In this exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Aamna Coskun, Founder of PocketHR, shares her journey from corporate HR leader to innovative entrepreneur building more human-first workplace cultures. Drawing on over a decade of experience with major Canadian companies and nimble startups, as well as her expertise as a course developer and educator, Aamna now dedicates her expertise to helping early-stage businesses and nonprofits establish flexible, people-centric practices. As a founder and working parent, she brings real-world perspective to redesigning work to better align with life—empowering organizations to build cultures rooted in clarity, care, and equity.
Aamna Coskun is the Founder of PocketHR, a fractional HR consultancy she launched in 2024 with a clear mission: to build workplace cultures that work—for both leaders and their teams. With over a decade of experience spanning corporate giants like TELUS, Cineplex Entertainment, and CPP Investment Board, as well as hands-on roles inside 20–50 person startups, Aamna brings a rare blend of strategic insight and scrappy execution to every engagement.
You left a successful corporate HR career to found PocketHR and built the business as a parent—what inspired you to take that leap, and how did your goals shift during this transition?
I built my career in HR working with some of Canada’s most exciting companies, from startups to global enterprises. But over time, I noticed a pattern—people wanted innovation in their products, but not in how they treated their people.
When I became a mom, that hit differently. I didn’t just want a “job”—I wanted to design a work life that worked for life. That meant flexibility, meaningful impact, and the freedom to choose clients whose values aligned with mine.
Founding PocketHR was my leap toward that. I help growing companies—often without dedicated HR teams—get the people side right from day one. My goals have shifted from climbing the corporate ladder to building workplaces that are both operationally solid and deeply human.
You emphasize designing ‘human-first’ HR systems for startups and nonprofits. What are the first steps leaders should take to create inclusive, flexible cultures that genuinely support both productivity and wellbeing?
Start with clarity. Culture isn’t a vibe—it’s the daily behaviours, decisions, and systems that shape how work gets done and how people feel doing it. Leaders should define what “inclusive” and “flexible” actually mean in their context, then document it so it’s not just living in someone’s head.
Design flexibility role-by-role. Blanket “work from anywhere” or “flex hours” policies sound good, but they often fall apart in practice. Look at the needs of each role and design flexibility that works for both the business and the individual—whether that’s adjusted hours, location choice, or project-based deliverables.
Bake in inclusion from day one. That means embedding equitable hiring practices, transparent pay structures, and regular feedback loops before you’re in “scaling mode.” It’s far easier to build inclusivity into your foundation than to retrofit it later.
Finally, leaders must go first. If you want people to disconnect, you disconnect. If you value open dialogue, you model vulnerability. Culture lives in how leaders behave day-to-day—not in a handbook or a poster.
When leaders treat culture as infrastructure—not as perks—they set the stage for both high performance and genuine wellbeing.
Entrepreneurship brings both freedom and unique pressures, especially as a woman of colour in HR. Can you share how you navigate the balance between authenticity, expertise, and representation in your work and leadership journey?
Being a woman of colour in HR means I’m often carrying two layers of responsibility: delivering expertise while also navigating the unspoken role of representing and advocating for perspectives that may not otherwise be in the room. That can be powerful—but it can also be exhausting if you don’t set boundaries.
Authenticity, for me, isn’t about sharing every detail of my personal story. It’s about showing up with integrity—saying the thing that needs to be said, even when it challenges the status quo, and not diluting my perspective to make others comfortable.
I’ve learned to balance representation with self-preservation by building a peer network who understands these dynamics and by being intentional about the spaces I choose to enter. If I’m at the table, I want to know it’s a table where change can actually happen—not just one that needs “diverse optics.”
At the same time, I lean on my expertise to create credibility quickly. Representation is a responsibility, but it’s also a lever for change — and I plan to keep pulling it
Has there been a defining moment—perhaps with a client or team—when you realized the tangible impact of putting people first at work? How did that experience shape your approach to consulting and workplace culture?
One of my most defining moments came with a nonprofit client whose team was drowning in “urgent” work. Leadership assumed the issue was capacity—they thought they needed to hire more people. But when I dug deeper, the real problem was a lack of clarity.
Deadlines shifted daily. Priorities competed. Everyone was working hard but burning out, and impact was slipping through the cracks.
We started small: a decision-making framework, clear role ownership, and a simple weekly priorities check-in. Within months, the constant fire drills stopped. Turnover halted. Productivity went up—not because people worked harder, but because they finally had space to do their best work.
That experience cemented a belief I carry into every consulting engagement: “people first” isn’t about throwing perks at burnout or adding another wellness webinar. It’s about creating the conditions—clarity, trust, and realistic expectations—so people can thrive without sacrificing their wellbeing.
Culture isn’t separate from operations. It is your operations. When you align the two, you don’t just get happier people—you get better results.
Finally, what advice would you offer founders and SMB leaders who want to build resilient, human-centric workplaces—without falling into old habits of overwork or one-size-fits-all solutions?
First, stop copying someone else’s culture deck. Your workplace should fit your business, not the latest LinkedIn trend. What works for a 500-person tech company won’t necessarily work for a 12-person nonprofit.
Second, protect energy like you protect revenue. Build sustainable rhythms—clear goals, realistic timelines, actual rest. Overwork might look like commitment in the short term, but it erodes trust, creativity, and retention over time.
Third, invest in systems early. A well-set-up HRIS, fair pay structure, and a simple feedback process will save you countless hours of future firefighting. These aren’t “nice-to-haves”—they’re the scaffolding for growth.
Finally, model what you want to see. If you want transparency, be transparent. If you want balance, take your vacation. Culture isn’t aspirational—it’s behavioural, and it starts with you.
The most resilient workplaces aren’t built on heroic effort; they’re built on clarity, trust, and the flexibility to adapt without burning people out.
