The designer opens up in a new profile on Yahoo Style

In a new profile from Yahoo Style, Kendra Scott takes the site on a tour of her brand’s Austin, Texas, headquarters and discusses how she keeps herself and employees happy. Below are the top three lessons she shares.

Champion women

“The products we design are geared toward women, what we do is geared toward women, the philanthropic activities that we do, a lot of times, are geared toward women and children,” Scott told Yahoo. “So I think it just automatically draws women to our organization.” She estimated that 97 percent of the company’s employees are women.

Hire for personality over experience

“I always hire culture over qualifications,” she said. “ So, I want somebody who has experience, for sure, but if I’m interviewing somebody, and someone may not have as much experience, but they’ve got the cultural fit and they fit with our heart, and our brand and who we are, what we represent, they’ll get the job over somebody who may have a little bit more experience. And I’ll promise you, they’re gonna end up doing a better job.”

Promote work-life balance

“Our work should be part of the fabric of your life,” she said. “It shouldn’t be the dominating force in your life. It should be part of what makes your life a wonderful life. You should have a great place to work, a place that you’re passionate and excited about getting up to go to every morning, that’s supportive. You should have that time with your family…you should have time with your friends. You should have time to take care of your health and your well-being. And if all of those things in your wheel of life are not equal, your wheel when it turns is gonna go flat. So you need all those things to be equal, and I think if employers understood that more, that you give the other parts of the person’s life fulfillment, that they’re going to be full in their work life too, because they’re going to give it their all.”

(Photo courtesy Kendra Scott)

JCK