Jasmine McKenzie: Celebrating Satisfying Work in Public Service

With a bachelor’s degree in accounting, it makes sense that Jasmine McKenzie has spent a lot of her professional life working with numbers.

McKenzie, who earned that degree from the University of Phoenix, has held numerous payroll- and accounting-related positions since 2006. Her first role was as a staff accountant with Free & Clear Inc., a Seattle-based healthcare services company.

She subsequently served as an accounts payable accountant and payroll accountant with Seattle’s Compass Housing Alliance, working with the provider of essential services, shelter and affordable housing from February 2009 through August 2016.

Such positions helped ultimately lead McKenzie to Puget Sound Clear Air Agency in October 2020, when she joined the agency as a payroll administrator.

“I was first working in the public sector performing full cycle payroll functions,” recalls McKenzie. When an opening on the agency’s HR team became available, she opted to apply.

McKenzie got the job, of course, starting as a human resources analyst in September 2022.

“It’s been four years now, and it’s the best, most satisfying work I have ever done,” she says now. “I can easily meet people where they are, regarding the help they may need with benefits, leave policies and so on. I’m on a really great HR team, where I’m like the heart and my senior counterpart is the head. We cover all the bases.”

McKenzie became a PSHRA member in June 2023, earning her PSHRA-CP certification in August of the following year.

McKenzie aspired to become certified in benefits administration, and she has also taken advantage of numerous learning opportunities through PSHRA, such as live webinars that allow her to hear her peers “talk about similar highs and lows” in the public sector HR profession.

The desire to help her workplace peers is part of what led McKenzie to public service, and to the HR profession.

“I was attracted to the role because I felt compelled to help my coworkers more,” she says. “I like providing a safe place to those who need it, and I understand the small effort it takes to see and hear someone. This HR role has allowed me to help form a culture of belonging and inclusion.”