(Human Resources - Little Rock Office) - Datamax Inc. President Barry Simon says it should be a painstakingly difficult decision for ANYONE to leave our company.

It certainly was for Tamara Hargrove.

“Today is bittersweet. Today I say goodbye to a place I’ve been for the last year. A place where friends I knew prior to working here became family … Even though I’m saying goodbye to this current location, I am not saying goodbye to my friends and family who work here. I will see y’all down the road and talk/see you all often,” she wrote on her FB feed the day she left Datamax in 2017.

It’s not hard to imagine, then, that she returned two years later.

What led me to Datamax?

Tamara first knew Datamax as a customer.

“I ran a print shop and was in charge of all the copiers at Children’s Hospital,” she says. “I met Barry and worked closely with several people in the Little Rock office, and was a Raving Fan of their service.”

In 2016, Tamara was hired as a sales coordinator and worked closely with VP of Sales David Holzhauer, but a year later felt the calling to return to healthcare. In 2019, when the Human Resources position became available, “my phone blew up. I got a lot of text messages from employees that this position had opened up.”

She says there was no hesitation in coming back.

“We’re family here. This is where I needed to be.”

My experiences at Datamax:

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster for Tamara, and everyone else on this earth, since her Datamax return. Soon after taking the Human Resources role, her son, who is in the Army, was deployed to South Korea. Not long after that, COVID-19 hit.

“It’s been anything but normal. If anyone was worried that I would be bored, that has certainly not been the case. But I’ve really been given the opportunity to take this position and run with it.”

What does she mean by that? Tamara’s gone outside the normal scope of her job to onboard new employees, meeting and vetting cleaning crews, and recently taking as much time as necessary with new employees in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

“They’re not familiar with our culture, and all the ways we function, so it’s important to me to help bridge that gap. I want to know how they’re feeling, what apprehensions they might have, and talk through things with them to help ease the transition.”

What makes me want to stay at Datamax?

Coming from a corporate environment – where everything was black and white – makes Tamara appreciate Datamax even more.

“With Barry having an open door policy, or if there’s something we don’t agree on or that we need to brainstorm, we have ability to do that. Everything is not dictated to employees. We have the ability and freedom to make these positions our own.”

Tamara, too, has an open door policy in her office, and encourages employees to stop by and visit with any concerns, questions, etc.

“They know they can talk to me any time,” Tamara says.

In the end, Tamara is many things to many people at Datamax: Facilitator, coordinator, human resources expert, cultural champion, friend, and certainly a willing set of ears to anyone who calls Datamax home.

At this point, not having Tamara around the Little Rock office? It’s hard to imagine.