is about the experiences.

Meet the founder Read along on Substack

Mission & Vision

People don't thrive alone. Neither do organizations.

Our mission

To help leaders create spaces where people can be truly human at work, by designing employee experiences rooted in connection, belonging, and growth.

Our vision

A world of work where every employee journey is remembered as a series of meaningful human experiences, and no one has to leave themselves at the door.

Why HERD

The story behind the name.

A grandmother who collected experiences

HERD was created with our founder's grandmother in mind. She was an eclectic woman who lived fully and always reminded her granddaughter that life is about the experiences.

That lesson became the lens for this work. A career is not a title or a list of tasks. It is the experiences people have along the way, and those experiences shape who they become.

"Life is about the experiences."Our founder's grandmother

An uncle who trained elephants

Our founder's uncle was an elephant trainer, and the name HERD comes from elephants too. Elephants live in close family herds, usually led by the oldest female, the matriarch, whose memory and experience guide the group.

Herds move together, protect their young together, and look after members who fall behind. That's the kind of workplace HERD helps build: one where people are known, supported, and never left to carry everything alone.

Read how HERD was founded

What we believe

Human. Experience. Relationships. Development.

H.

See the whole person

Employees hold many roles and identities. Strategies work when they account for all of them.

E.

Design the moments

The employee journey is built from experiences. Small moments carry the most weight.

R.

Build the connections

Belonging grows between people. Leaders make room for it on purpose.

D.

Grow together

Personal and organizational growth go together, and nobody has to do it alone.

Meet the founder

Anissa Janae Mimms

Anissa has spent a decade in Human Resources, working alongside employees and leaders at every point of their time with an organization. She kept seeing the same thing. Companies put their energy into getting new people in the door and up to speed, with little thought for what the experience actually feels like. The connections that build high performers and keep people for the long haul were left to chance.

Today, as a doctoral student, she studies workplace burnout and social identity theory, the idea that the groups we belong to shape who we are. Her research looks at how people carry many roles and identities into work at once, and why engagement only works when there’s room for all of them.

She founded HERD to take that research out of the classroom and into real workplaces through consulting, coaching, speaking, and facilitation. Her goal is simple: help leaders build workplaces where people get to be fully human.

How HERD was founded Get in touch Connect on LinkedIn

"Go on and conquer."

The HERD motto, and the send-off every person deserves on their way to what's next.

Services

Support for every part of the employee journey.

HR Consulting

For organizations and HR teams

Practical HR strategy built around how people actually experience work.

Employee experience design
Engagement strategy
Performance management
Organizational development
Change management

Coaching

For leaders and high performers

One-on-one coaching that builds self-awareness alongside skill, so growth lasts and doesn't come at the cost of burnout.

Leadership development
Emergenetics® profile coaching: understanding your results and using them to lead yourself and your team
Self-awareness and working style
Navigating burnout and competing roles

Keynote Speaking

For conferences, companies, and events

Talks rooted in research and real workplace stories that leave people thinking differently about the humans they work with.

The League Mindset. Noticing the invisible work on a team, including your own.
The Day Zero Effect. The employee experience starts before day one.
The High-Performer Illusion. Burnout in the people who look like they're doing fine.
Respect at Work. Civility, belonging, and making room for the whole person.
Leading Humans. What people-first leadership looks like day to day.

Facilitation

For teams and leadership groups

Hands-on sessions where the group does the work together. Any keynote topic can become an interactive workshop.

Emergenetics® team workshops: how your team thinks, behaves, and works best together
Leadership and manager development
Leadership and team retreats
Custom workshops built around what your team needs

Signature concepts

Frameworks for workplaces.

The Day Zero Effect

Where every employee's story begins

New hires haven't started yet, but they're already feeling things. The employee experience begins before day one, and the way an organization shows up in that window shapes everything that follows.

All of these emotions and thoughts are building up to the experience.

Anissa presenting the Day Zero Effect to a live audience — Presenting the Day Zero Effect

The Hooked Cycle

A repeatable model for building engagement across the full employee lifecycle.

1 Ask
2 Act
3 Appreciate

The League Mindset

You're part of the team, so you count when you think about teamwork. The League Mindset is about noticing the invisible work, including your own, and choosing to make it visible on purpose instead of disappearing into it or pretending it isn't there.

Getting started

How working together begins.

Step 1

Reach out

Send a short note about your team and what's on your mind.

Step 2

Discovery conversation

We talk through what's happening, what you've tried, and what you want to change.

Step 3

A plan that fits

You get a recommended approach: consulting, coaching, a session, or a mix.

Step 4

Grow together

We do the work side by side and check in on how people are experiencing it.

Start the conversation

Our story

How HERD was founded.

HERD comes from a family that taught our founder to collect experiences, and from the elephants she grew up around.

Young Anissa, circled, standing with her family beside one of her uncle's elephants — Our founder as a young girl (circled) with family and one of her uncle's elephants.

Our founder grew up around elephants. Her uncle was an elephant trainer, and some of her earliest memories are of standing next to animals that were enormous, gentle, and deeply devoted to one another.

Her grandmother was the other half of the story. She was an eclectic woman who lived boldly and always told her that life is about the experiences. HERD was built with her in mind.

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Why elephants

What a herd knows about loyalty.

Elephants are some of the most social and emotionally aware animals on earth. The way they care for one another is the way HERD shows up for the organizations it works with.

They travel together

Herds move as one family. The group slows its pace so the youngest and weakest members can keep up, and no one is left behind.

With HERD: we move at your pace, and we move together.

They trust the matriarch

A herd is usually led by its oldest female. Her memory of routes, water, and danger guides the group, and the herd trusts her judgment, especially in hard seasons.

With HERD: you get experience and research you can lean on when things get hard.

They feel deeply

Researchers have watched elephants comfort a distressed herd member with gentle touches of the trunk and soft calls. They also linger with and mourn those they've lost.

With HERD: the emotional side of work is part of the strategy, not something to manage around.

They stay loyal

Family bonds last for decades. Elephants who have been apart greet each other with excited rumbles and trunk touches when they reunite.

With HERD: a partner for the long haul, not a one-time engagement.

Join the herd

Let's build a workplace where people get to be human.

Work with HERD Meet the founder

Read along

Writing for people who are humans first.

Read along on Substack about the human side of school, work, and life.

Full Time Humans

Essays and reflections from the HERD founder. Free to read, delivered to your inbox.

Subscribe on Substack Read the latest

What you'll find

Class in SessionThe doctoral journey: research, learning, and balancing school with everything else.

On the ClockBurnout, identity, belonging, and the moments that make people stay, grow, or leave.

Off the ClockThe experiences outside of work that shape who we are.

Also published

Articles on HigherEdJobs

Our founder also writes for HigherEdJobs, sharing ideas on the people side of work in higher education.

Read the articles

Contact

Let's talk about your people.

Whether you're planning a project, looking for a coach, or booking a speaker, we'd love to hear what's happening with your people.

Start a conversation Connect on LinkedIn

Or write to us directly at anissamimms@gmail.com

Not sure where to start?

Tell us a little about yourself and your team
Share what's on your mind, or what you'd love to see change
Let us know if consulting, coaching, speaking, or facilitation feels like the right fit
Mention any dates you're working toward

No need to have it all figured out. That's what the conversation is for.