I’m the owner of Humanna Consultores
My name is Rocío Barraza. I’m the owner of Humanna Consultores – A business that provides social services for companies.
I’m 23 years old, I grew up in Viña del Mar, Chile, in a middle-class family; my mother was divorced so for a few years we lived with my grandparents too. I was raised with my feet on the ground, and I knew I wanted to make a difference. Now I’m the owner of Humanna Consultores, a business that provides social services for companies’ employees.
I knew that I wanted something different
Since I was a Little girl, I knew that I wanted something different, I wanted to accomplish other things which made me felt different. I needed to know that whatever I would do, I’ll be helping others and making our society better.
My mother had this idea..
My mother had this idea, a business idea…. why wait more to start? My mom is a social worker and by then she was a university professor. The idea was promising and the problem was simple, living in Chile is complicated and the companies had to face the truth: the workers bring their family problems to work, and that affects productivity. The idea was to provide counseling for the employees, so They could find support from the company Social workers from our staff provide them with the support and guidelines they need for different problems like divorce, family communication, serious illness, among others. Our social workers use the government’s benefits and the companies’ benefits to help the employees making them feel supported. There was almost no competition so we tried out.
We started when I was 19, my mother knew the technical aspects and I always have had administration skills. She had a full-time job, and I was a full-time student. It was difficult sometimes, but know I can say it was worth it. The business has grown, fast. Today we are both working full time in Humanna Consultores and I am about to graduate as an industrial engineer.
When you are a woman entrepreneur in Chile and you are 19 years old, you don’t have many options. Most of the banks didn’t want to open a business account, because of my age. One time I needed a loan because we were selected for a major project and we needed some capital to start. I spend weeks going to every bank on the market but as a company, we were too new and I too young. The only way I could do it was asking for a personal loan in a small bank in another city, I did it, we needed it. We end up making the project that allowed us to hired 2 more employees and to win 1 long-term client.
We are very proud of our operations systems. Our staff is 100% female and our work system allows them to work a half day at home, with the home office modality. This is really new in Chile, and we’ve had really good results. Now we make over 400 attention at the month,
What motivates me?
The thing that motivates me is waking up in the morning and knowing that I have the liberty to make decisions for my business, I’ve also learned to embrace the responsibility in being a source of employment. Our business is based in helping regular people, regular employees with their problems, knowing that we are making a difference every day, with every person we help is really comforting. The work-ethics of Humanna Consultores are 100% allied with my personal ethics, that’s something really important and people forget the relevance of being true to yourself in your work environment.