LaTrelle Porter Wins 2022 Mission Implementation Award

​LaTrelle Porter, SHRM-CP, is the recipient of the SHRM Foundation’s 2022 Mission Implementation Award for an initiative she spearheaded to promote the hiring of people with criminal histories, veterans, older workers and people with disabilities. 

The award recognizes a current SHRM member who has successfully led creative programming or initiatives that align with one of the Foundation’s key priorities:
Together Forward @Work,
Getting Talent Back to Work or
Veterans at Work.

Porter has served as an HR business partner for the city of Savannah, Ga., for 24 years and is a consultant to management in areas that include talent acquisition. She holds a doctorate in management with an emphasis in leadership and organizational change from Walden University.

Under her leadership as president-elect of the SHRM Savannah chapter and chair of its Workforce Readiness Committee, the chapter partnered with the Statesboro (Ga.) Area and Golden Isles SHRM chapters to host “Enhance the Chance,” a three-pronged program consisting of a virtual job fair and employment workshop in July 2021 and
a panel discussion in November.

“The rates of unemployment are high in our area,” Porter said. “In order to help the community, we felt it was important as HR professionals to provide opportunities for a second chance to all of the individuals in each targeted group.”

The Initiative

The initiative’s goal, according to Porter, was to build strong partnerships and strategic alliances with organizations throughout the chapters’ areas and give chapter members insight into the barriers and stigmas that prevent people in these underrepresented groups from obtaining employment.

Eleven employers participated in the job fair portion of “Enhance the Chance”: Alorica, a minority-owned IT business outsourcing provider; Beaufort-Jasper (S.C.) Water & Sewer Authority; Chatham County Government; the city of Savannah; EnviroVac Interfor, an industrial cleaning services provider; Georgia Power; MCCS South Carolina, a provider of community services to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island and Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort; the Savannah Convention Center; South University, a private university with its main campus and online headquarters in Savannah; Tybee Island Rentals; and Worksource Coastal, a provider of employment and training services resources for youth.

The workshop and job fair attracted 73 attendees, while 54 people attended the panel discussion. 
The discussion highlighted the benefits of hiring individuals from these groups, offered tips on making the business case for doing so and made recommendations on how to make hiring practices more inclusive.

Panelists included Brent Ferrara, CEO of
EmployAbility, an organization that provides pre-vocational training to people with disabilities; Jon Morgan, retired HR professional from the Georgia National Guard Active-Duty program and current employment coordinator for
Work for Warriors Georgia; and Frederic T. Green, founder of FAVOR, an organization that highlights the successes of formerly incarcerated individuals. Green also co-chairs ARCS, the
city of Savannah’s re-entry task force that helps assimilate formerly incarcerated individuals or those with criminal histories, is an adjunct professor at several universities, and is a case manager for American Work Inc.

Porter’s Service to SHRM and Education

Porter is the SHRM Georgia State Council secretary. She has served on the SHRM Savannah chapter’s membership committee and has been a SHRM Foundation volunteer for the last decade. She received the Georgia State Council Volunteer of the Year Award for her efforts as the Workforce Readiness Committee chair.

All three chapters involved with “Enhance the Chance” received the Georgia State Council Community Endeavor Award for their efforts.

Porter has a Master of Arts in HR development and management from Webster University in Beaufort, S.C., and a Master of Science in leadership and leader development from Walden University in Minneapolis.

She has a bachelor’s degree in HR management from Georgia Southern University and a bachelor’s degree in management from Savannah State University.

Porter is a member of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources and was an adjunct HR professor for five years at Webster University’s Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield campuses, teaching courses in HR management and organizational development and staffing. She presented her doctoral dissertation, “Exploring the Employability of African American Ex-Offenders in Local Government,” at The Quality Report 9th Annual Conference at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale in 2018.