I am finishing up grad school in June and am planning to move out east. I have a nack for giving advice, advocating for self accountability and love to make things better, in my life and my job.

The interpersonal communication skills I have acquired from my employment experience and college training have given me confidence for strong decision making abilities and will certainly prove to be an asset. Although my resume reflects a multitude of administrative experience, I consistently work at a higher level than my title suggests and I am seeking a position to better match my work experience, ethic and aptitude. I am beginning my career path in Organizational Development here at THRIVE!partners (an OtterBox company) as the Training and Development Intern. This internship is a terrific stepping stone for my transition into a formidable career in Human Resource Development.

I have the skills and knowledge to tackle the complex, ambiguous, and ill-defined organizational problems that require critical, creative, and reflective thinking. These skills are extremely important to maintaining strong and cohesive working relationships. My internship with THRIVE!partners, which is OtterBox’s privately owned Human Relations business that serves OtterBox and all the Richardson Family business, has allowed me to apply even more of what I am learning in graduate school. As the Training and Development intern, I have been tasked with compiling and editing Training Videos, revamping our internal new hire orientation process (everything from coordinating presenters, their content, A/V equipment and set up procedures, format in which it’s delivered, and welcoming gifts we distribute to our new staff members), delivering training content via WebEx, keeping the Intranet updated with meaningful and thoughtful content, and the creation of a brand new remote orientation process for newly acquired companies.

I have been acting as the Project Manager for the remote orientation creation. My mission is to deliver meaningful content and create a culture that sticks. Our intention is to immerse the newly acquired employees in the OtterBox culture, core values and performance management systems. Addressing the fear we all face in times of change is important to achieving our goal and the lens I have used while creating this new process from scratch. While analyzing best practices, I included all the pertinent decision makers and stakeholders to ensure all voices were heard; that includes both THRIVE!partners input as well as those of the audience remotely. I did not want to make any assumptions about where their comfort level was in regard to such a big change and wanted them to feel like a valuable part of the implementation process. I have worked with all our OtterBox presenters to ensure the message they would usually give at an internal orientation would be appropriate remotely and we adjusted as necessary. I have been a significant driver in the inclusion of OtterBox’s Change Manager’s presence to best address the trepidation that always comes with significant change.

Identifying the organization’s readiness and capability to change is one of the most important elements related to change management. Technology has brought about a speed of work life that has been challenging to adapt to, specifically related to timely implementation of better processes. There are a number of steps that can be taken to move toward readiness to change. Remaining thoughtful of the emotional effects change has on humans will help ensure successful implementation. I find that there is a positive, guttural response to knowing ‘the why’ behind change initiatives can help even the most resistant employees move toward acceptance and support of said initiative. I find that acknowledging this and working with this fact prevents a need for side stepping the resistant and create the desired buy-in by the most influential employees. Once the influencers of the group understand why an initiative is imperative to improved processes and success of the organization, thoughtful engagement can bring change initiatives to fruition faster and easier.

My five years in higher education have provided me with an expansive knowledge of a university’s setting, expectations and processes. I have maintained strong working relationships with departments across campus while gaining the credibility needed to have a trusting relationship with students and faculty. I currently work closely with a multitude of departments on campus to aid in this process. CSU also utilizes BANNER and Oracle, along with the traditional Microsoft Office package, to which I am well versed.

I bring new insight and improvement driven ideas to the table. One of my best assets is the ability to identify areas in need of improvement and my resourceful attitude toward solutions. I was working closely with the Director of Recruitment and Retention to help identify non-compliance issues within the Recruitment and Retention Team at OnlinePlus. I compiled research of missed opportunities and the supporting policies for corrective action. The missed opportunities ranged anywhere from employee relations to performance issues for specific task expectations not being met. I really enjoyed this part of my job and would love to take this to a higher level and I think this position would offer just this. Organizational and process performance evaluation have always been my forte and am proud of the supporting skills and language my Masters degree has given me to move forward with this professionally.

I would say that one of my greatest strengths involves my prompt attention to matters related to conflict resolution and social injustice. I have had the unfortunate experience related to slow (and sometimes no) action taken related to employee conflict. I believe that research and data collection are vital parts of conflict resolution, but not to a point where the situation worsens for those involved. I pride myself on taking quick and supportive action when treatment is perceived as poor in my personal life and would be an exemplary model of how it should be present on a professional level.

The student staff training module I created and implemented at CSU OnlinePlus, from what I have learned in my graduate program, had been hugely successful. The module had been created to align with a multitude of learning styles, had a skills test and feedback loops built in to ensure successful learning transfer. Training and development are vital to the system functionality as a whole and yet, often overlooked. I want to bring consistent and meaningful training models to the forefront of every institution I affiliate myself with. There are clear ways to measure the transfer of knowledge and crucial to knowledge based organizations reaching their desired performance outcomes. Keeping a perspective that all people are continual learners is vital to employee relation success; if we can all keep learning, we can all keep improving.

I am highly proficient in the operations, procedures and duties pertaining to leadership. I have proven to my current and previous employers that I am a valuable team member as well as a responsible, punctual, and reliable individual who can handle any added responsibilities given to me. This has been shown through my initiative taking attitude and ability to meet distinct deadlines, with consistent accuracy. Additionally, my work experiences have not only been professional in nature, but they have allowed me to utilize my ability to be both detail-oriented and a “big picture” visionary. I pride myself on my professional approach and appearance and I have proven to be a worthy ambassador of all my employers and am sure that you will feel the same.