Tiffany Morissette

Why this persona fits the audience

She handles people operations at a 25-person digital agency in Leeds and maintains employee birthdays, work anniversaries, and a few contractor dates in a shared spreadsheet. She sends many of the notes from her Gmail account and keeps copies of templates for recurring staff milestones.

• Age: 37
• Location: Leeds, UK
• Occupation: HR manager
• Income: £48k annual salary
• Education: Bachelor's degree in HR Management, Leeds Beckett University
• Company size: 25
• Years in role: 5

“I didn't become HR to write birthday emails, but now I can't imagine a world where I didn't personally approve every exclamation mark in each one.”

Tiffany Morissette's HR career began with grand visions of transformative employee experiences, but reality quickly settled into the daily rhythm of spreadsheets and sentiment analysis. After earning her degree, she spent two formative years at a mid-sized call center, where she developed her knack for wrangling disengaged staff with minimal budget. The move to the Leeds digital agency promised 'more creative freedom' - what it delivered was 25 creative individuals who collectively remembered exactly three HR policies. Her current spreadsheet system, affectionately dubbed 'The Morissette Matrix' by devs, handles everything from birthdays to bereavement leave. Last month's-system crash forced her to confront digital upgrade possibilities, though she's still recovering from the 'hm, we could just use Google Sheets' comment that triggered an hour-long debate about SaaS security. Tiffany's greatest professional satisfaction comes from turning around employees who've 'had enough' - like when she convinced the agency to offer remote Wednesdays after analyzing her burnt-out junior's Slack activity patterns. Her biggest recent challenge: convincing the founders that 'Team bonding' doesn't mean mandatory WhatsApp groups. Personally, she maintains a quiet obsession with perfecting the office coffee-to-vibe ratio, recentlyspoken investing in a proper Pablo barista machine. Despite her conscientiousness, she's developed a superstitious faith in her 3pm KitKat ritual - the one time her inbox goes untouched. Professionally, she's one of those rare HR managers who can deliver tough messages with a smile, though she'll admit privately that 'keeping the peace' sometimes means swallowing her own work-life balance advice. She's currently networking her way into HR Tech meetups, hoping to find solutions that won't require her to learn coding 'just this once'. To outsiders, she appears perpetually composed, but colleagues know to check her cufflinks - untidy ones signal a stressful week. Her 48k salary provides comfort, though she's quietly aware the agency's recent funding round means she's now the lowest-paid person in the founders' Slack channel. When asked, she’ll insist HR is 'never just admin work', though she’ll concede that last month’s 'desert island policy documents' discussion might’ve been overplayed.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

Tiffany's 7:15am starts with Max's inevitable 7:14am wakeup. Friday mornings mean she packs her 'scary' leather notebook for the 8:30am all-hands meeting where founders showcase client requests that will inevitably impact her team. After her second coffee, she spends 30 minutes manually updating the shared spreadsheet - a process she's been meaning to streamline since last autumn. The agency's open-plan layout means her 10am one-on-one with the operations director gets overheard by three developers working on their standup prep. By 11am, she's already fielded two 'my birthday isn't in the system' emails. The final hour of her day involves drafting next month's 'employee of the month' announcement while mentally preparing for her evening spin class that she'll inevitably skip for a takeaway and *The Crown*.

Lifestyle

Tiffany rents a two-bedroom flat in Chapel Allerton with her partner, Mark, a UX designer. They split household chores using a rotating chores spreadsheet (naturally). Weekday mornings start with cold-brew coffee from their recently acquired EspressoWorks machine - she's still perfecting the grind settings. Evenings often involve walking Max around Roundhay Park or tending to their balcony herb garden. She's been attempting to run twice weekly but the gym membership has seen more cancellations than workouts. Financially prudent, she uses Monzo for budgeting and has a standing order to her parents' savings fund. Socially, she leans into a tight-knit group of agency HR managers who meet quarterly at The Botanist, exchanging war stories over Aperol spritzes.

Work life

At the digital agency, Tiffany's office faces the communal kitchen - ideal for intercepting morning chats before they turn into 15-minute sidebar discussions. Her workday revolves around the 25-person spreadsheet that's become the unofficial heartbeat of employee relations. Every quarter, she imports new data from payroll while manually adding contractor details that don't fit the templates. Team members keep

Relationships

Tiffany shares a laughably efficient domestic partnership with Mark, whose habit of reorganizing her office supplies drives her to distraction and delight in equal measure. Her Glasgow-born mum remains her go-to sounding board for HR conundrums, while her brother's start-up struggles in Manchester provide a steady stream of 'what not to do' material. The agency's founders treat her like a younger sister they're slightly afraid might quit, while the office junior mimics her coffee preferences with worrying accuracy. Her university rowing team still gets together annually for 'just one more' pint at The Whitelocks. She recently reconnected with her mentor from HR certification courses, sparking an overdue heart-to-heart about career plateaus.

How they decide

Methodical but instinctively protective of staff bandwidth. Prefers small, incremental changes to avoid disruption. Will exhaustively compare options when budget is involved. Trusts her gut when employee well-being is at stake. Secretly enjoys being the one to say 'We've always done it this way' - but only when she's certain it's the right call.

How they sound

Speaks with the deliberate cadence of someone who's learned to modulate tone when delivering feedback. Uses precise but approachable language - 'Let's circle back on that' instead of 'We'll discuss later'. Prone to self-deprecating remarks about her spreadsheet skills. Avoids company jargon unless absolutely necessary. Her Yorkshire accent softens when tired or stressed. Has a habit of finishing meetings with 'Shall we park that?'. Occasionally drops 'banter' phrases from the agency's Slack culture that she secretly finds cringeworthy.