Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Diversity
Being a human resources and diversity executive during the Great Resignation requires creativity, said Tonya Calix, who has devised a number of unique initiatives to recruit and retain talent at Beach Bank in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Calix created the bank’s OneBeach Cares, a volunteer program across all of the 11 branches. “One of our core values is community,” she said. “We wanted our employees to get out and meet people and make an impact in their local communities.” Each employee gets paid time off to volunteer two days a year; staffers have volunteered at organizations like the Tampa Humane Center, and Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center. “We cleaned up the beach there, and cleaned the tanks of the turtles they’ve rescued that can’t be released back into the wild. It was a great experience,” she said.
One of her favorite volunteer opportunities was at the Emerald Coast Autism Center. “That one’s got my heart,” she said. Calix has a 16-year-old son on the autism spectrum, and, since she's also a board-certified behavior analyst, she works with children and teens with autism. “With the teenagers, I teach them financial literacy, and job skills such as how to dress professionally, and how to interview," she said.
Calix started at Beach Bank as an executive assistant in 2011, and was promoted to senior vice president of human resources and diversity in January 2019. “I am the first African American to be a SVP and a member of the executive team,” she said. “There weren’t a lot of opportunities where I grew up in Fort Walton Beach. You don’t see a lot of minorities in lead positions.”
In 2020, Calix created Beach's first ever Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging initiative, which includes an annual Diversity Day, monthly education on different topics, intentionality in hiring practices, and a project to evaluate pay grades and data analytics. “I recognized that we needed to do this, and our CEO gave me his full support,” she said. “I know I can’t do this by myself.”
“Tonya has the most potential of any human resource executive I have worked with in my 30-plus-year career,” said CEO Chip Reeves, who nominated Calix. “She inspires trust and respect from her peer group executives based on her intellect, work ethic and authentic true collaboration.”
In late April, Mississippi-based First Bancshares announced a
To address the lack of diversity in the management and executive ranks, in 2021, Calix launched Beach's first-ever Leadership program, called L.E.A.D. (lead, evolve, aspire, and develop.) It’s a 10-month program that takes on a different topic every two months. “The first thing I have them work on is their emotional intelligence. They need to understand who they are and how to become a better person,” said Calix, who leads the program.
The LEAD employees are each paired with a mentor to learn how to communicate more effectively and work on their public speaking skills. Calix also teaches a “Banking 101” course: “Sometimes new employees don’t understand all of the ins and outs of what we do here. We pair them with someone from a different department and learn how we function together as a team.”
At the end of the program, each of the half-dozen mentees has to appear before the bank’s executive committee and give a five-to-seven minute presentation about what they’ve learned and their career goals. “Everyone involved has moved up in the organization. That is really exciting. I tell them, if you’re a better person overall, you will also be better at work,” Calix said.
Calix is currently working on a doctorate in industrial and organizational psychology, which she hopes to complete in the next two years. “My goal is to finish by the time I’m 40,” she said. In the meantime, she has an exciting project in the works: she’s expecting her second child in October. “My son is so excited to be a big brother,” she said.
