The Support They Didn’t Know They Needed

At coLeague, we often meet organizations at an inflection point. The day-to-day keeps everyone busy, but the cracks in systems are starting to show. That’s exactly where Alco Management, a 200-employee, family-owned business bringing affordable homes to Memphis, found themselves.

Their HR director was on intermittent leave, the rest of the HR team was lean, and while processes were written down, no one had the bandwidth to make sure they were actually happening. The team needed someone who could both keep things moving and help them build out sustainable systems.

We matched Alco with Lucy Joya, one of our incredible coLeaguers. Lucy jumped right in, managing the HR calendar, partnering with the broker to guide staff through open enrollment, handling employee relations and compliance, and keeping critical processes on track. But she didn’t just keep the lights on. She worked alongside leadership to rethink structures, strengthen systems, and lay the groundwork for long-term improvements.

As Sarah Jemison, Alco’s Chief Strategy Officer, put it:

“Lucy has been the support we didn’t know we needed. She worked within our current, dysfunctional systems while helping us dream, design, and implement new structures, systems, and approaches. She identified the issues and stepped in to save the day for open enrollment. She managed the day-to-day work alongside the reorg work.”

What started as a six-month engagement grew into a multi-year partnership, a reflection of the trust built and the impact made. Today, Alco is not only managing performance for key staff members but also poised to create and improve programs that will strengthen their organization for years to come. Part of Sarah’s vision to transform the organization was to start by building a strong, people-centric Talent team so that change could start “from within.” We’ve gotten to be a part of building that team with Sarah Braver leading multiple searches for new Talent leadership at Alco, including their first VP of Talent.

This case study is a great reminder of what embedded support makes possible: stability in the moment and capacity for the future.