Sadie Comes Back to Talent Acquisition

I have spent the majority of the last two weeks back in Talent Acquisition, but I also spent a couple of days job shadowing the Benefits, Compensation/Organizational Design, and Employee Relations divisions of the Indiana State Personnel Department. Having nearly 30,000 employees working for the state of Indiana makes SPD very different from smaller and private sector companies. Every aspect of HR is specialized into a specific department in one centralized area. From what I’ve seen, many companies only have HR generalists who deals with all of these aspects by themselves, but within Indiana state government you have many people who are specialized in just one of the above mentioned areas as well as HR Generalists to resourcefully handle all of HR related issues within the state agencies.

Having all of these specialized HR divisions makes things very interesting. During my time with the Compensation/Organizational Design division, I learned that what they do is very complicated. They classify jobs, and determine what each individual position should be paid based upon the role’s responsibilities, 

requirements, supervision, and decision making. This is definitely not a simple task. It takes a large amount of research and investigation to determine what employees should be compensated in return for the work that they do.

The world of Benefits Administration is another piece of HR that can get very complicated as well. They stay busy everyday by helping employees with needs related to their benefits package. Those who work in the Benefits division have to have a large amount of knowledge on the benefits packages and how they work. With this knowledge they are able to help employees in selecting the right package that fits their needs, make status changes to their benefits, and ensure that employees are following their tobacco use agreement. The tobacco use agreement is a wellness initiative that asks employees who are non-smokers to sign a contract saying they will not partake in any tobacco use and in return, these employees pay a lower bi-weekly healthcare premium.

I also spent time within the Employee Relations division which was very interesting to me. They get to deal with situations related to family medical leave (FML), performance evaluations, employee investigations, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Affirmative Action, and discrimination claims among other things. They are the liaison for the employees and the agencies. Personally, I consider this to be the “fun stuff.”

With Talent Acquisition, I learned about sourcing for candidates and I got to participate in the interviews for the fall HR internship program. Additionally, I was asked to source for an IT Project Manager position for one of the Recruitment Consultants. When the applications start pouring in, it’s a great feeling knowing that you were the one that put the word out there, and hopefully one of the applicants will be a perfect match for the open position.

As an intern, we get to participate in a speaker series throughout the summer. This week we got the privilege to hear two very important people speak. The first speaker was Rebecca Kubacki, District 22 State Representative, and the second speaker was none other than Governor Mike Pence himself! These were both wonderful opportunities that I would have never been exposed to had I not been in this internship. Check out our picture with the Governor!

I am super excited about spending my next two weeks with the Department of Corrections!