The HR Game Plan: Highlights from Ahola’s 2026 Cleveland HR Showcase

HR leaders are expected to make the right call every day—even when the rules are changing, the situation isn’t clear-cut, and there isn’t much time to decide. That was the idea behind Ahola Payroll & HR Solutions’ 2026 Cleveland HR Showcase: The HR Game Plan, which brought together HR professionals, business leaders, and Ahola experts for a morning focused on navigating today’s workplace challenges with greater confidence.

Rather than simply talking about what’s changing in HR, the Cleveland Showcase focused on a more practical question: What do you do when you’re the one who has to make the call?

Check out the recap video and event photo album below!

Leading Off: A Conversation with the Cleveland Guardians

We kicked off the morning with a keynote fireside chat featuring Colleen Lynch of the Cleveland Guardians, who joined Sonya Ahola James, Executive Vice President of Ahola Payroll & HR Solutions, for a conversation about HR, culture, employee experience, and leadership.

Colleen gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look at HR within one of Northeast Ohio’s most recognizable organizations, including how the unique rhythm of a professional baseball season influences the employee experience.

The conversation explored what it takes to build and maintain a strong workplace culture, how employee expectations have evolved, and the important role managers play in turning an organization’s values into the everyday employee experience.

Colleen and Sonya also discussed HR’s role as a trusted business partner—balancing the employee perspective with the needs of the organization, building credibility with leaders, navigating change, and knowing when a challenge requires a new policy versus stronger leadership and communication.

It was a fitting way to lead off The HR Game Plan: strong organizations, much like strong teams, are built through preparation, communication, trust, and people who understand the role they play in the bigger picture.

Staying Ahead of the Compliance Curveballs

From culture and leadership, the conversation shifted to one of the biggest challenges facing employers: managing an increasingly complex landscape of workplace risk.

During The Compliance Curveball: Navigating Risk in 2026, attendees heard from three experts representing different—but increasingly interconnected—areas of business risk:

• Tina Stuart-McGinty, SPHR, Human Resources Consultant, Ahola Payroll & HR Solutions
• John Zakel, Executive Partner, Smooth 401k
• Nick Hylant, President, Cleveland, Hylant

Together, the panel brought HR compliance, retirement-plan and fiduciary, and insurance and organizational-risk perspectives to the conversation.

The discussion explored where employers may be unknowingly creating exposure—from gaps between written policies and day-to-day management practices to retirement-plan responsibilities, fiduciary risk, changing insurance needs, and the unexpected issues that can quickly cross departmental lines.

A key takeaway was that strong compliance isn’t simply about knowing the rules. It’s about making sure an organization’s policies, practices, benefits, insurance coverage, and leadership decisions work together.

And when the inevitable curveball arrives, knowing when to bring the right experts into the conversation can make all the difference.

Putting HR Leaders in the Manager’s Seat

The Showcase wasn’t designed to be a morning of simply sitting back and listening.

During Making the Call: Strategy, Culture & Real-World HR Decisions, Laurie Geiger and Tina Stuart-McGinty of Ahola Payroll & HR Solutions turned the conversation over to the audience.

Attendees worked through real-world HR scenarios inspired by situations Ahola’s consultants encounter when working with employers. The interactive format challenged participants to consider how they would respond when the answer isn’t necessarily black and white—and how factors like culture, consistency, communication, risk, and business needs influence the right HR decision.

It reinforced an important point: knowing HR best practices is valuable, but being able to apply them to complicated, real-world situations is where HR leadership really comes into play.

From the Field: HR Leaders Share What Works

Some of the most valuable HR lessons come from other leaders who are facing the same challenges.

In From the Field: Real-World HR Leadership, a client panel facilitated by Craig Slimmer of Ahola Payroll & HR Solutions brought together three Northeast Ohio HR leaders:

• Tausha Rutkowsky, Achieve Incentives
• Kristen M. Steele, Director of Human Resources & Communications, Bessemer Management Company
• Kim Marlette, Gillmore Security

The conversation moved beyond HR theory and into the realities of leading people every day—from balancing compliance requirements with operational needs to handling difficult employee relations situations and helping managers make better decisions.

The panelists shared lessons from navigating real HR challenges, discussed where managers often need the most coaching, and explored why relationships and trusted resources matter when the answer isn’t immediately obvious.

One theme came through clearly: effective HR leadership requires both good processes and good judgment.

Building a Better HR Game Plan

Throughout the Showcase, attendees had opportunities to compare experiences, ask questions, connect with Ahola specialists, and learn from other HR professionals.

That interaction is an important part of why we host the HR Showcase.

At Ahola, we believe payroll and HR technology are important—but they’re only part of the equation. Businesses also need people they can call when they have a question, encounter an unfamiliar situation, or simply want another perspective before making a decision.

Bringing our payroll, HR, compliance, benefits, technology, and leadership teams together with clients, partners, and members of the Northeast Ohio business community gave attendees an opportunity to strengthen those relationships before the next HR curveball arrives.

Ready for the Next Inning

There may never be a perfect playbook for HR. Regulations change. Workforces evolve. New situations emerge.

But organizations can build a stronger game plan.

From Colleen Lynch’s perspective on culture and leadership with the Cleveland Guardians, to expert insights on compliance and risk, interactive decision-making, and candid lessons from local HR leaders, the Cleveland HR Showcase demonstrated the value of learning from people who are tackling these challenges every day.

Thank you to our speakers, panelists, partners, Ahola team members, and everyone who joined us for the 2026 Cleveland HR Showcase.

We’re grateful to be part of such a strong Northeast Ohio HR and business community—and we look forward to continuing the conversation long after the final inning.