Thursday, June 25, 2015

Brad the Intern: The Department of Health



 
Welcome Back,

I am just capping off another adventure.  I have just finished a two week stint  with the HR professionals of the Indiana State Department of Health.  I was afforded the opportunity to shadow two HR Generalists who provide a valuable and high level of service to over 800 people. It was neat to watch, but that is not all I did!  I also got to join in on the fun and help with different business functions and projects.  I got to shadow several employee relations meetings, and help prepare candidates for hire in PeopleSoft.  

My main project was to conduct a comprehensive I-9 audit.  In simpler terms, I was in charge of looking at each employee’s I-9 form to ensure that they had included a copy of the proper identification to prove their eligibility to work in the U.S.  I then marked all of the people who did not have the proper documentation, and contacted them to obtain what information was necessary to make us compliant. I spent the last couple of days collecting those forms and rechecking to ensure that everything was completed correctly.  I also helped to move job descriptions to Sharepoint which involved searching through files, finding the files of interest, and organizing for easy use by Hiring Managers and the HR staff.

Needless to say, I have been kept very busy. Next week, I will be returning to Talent Acquisition for a week then I will be off on another adventure, this time to the Indiana Department of Correction's facility in Pendleton. 

Brad the Intern



Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Intern Haley Assists with the Indiana Veterans' Home Career Fair

It has been a whirlwind of a month interning with the Indiana State Personnel Department (SPD) at the Indiana Veteran’s Home (IVH). Over the past five weeks, I have learned a lot about Talent Acquisition, and the real man power it takes to run a large facility. IVH is a 24 hour facility, so between nursing, recreation, food service and administration staff there is a constant need for good, dedicated workers to help maintain the facility and more importantly the residents’ experience. So to help IVH maintain their five star rating, we hosted a Job Fair on campus June 9, 2015.

This was a great project for me to get to work on. The event consisted of information we would provide prospective candidates, décor of the venue, advertising, and coordination of technological and in person aspects of the application process. The event posed quite the challenge, which left me very busy.

I helped coordinate social media advertising, and I assisted Tamara Smith, the IVH Marketing and Admission Director, with the Exponent’s Twitter campaign. I also created brochures and PowerPoint presentations to educate the job fair participants about the Indiana Veterans’ Home as well as the job openings, with compensation and benefits being a large part of that information. When it comes to state employment, one can see why the state government is the 3rd largest employer in the state; the holidays, insurance, generous time accrual, and work/life balance makes the State of Indiana a great place to work!

We coordinated the event at the Veterans’ Home with our talent acquisition team in Indianapolis, and got to see some people from my first day in Indianapolis during orientation. The team of about 10 worked with applicants the whole day of the job fair and it was a total success. We had 105 attendees during the 8 hours we had it running. So we are busy working on background checks and employment verifications, TB testing, etc to get everyone selected hired! I also provided some very exciting analysis with staff’s experience and pay equity. I have also taken two trips to Indy since my last blog. An exciting part of the Governor’s internship is the Speaker Series. Last week I saw Denny Darrow the Chief of Staff for the Indiana State Personnel Dept talk about the “Invest in Your Health” initiative here in Indiana, and the Director of Tourism, Mark Newman. It was great to meet these leaders!

Back at IVH we are hiring and evaluating applicants. We have found some very passionate people that want to help Veterans and give back to our heroes. I find everyone at IVH feels driven by the residents. The residents venture around the building so we have quite a few that come visit us in the office. They have great stories and like to make us laugh; all of my coworkers are definitely proud to work for them. It is very inspiring to be part of the facility, IVH’s slogan is the Veterans’ Affairs slogan; “Serving those who Served.”

I am very excited about the projects here at the Indiana Veteran’s Home and I also really enjoy the people I have met. The culture they have created here helps me look at the candidates we have and find the ones with the same genuine values that will help them serve our veterans. 



Thursday, June 11, 2015

Brad the Intern: The Department of Workforce Development and More!

Hello Again,

I have had a busy couple of weeks, since the last time we spoke. I had the opportunity to job shadow with Benefits, Employee Relations, and worked on a project for the Dept of Workforce Development.

I have been hard at work making interview question sets for the Department of Workforce Development.  The goal of my project was to form one unified list of interview questions for each of the positions they hire most frequently.  The problem was that each position may have had as many as five or six different sets of interview questions across the 28 locations, so there was little consistency across the board.  Basically, I have been taking all of these different sets of interview questions and combining them into one large set, looking for any overlap or questions that could easily be combined. Then, my job was to take the large list and consolidate it into the best fifteen interview questions for each position, while taking special care to not include any items that are covered by our E-Screens. I did this for seven different positions this week.

In the little bit of downtime that I have had, I have also continued work on some of my Talent Acquisition projects.  For example, I have started sourcing for the Fall 2015 State Personnel Department intern, and completed many short descriptions of the companies that will be participating in the Employment Opportunity Fair at the Indiana Black Expo.  

The exciting adventures of Brad the Intern continues next time with the Indiana State Department of Health.

Until next time,

 Brad the Intern 

Monday, June 1, 2015

The Indiana Veteran's Home Welcomes Intern Haley!

Hello State of Indiana!
  
My name is Haley Arndt, I am a Marketing Major at Purdue University and this summer I am part of the Governor's Public Service Summer Internship program, with the Indiana State Personnel Department (SPD).  I am working directly with the Human Resources Director and Generalist at the Indiana Veterans' Home (IVH) in West Lafayette IN. It is just the end of my first week and so far it's been a blast.

My internship experience started in Indianapolis for Onboarding with the delightful Melissa Thomas, with the communications team. She was fantastic, helpful, and taught a room of 200 interns how to complete their employment tax forms, so I was impressed. She also helped us acclimate to the internship program, and reviewed the exciting options we as interns have, such as the Speaker Series which will include the Governor. Then the rest of the day I was in the capable hands of Dawn Hay, the Lead Senior Recruitment Consultant with the Talent Acquisition Division. We toured the Government Center South Building, reviewed all of the HR specialties, and finished our duties as far as online training/enrollments is concerned. 

In the course of my first few days I have learned so much. There is a whole new vernacular here. I have been catching on, but the language barrier is a little bigger than expected. IVH, SPD, INDOT, FMLA, SOI, HRD, IVA, CNA, QMA...and so on. I have never seen so many acronyms in my life. Don't worry though, because I am getting the hang of it! It's like a study abroad experience, but Cheryl Lutey and Kaycie Laughner, the Human Resource Director and Generalist at IVH are getting better at spotting my "clueless, please explain more" face.

And so the week went on, filled with tours, orientation, and lots of new faces. My expectations have been met and exceeded with every new day here. I love the hands on analysis and research I am doing and I am excited to get to see the end result of my work. Here at IVH we are working on recruitment and compensation which are areas that really intrigue me. The community here is great, and the residents have provided me with a warm welcome. We are "serving those who have served," and I appreciate the mission that the Indiana Veterans Home is carrying out. I look forward to the projects that await me, even if they are labeled by mysterious alphabet soup.


SPD Welcomes Intern Brad!



Bradley MorrisHello! I am Brad Morris, one of the Governor’s Public Service Summer Interns with the Indiana State Personnel Department. I cannot wait to tell you all about my exciting and very busy internship, throughout the summer.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should tell you a little more about me. I will be a senior at Indiana State starting this fall, Go Sycamores! I am pursing a Bachelor’s of Science in Human Resource Development with a minor in Psychology, and plan to graduate in May 2016. In addition to Human Resource Development and Psychology, I am also a certified Sustainability Leader.

I was recommended to this internship by a family friend. This internship attracted my attention because of the opportunity it provided to work with one of the largest employers in Indiana. It will also allow me to get experience with many different Human Resource disciplines across numerous agencies. So far, I have had the opportunity to attend various PeopleSoft trainings and started working on a tutorial addressing how to navigate the State Job Bank. In addition, I have been assisting the Employment Opportunity Fair at the Indiana Black Expo planning committee with compiling contacts and preparing communication materials.

Stay tuned for more updates,

Brad the Intern