Danielle Hazen wanted to change the world through medicine. She enrolled in nursing school with plans to join Doctors Without Borders — to help in places where the need was greatest and care was hardest to find.
Then, early in her working life, she watched her leader treat a direct report in a way that stayed with her. Not necessarily as anger, more as a question she couldn’t let go.
“I considered what I could do in my career and how I could be more influential in how individuals interact with one another,” she recalls. “I found that HR was going to be the path I really wanted to pursue.”
A second degree. A career redirect and a clear answer to the question she’d been carrying. The way people are treated at work matters, and someone has to be accountable for getting it right.
A Conduit, Not a Gatekeeper
After years in healthcare and manufacturing, Danielle joined First Federal Bank as HR Director — a role she stepped into with a belief in the culture based on her 25 years as a First Fed customer. Her husband, who has done his business banking here just as long, shared similar appreciation for First Fed.
“Every experience I’ve had with employees, while I’ve been a customer, has been very, very positive,” she says. “I knew this would be the right place for me to work.”
Her philosophy about the HR function is simple: it exists for both
sides of the employment relationship.
“HR is very much a conduit between expectations from an employer standpoint and an employee standpoint,” she says. “It’s ensuring there is a meaningful connection between both.”
That belief was tested most in a previous role, helping a company navigate a merger that grew its workforce from 2,000 employees to 100,000. The logistics were significant, but what concerned Danielle most was harder to measure — the sense of loss felt by people leaving behind the smaller company they’d known.
“My focus was ensuring they still felt like it was close-knit and connected,” she explains.
Building a Culture That Lasts
For Danielle, recruiting at First Fed starts with culture – who you hire is who your customers see in the grocery store, at church, at their kids’ games.
Retention comes down to leadership that shows up and means what it says.
“If they consistently hear it and then also see it — that is impactful,” she says. “It helps with retention and engagement.”
Despite recently starting her role when this conversation took place, Danielle was already clear on what drew her here. It wasn’t a title or a policy. It was what a bank rooted in community makes possible.
“Coming from a much larger company, the connectedness to the community has been instrumental,” she says. “I know First Fed is reinvesting into our community and ensuring our community is well taken care of.”
Danielle once planned to make a difference halfway around the world. Instead, she found her calling right here in Idaho.
