“i’m proud of all of it”

When Amy Hundley began her career at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) as a caseworker, everything was paper-based. Computers had yet to be introduced into the office and were a long way from being on every caseworker's desk. Since then, Amy has risen to become the Director of the Policy and Operations Bureau within the Economic Stability Administration at MDHHS. 

During her time as director, Amy has been a partner on a number of projects with Civilla, including Project Re:Form, which redesigned the longest benefit application in America, and Project Re:New, which created a human-centered benefit renewal process in Michigan that led to 95% of renewals being submitted on time. 

In honor of Public Service Recognition Week, Civilla sat down recently with Amy to reflect on her journey. As she nears retirement, Amy shares the changes she’s seen within MDHHS and the wisdom she’s gained about how to adapt and lead durable culture change within institutions. 

The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity. 

How did you first start your career in public service?

I went to school to get a Master's of Social Work, but I did not really see my career going in this direction. I started in a local office as a caseworker, moved up a little bit, then I went to the central office years ago as a [food assistance program] accuracy manager. So I started working with the whole state on some initiatives related to our [food assistance program] case error rate. And because I sat in the central office, I was working with local offices and central office people that I had never been exposed to, and I saw a position that I thought had a lot of influence over the way things were done and who was included in conversations and decisions. And I thought to myself, “Oh, that's the job I would like.” That exposure led me to what I wanted my career path to be. 

Over your 35 years at MDHHS, is there a project that you're especially proud of?

I'm proud of any project that we identify and bring to fruition, but the ones that really stand out in my mind were those that were unique, and those were projects like we did with Civilla. Years ago, we did Project Re:Form to rewrite our application. That was a huge lift. It included changing how we do things operationally, training caseworkers across the state, and getting our policy area to be onboard with the rewrite of the application. Being able to get that across the finish line was the first really unique project that we did that required lots of outside assistance, and had everybody on the state side leaning in the same direction. 

It'll be 35 years this summer that I’ve been at MDHHS. When I was a caseworker, it was the first time we got computers, but we still kept paper files. Moving from there to everybody having a computer on their desk, electronic case files and going paperless, to our current eligibility system and all the projects we do now…I’m proud of all of it. 

What was your role in the Re:Form project?

My role was helping to bring everything and everybody together to get us through the process. So if the vision was unclear or if there was something that we needed to make a decision on that we just couldn't get clarity around, my role was to talk to everybody and figure out what the right direction was. I really stood by and tried to make sure people were comfortable with the decisions that were getting made, and make sure we were making those decisions in a timely manner.

What did you learn about supporting people through a project like that?

From a leadership perspective, it's making sure that the people who report to me feel comfortable expressing their concerns and have somebody to help lead them in the right direction. They don't want to feel like they're going to be left hanging if something goes wrong, so it’s critical to make it a safe space for people to make decisions. 

I want to make sure they know that I trust them to make decisions, and if we make a mistake, there's not a culture of punitive actions. It's more like let's learn from this and see how we can do better in the future. I think it's just this constant trust building and working on relationships with people that's one of the most important things that we can do. I'm not saying I don't hold people accountable, but it’s important to build a culture where my team feels supported, and they can come to me with whatever they need to talk about so we can get to a place where we can keep going forward.

What personal change have you experienced in your time as a leader at MDHHS?

Not having to control everything, trusting people, and delegating work appropriately. When I was a caseworker or a first-line manager, I was very interested in understanding every single detail of everything I did to ensure I was doing the right things and my staff were doing the right things. And so it took a little bit for me to learn how to be comfortable delegating and trusting. When I say that I worked with teams on building trust, that was also my exercise in figuring out how to build trust with other people so that I could trust to delegate to them. That and having patience with the process. I'm somebody who wants to skip to the end really quickly and just do it. Knowing that there has to be a process and we have to bring people along with us to get the best product possible has been something I’ve learned. When we have actual collaboration, that's really important because it will get us to a better product. And I've seen that over and over again.