Introducing this month’s HR Practitioner and UNT partner, Jeff Miller, Sr. Vice President of Human Resources with the Texas Rangers Baseball Club. Jeff brings a wealth of experience to UNT’s HR program and is dedicated to assisting HR students achieve their academic and professional goals.

Jeff grew up in Richardson, Texas and graduated from UNT in 1992 with a BBA, focused on marketing research. Similar to many HR practitioners, although his degree wasn’t specifically focused on HR, he was provided opportunities that led to a career path in HR. He spent 14 years “around HR” with Insperity (outsourced HR for businesses) on the service side of the company and then into various leadership positions. It's when he left Insperity to run HR for an oil & gas service company that he really learned so much about HR and adapting HR to the needs of a business.

Jeff stated, “Going from a white collar organization to primarily blue collar was an immensely useful learning experience and set my foundation for adapting and leading the kind of HR that was aligned in support of the business with a reputation of being supportive and open to assist.”

Jeff is currently the Senior Vice President of Human Resources with the Texas Rangers Baseball Club, where he began in September of 2020. Jeff has been an instrumental corporate partner by speaking to HR classes and providing HR internships to students.

When asked about the most rewarding part about working in HR, Jeff stated, “As Simon Sinek says, successful businesses know their ‘Why’ and the same goes for people. Every role I’ve ever been the most successful in was involved in helping people (or departments or companies). To me, seeing a person or group grow/improve/evolve to something better as a result of my influence is incredibly rewarding and more importantly, they become better themselves.”

We asked Jeff for his thoughts on what makes a successful HR Practitioner. Jeff shared the following traits:

• Someone who isn’t a “black & white, in the box kind of thinker”. As HR professionals, we need to know where the lines are, but we are best living in the gray, providing guidance, options, risk assessment, and recommendations and leaving the decisions to the business leader – as we will support that decision going forward.
• Someone who is responsive, engaging, open, listens and seeks to understand.
• Someone who is good at coming up with alternatives on how to get to “yes” when the request and straight answer is “no” or not what the businessperson wants to hear.

UNT is extremely fortunate to have a corporate partner like Jeff as we continue to develop students to become HR leaders of the future. Jeff has the following advice for future HR students and other HR practitioners alike: He suggests focusing on building relationships and work on articulating and communication your thoughts/ideas succinctly with links to business or individual performance improvement/enhancement.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership and the significant value you provide to the HR community, Jeff!