Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Intern Ryan takes on IN State Dept of Health & Projects with Talent Acquisition

A few weeks ago, I explored another unique agency, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH), as a Human Resource (HR) Intern with the Indiana State Personnel Department. Upon arrival, I was introduced to an extremely welcoming HR team: Brian, John and Kim.

My first project involved developing a survey for ISDH supervisors, which assessed their understanding and compliance with Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Over the course of the week, our team continued to tweak the survey until it was ready to be distributed. This gave me a great opportunity to not only work on my design and development skills, but also to gain a better understanding of FMLA and how it affects an agency.

In addition, I was tasked with taking an email regarding an upcoming “Lunch and Learn” for our Wellness Program, and transforming it into something that would motivate ISDH employees to attend. I took this email and created a flyer that not only provided the essential information, but also was appealing and would grab the reader’s attention. I appreciated the opportunity to utilize my creativity!

The next week, I was partnered with my good friend Caitlin in Talent Acquisition. She tasked me with “resume mining” for Nurse Practitioners as part of a Strategic Staffing Plan.  Utilizing internal and external resources, I used my best judgement to provide potential candidates that displayed the desired education, experience and background.  On top of this, I was given a list of Indiana colleges/universities to contact about starting/strengthening a networking relationship with the State of Indiana. I researched the schools to verify they were accredited and provided their Careers Services departments with information about our nursing opportunities to disseminate to their students and alumni.  (Nursing Careers with the State of Indiana)

After finishing up my work with Caitlin, Mary (the other intern) and I partnered together to accomplish a huge list of small tasks assigned by all members of Talent Acquisition. This included anything from making calls or researching programs, to writing documentation. Essentially, this was designed to mimic “a day in the life of a Recruitment Consultant.” By the end of the day, Mary and I had completed almost all of the extra projects that our consultants needed to get done. Next week I will be heading over to the Adjutant Generals Office (AGO). I am extremely excited to see what they have to offer!

If you are interested in working for the State of Indiana, click this link: Careers.IN.gov


Until next time…
Ryan Lattimore
HR Intern
Indiana State Personnel Department 


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Intern Mary takes on AGO & Humana Vitality


Greetings,

These past few weeks have flown by! I can't believe that I am starting the 11th week of my internship. With that being said, these past two weeks have been so exciting! I got to work closely with the embedded human resources team within the Indiana Adjutant General's Office (AGO), which is responsible for the Indiana National Guard. 

The first week, I had the opportunity to take on my first competency project. I looked into four positions and reviewed the discovery sessions that were previously completed.  The objective of the discovery sessions was to find the best outcomes or goals for each position. I gathered all of the data from the discovery session and tried to see what duties employees said they were doing that aligned with the job description. Once I made these parallels, I was able to identify things that potentially may need to be changed on the job description or if an employee was performing duties that should be performed by another position. From the data that I aggregated, I was then able to find competencies that best fit each position. This was one of the coolest experiences I have had thus far. It was my task to draw conclusions from the information that was provided to me. The team allowed me to run with what I thought would be best and present my conclusions. In the end, I was very happy to see that some of the competencies had overlapped with competencies they had selected for those positions in years past. 

Last week, I traveled with April, the AGO HR Director, to different military locations to aid employees with engaging in the state’s wellness program. While we were at these locations, we had the chance to meet with employees and discuss their health insurance options, as well as what they can do to reach silver status within our wellness portal. This process was very interesting because there were different barriers at different locations. It forced us to be strategic with how we were reaching out to individuals to spread the word. While we were at these unique locations, I also had the opportunity to tour the grounds. This was the first time I had ever been to a military base. It was very cool how each base was different. I got to tour three different armories, the Hoosier Youth Challenge Academy, and an air base. 


These past two weeks were filled with so many unique experiences. I am so thankful for the AGO Human Resource Team and the projects they prepared. They were so unique and allowed me to see a different side of Human Resources. 

-Mary the Intern


Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Intern Mary takes on the Indiana Department of Child Services and State Department of Health

Greetings!

It has been a busy two weeks! I have seen the ins and outs of human resources in two great agencies during my rotations with Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), and Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH).  


The first week, I was at DCS. During my time at DCS, I had the opportunity to begin an I-9 audit that consisted of over 3,700 employees. Unfortunately, my time ran out before I had the chance to completely finish the project, but I set up all of the documents to be ready for Ryan, the other intern, to take it on the next week. I really value the importance of I-9's after going through this process. I had to the chance to learn about the E-Verify system, which compares information from an employee's I-9 to data from U.S. government records, to verify an employee is eligible to work in the U.S.

The second week, I was at ISDH, where I observed their on-boarding, sat in on employee relation issues, worked within PeopleSoft, and sat in on a meeting. This was the first time I saw how on-boarding works from the other side of the table. It is a lot of information to take in but is very useful. Later in the week, I got to see how you take someone who has applied for an opportunity all the way through sending the offer letter to the candidate in PeopleSoft. There are a lot of different statuses and steps you must take before the end result, but it is very cool how PeopleSoft works when you automatically generate offer letters. I really enjoyed getting to learn more about PeopleSoft and the different ways you can use it as an aid for many HR tasks. Lastly, the thing that I most enjoyed about the Department of Health was just getting to see what a typical day was like. There is so much going on all the time and I am thankful that they allowed me to get involved with what they are doing and observe some of their daily tasks.

During my time at Indiana State Department of Health, I left for two hours to go to a career fair that was happening nearby. I got to work at the booth with two people from DCS as well as Lindsey and Dawn from the talent acquisition team. I enjoyed seeing what career fairs are like from the recruiters standpoint. I got to speak about my experiences thus far from my internship. It made me realize how much I have been exposed to and how much I have gained from the internship.

I can't believe that I am already on week 7 of my internship. I feel like it was not that long ago that I was driving downtown in the snow for my first day. I am so grateful for all of these agencies bringing me in and showing me what they do, and allowing me the chance to always learn something new.


- Mary the Intern