Aaron's Smelly FSSA Experience

Hello again everyone!  I am completing another rotation of my internship, as I have spent the past three weeks working with Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA).    I got to meet all of the FSSA human resource staff and over my time there have had some memorable experiences.  One day, there was a lot of food brought in to celebrate the birthday of one of the employees, and on another day the office smelled of burnt popcorn all afternoon after someone burnt their afternoon snack.  The burnt popcorn scent was made up for the next day when that employee brought in cookies as an apology for the smell.

During my time here I have been creating organizational charts for each of the different divisions in FSSA.  I also made organizational charts for the different state hospitals.  I had some minimal experience with organizational charts previously from my work in the Department of Natural Resources, but that was just knowing what one of these charts looked like.  For FSSA, I got to make these organizational charts first hand.  On my very first day in FSSA, I went back to SPD’s compensation department to learn just how they make organizational charts by taking information available in PeopleSoft and importing it into Microsoft Visio.  It took a few times for me to get use to the process, but once I got the hang of it, running the PeopleSoft reports and making them into Visio charts seemed pretty easy to me.

I was pretty familiar with most of the features Microsoft Office has to offer, but I was not nearly as familiar with Microsoft Visio.  By working with Visio every day, I could see how useful it really was.  As I continued my work with Visio, I could see my skill with it growing.  Like anything else, it was just one of those things that takes practice, and through my time using it I have had to use the “undo” button a good number of times.

Working with Visio gave me great experience and allowed me to see the kind of organizational structure through each different division in FSSA.  As with each rotation so far, I have learned a lot and truly enjoyed the experience that has been given to me.  I am grateful that the people I have been working with have been so willing to help me whenever I have any questions, and I’m sure that will continue through the remainder of my internship.

I will begin another rotation of my internship next week with the Indiana State Department of Health.  I have recently spoken to the HR staff there about what I will be doing during my two weeks at ISDH and I looking forward to the work they will have me doing and the experience that I will gain through my time working with them.

What Intern Nicole Learned at DOC

My time at the Department of Correction has been very interesting.  I started my first week with the department working on a project to improve their FML tracking process.  This was a particularly interesting project because I was able to call all of the hiring managers from each correctional facility and speak with them about what happens when an employee calls in to use their FML time.  In the middle of working on this project, I learned that there was a vacancy that needed filled at the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility.  They were in need of temporary assistance to fill in as a human resource generalist until they were able to permanently fill the position.  Luckily, I live near Pendleton so I was asked to fill the void while they train their new hire. Needless to say, my time with the Department of Correction has provided me with vast experience in the field of human resources.  I have been doing the work of a human resource generalist for three weeks now and it has been a great learning experience.  I have been dealing with workers compensation claims and helping to track employee’s FML usage.  I have also been able to communicate often with employee relations and the state’s worker’s compensation claims specialist.  It has been exciting to be able to fill the shoes of an actual HR generalist.

I feel as if I have also gained life experience and bragging rights from my time with the Department of Correction.  This past week I was able to tour the Pendleton Correctional Facility, which was quite an experience.  It was interesting to see how a maximum security prison operates and I know my friends are jealous that I was able to tour one of the state’s largest maximum security correctional facilities.

The new employee for the Pendleton Juvenile Facility starts this week, so I will be moving on to intern with the Small Field Operations division of State Personnel.  This internship has been great thus far and I am excited to see what Small Field Ops has to offer!

Aaron's Experience with the Department of Natural Resources

Hello again everyone.  For the past two weeks of my internship with the State Personnel Department I have been working with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).  These two weeks have flown by and I have learned a lot and have been able to work on some great projects.

One of the biggest projects I have been working on is a succession plan for the Department of Water in DNR.  The goal of this succession plan is to have employees trained and ready to step into a bigger role when the incumbent of that role steps down.  In this project, I have gone through job descriptions to figure out which job duties would be considered highly important to keep that job running smoothly.  For jobs that I could not get job descriptions for, the Director and Assistant Director positions, I met the current job incumbents to find out what their most critical job duties are. Another project I have worked on is comparing engineer compensation rates across DNR, Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), and Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM).  The compensation report shows me all of the engineer’s compensation across the three different agencies.  This was to judge how a DNR engineer is paid when compared to INDOT and IDEM engineers. 

I have also been creating a set of questions for an interview, trying to use as many behaviorally based questions as I can, to fill a vacancy in a nursery and created a survey to figure out whether an employee is interested in career advancement.  One other project I have worked on is contacting INDOT to learn about their training paths for engineers to advance in their careers.  They have a career path that leads engineers from engineer in training (EIT) to professional engineer (PE). Additionally, I was able to go on a DNR site visit to a state park.  We went to Fort Harrison to review some HR administrative items.

I have enjoyed my time spent here in DNR.  Just as I did with my time spent with talent acquisition, I feel like I have learned so much and gained so much experience.  For the next few weeks, I will be working with the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA). I am looking forward to this time to gain even more knowledge and experience.

Intern Nicole goes to the Indiana Department of Child Services

The past two weeks I have spent time working with the Indiana Department of Child Services.   I have had the opportunity to work on numerous projects and tasks that I feel will add value to my resume. The Department of Child Services is currently creating a well-being program for their employees so many of my assignments have revolved around that project. 

One of my most favorite assignments I have had thus far was to create a Well-Being Program guide that will be handed out to all of the different DCS offices throughout the state.  I was able to research and learn about retention strategies and wellness initiatives such as having therapy dogs visit offices and creating employee gardens.  I have spent a great deal of time communicating with different therapy dog agencies around the state to see if they would be willing to help DCS reach their Well-Being program goals.

I have also been working with the DCS recruitment staff and assisting them with some of their projects.  One of which was to call all of the colleges in Indiana and gather information on the amount of students they have had graduate with certain degrees.  I feel as if the work I am doing for this department will help to make a difference in their employee retention and recruitment efforts.

One of the most challenging tasks I have been given while working with the DCS is to source applicants for one of their open Deputy Director positions.  Although sorting the applications is an easy task, deciding who has more merit than someone else is actually quite challenging.  I feel honored that my supervisors trust me to to assist with or take part in such important matters. 

My time with the Department of Child Services has been very rewarding and I feel as if I will be able to add many of the projects I have completed to my resume.  The staff here has been exceptionally friendly and I am glad that I have been able to make connections with people working in the field of human resources.  Next week I will rotate to the Department of Corrections.  I cannot wait to see what exciting experiences await me there!  I will be sure to keep  you all posted on my experiences to come.

Job Shadowing & Superpowers with Intern Aaron

I have learned a lot in the first few weeks of my internship here at the State Personnel Department.  With the amount of time I have been given to job shadow many different members of the various functions of human resources that are performed here at the SPD, I have been able to gain a good understanding of just what each department does.  Job shadowing is not all that I do here though.  I have been given many hands-on tasks to perform along with several projects to work on and complete.

Aaron uses his new-found intern
superpowers to hold up the JW Mariott! 

Job shadowing is a great learning experience for anyone new to a position.  It is especially helpful here.  I know on my first few days here I would walk past the different departments and think to myself “What do they do there?”  After finishing up with job shadowing, however, I can walk past and know what is going on. I have been given the opportunity to job shadow with the talent acquisition, compensation, benefits, and employee relations divisions.  While job shadowing benefits I got to meet their fish, Benefish.

Job shadowing the talent acquisition division was very helpful when I began to be assigned tasks to work on.  While there, I was shown how to perform background checks and verify employment.  These are the type of tasks I have been asked to perform, and seeing them done firsthand gave me the insight needed to complete the tasks on my own.

With talent acquisition, I have been working on projects.  These projects on have been rewarding and have taught me the ability to prioritize projects and multitask.  There have been six major projects to work on, one of which is the YouTube Intern Video. In the video, Nicole (another SPD intern) and I have been going around and filming some clips of information and perks of being an intern here at the State Personnel Department.  We have done many things, ranging from filming outside at the canal to taking some goofy pictures, including a Leaning Tower of Pisa-like shot of me holding up the JW Marriott.  Other projects have included making an interview question guide for hiring managers.  The goal of this is for the hiring manager to find the questions they want, and a set of interview questions can be assembled for them.  A similar project is the eScreen guide we have put together.  The eScreen guide holds all the questions used in the applicant screening phase of hiring.  There is also a Nursing Portal project.  Since nursing is a hard to fill position for the State, we are helping to make it easier for the nurses to find the jobs in our job bank.  The other projects are a recruiting toolkit and a social media strategy guide.  The recruitment toolkit is going to put all of the information that hiring managers need in one location, giving them access to the hiring process and any tools that they may need in that process such as quick step guides or the eScreen library that we have put together.  The social media strategy guide is going to give SPD Talent Acquisition a plan of action on how to improve their social media platforms in order to gain more viewers for what is put on the social media sites.

I have enjoyed my time here at the State Personnel Department working on the tasks and projects assigned to me as well as learning what the different divisions around here do.  I am looking forward to the experience the next few months hold for me in rotating around various different agencies, beginning next week with the Department of Natural Resources, before returning here for one last week before the end of my internship.