Formatting code for StevensonIOPracticum
June 2, 2010:
Today I came into the office at 9 am was introduced to the entire human resources team at Quorum. Since I had only spoken to and met with Glenn Shuster (VP of HR) and Lisa Brandt (HR manager), they wanted to give me the rest of the morning to familiarize myself with the office and the other HR team members. I first reviewed my schedule for the rest of the summer, and will be working 9-4/5 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The morning flew by with Lisa Brandt assigning me my own desk to work at, with my own telephone and voicemail, my email and intranet (internal office communication center), as well as my own swipe card and locker key. After getting situated at my new office space, the entire HR team went out to sushi at a really great restaurant in Rye Brook, NY. The lunch was a great way for me to meet everyone on a more personal level and welcome me to their new team for the next few months. I met great people such as Sandy, Tia, and Maureen who also work in the HR department, as well as the CEO of Quorum, Bruno. The lunch was my favorite part of the day because I was able to see the people I’ll be working with on a less formal, more relaxed environment. Once we returned from our lunch, I met with each member of the HR department to talk with them about their personal projects they are working on this summer, and how I will be helping them complete their projects. For example, Tia is working on the company’s intranet and website. She wants to make the intranet a place where employees could go to get the latest company news and policies. She told me that no one (including herself) unfortunately really uses the company’s intranet for anything- and she wants to change that. Sandy is working on a few projects but mentioned how she was updating the company’s core competencies and the employee handbook. Lisa is working on the file audits for each employee before August. Since the company gets audited in August, all the files need to match the online databases (ADP & Fidelity). This is something she really needs help with because of the amount of employees they have and how much needs to be perfectly matched in a short period of time. Glenn also spoke to me about his project of improving the company’s employee performance evaluations. The company currently only has a performance evaluation once a year for employees to go over future goals for the next year and past performance. Glenn really wants to change that into meeting with employees a few times a week or month as well as meeting with the executive employees to go over not only individual goals but organizational and departmental goals.
Overall today was a very busy, exciting day for me. I met so many people in the office (I forget half their names already), and was able to get an overall idea of some of the HR projects I’ll be helping out with this summer.
June 4, 2010:
Upon arriving to work, I was met by Sandy who gave me a stack of packets for new hires. The packets are for training purposes and are meant to familiarize me with working at a federal credit union. For example, one packet was all about what a federal credit union is and how they differ from regular banks. I learned that many of the members who join federal credit unions join because the company they work for are affiliates with the union for several reasons (benefits, insurance, loans, etc.). Another packet was all on checking and savings accounts at Quorum. There were at least eight or nine packets I had to read through and then take a mini quiz on each one. I worked on them for the whole morning and still had not finished them entirely. After my lunch break I met with Marlo from the loans/service department where she sat with me for about an hour to answer any questions I had about the federal credit union (FCU) and explain the benefits of being in a FCU. She also talked about the background of Quorum, and how until 2005, the company used to be called Kraft Foods and was meant to be a financial service for the Kraft Foods employees. Since their federal credit union expanded into servicing other companies besides solely Kraft, they decided to rename their company Quorum. After meeting with Marlo, I continued to work on the packets for the rest of the day. Before I left to go home I met with one of the HR specialists, Sandy, who debriefed me on the day and went over any questions or concerns I had.
June 7, 2010:
Today was a quiet day, maybe because it was a Monday, but there were also a few HR employees who were working from home. Lisa had left me an e-mail describing a project she wanted me to get started on. Since she was at home today, she left me her number so I could call her in case I had any trouble. Lisa wanted me to work on the file audits, and so pretty much for the whole day I worked on those. They were pretty repetitive and tedious at first, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t too bad. What I had to do was in alphabetical order, pull the files of each employee and bring them to my desk to review their information to make sure the information in their files matched in the databases. The databases Quorum uses are ADP and Fidelity (for their 401k and benefits). Although I worked on only those files today, I still only got to the last names beginning with a “C”. I immediately understood why Lisa was adamant about getting started on the file audits, because of how time consuming and tedious they are. Although it wasn’t the most exciting day, it still was work that exposed me a section of their daily work-life. It definitely is a good feeling to help the team out with some of their workload since everyone seems to be pretty busy with their own project. Besides the audits, I met with Glenn at the end of the day to review my overall expectations so far at Quorum. Glenn is an extremely nice person who wants me to ask questions and give my input at any time. I like how comfortable I feel at Quorum and the constant open communication that is available at the office. Everyone is extremely friendly and open which I really love. The office in itself is neither hectic nor enclosed, but everyone’s desk can be seen from the walking area, and even the VP and CEO have their doors open for you to come in and ask questions. It’s a great atmosphere and I really enjoy working with the entire HR team so far!
June 9, 2010:
I met with Lisa, the HR manager first thing this morning to go over my progress with the auditing. Sandy, one of the HR specialists gave me today’s schedule as well as some paperwork on the company’s executive/manager contact information. The morning consisted of working on the audits. After my lunch break I met with Glenn Shuster, the VP of HR. We sat and discussed a project he wants me to start working on. He wants me to research performance appraisal systems in small companies (around 150 or less) and see if they can change their “employee of the month” system to something more effective and new. He gave me his SHRM membership number to go on the SHRM website to do some research. I spent some of the afternoon finding some websites and articles to research to help me to present my project to Glenn later towards the end of the internship. The last hour and a half of my day I spent with the benefits specialist Maureen. She went over Quorum’s benefits for their employees such as the 401k, the pension plan, the life insurance and medical plans. Relating this to what I have learned in my HR management and I/O classes is that employees want to work for a company that provides competitive benefits. Quorum is constantly working towards creating appealing benefits for their employees. With better benefits comes a better workforce. I found it all to be very informative, and our talk allowed me to learn even more about the company I am working for, for the next few months. Before I left to go home, I met with Sandy for our end of the day meeting to discuss today’s activities as well as briefly go over some things I will be doing on Friday.
June 11, 2010:
Today was a quiet day in the HR department with the VP Glenn and the HR manager Lisa out of the office for a meeting for the day. It was mostly just Sandy, Tia and I working on our individual projects for the day. I finally finished up auditing Lisa’s files, and I started outlining my individual projects I will be working on with Glenn (performance appraisal/employee of the month system), as well as my own end of the term presentation I will be giving to the HR department about some likes and dislikes of their company’s strategy, etc. I had a really good conversation with Sandy, the training and organizational development specialist about her role at Quorum. We also talked about how she plays a major role in making sure managers within the different departments accurately hire and retain the right employees for the company. I actually was excited to learn that I was able to help Sandy out by suggesting a realistic job preview when hiring employees. I learned in my HR management class that a realistic job preview provides the employee with good and bad aspects of the job, so they get a realistic sense of what they will be doing as a part of their job. Sandy surprisingly hadn’t heard of that before and was really excited to tell Glenn about it in their next meeting as a suggestion for the future hiring process. For lunch I had a nice Mexican lunch with the few HR team members that were in the office today, and then took an online class about training. The class took about 2 hours and had a pre-test and post-test to see how much I learned overall throughout taking the course. I scored a 65% on the pre-test prior to taking the online course, and scored an 90% on my post-test. I found it helpful in understanding more of the roles within Sandy’s job as a training specialist.
June 14, 2010:
Quorum was extremely busy today. From the moment I walked into work people were running around preparing for a company training program they will be rolling out tomorrow. I briefly met with Sandy when I came in to go over today’s activities. First on my list was to take an online course on interviews. I found most of it as a review from my HR management class last semester with Dr. Meyer. The course talked a lot about structured vs. unstructured interviews as well as behavioral and situational questions for the interview. I learned a lot about interviews both in my industrial psychology class as well as my more recent HR class. The online course mentioned how the interviewer can build rapport with the interviewee. I also reviewed how ineffective interviewing could lead to bad hiring decisions which could lead to a high turnover rate which in turn could negatively affect the overall company’s success. The only part of the course that I found to be new information was how they suggest the interviewer conducts four interviews: a telephone interview, the initial interview, the second interview, and the final interview. I found this to be a lot of time spent on interviewing and wasn’t something I had discussed in my classes at Canisius. Thinking about it further however, it does seem to make sense to conduct several interviews when trying to find an employee that will be a perfect fit for the position. Although it may be a hassle in the beginning, conducting several interviews seem to be a smart investment to avoid any problems or turnovers later on. The rest of the afternoon was pretty laid back. It was Tia’s birthday so I baked her a cake last night and brought it in today. After lunch and cake, I worked on my individual project for the VP of HR Glenn. The project is trying to come up with a better system for their employee recognition awards. Currently they have an employee of the month, but I am creating a powerpoint on why it would be better to have an employee of the quarter, as well as other smaller recognition awards along the year such as “Caught in the Act” notes from managers and department lunch celebrations. I spoke with the CEO’s assistant, Amanda today about the whole recognition they have in place and she expressed several concerns both Glenn and the CEO have about their current system. One problem was that people in more respected positions seem to win over other employees, as well as the biases that have arose from the nomination system. I have several ideas, so this afternoon I made sure to jot some ideas down and started on my PowerPoint I will be presenting to Glenn. Overall it was a pretty busy day for the HR department but definitely a productive one for me!
June 16,2010:
Today was a really fun day. I came in and within thirty minutes of arriving to work the entire HR team was out of the office in a car for a field trip to Kraft Foods. Since Quorum Federal Credit Union used to be called Kraft Federal Credit Union (since it was a FCU designed only for Kraft foods employees). The credit union expanded into servicing other companies besides Kraft (like Heineken, Hitachi metals and dozens more), the named changed from Kraft Federal Credit Union to Quorum around 2005. So today we went to one of the Kraft foods locations in Tarrytown, NY. It was pretty exciting. The complex was very big, and although it wasn’t where all the food is manufactured, it was where the business development and office employees worked. We checked up on the Quorum kiosk and ATM machines within the building, and met up with Valerie Stangarone who is the regional manager for Quorum who works within the Kraft foods building. One of my tasks for the day was to sit down with Valerie and have an interview with her. The reason why the HR department wanted me to interview her was to see if the HR department was doing a good job in the past of meeting her department’s needs. Since the HR department at Quorum is a very new group of employees (all starting within the past year) as well as having Glenn be the new VP of HR, he wanted to make sure human resources understood her needs, concerns, achievements and so on so that Quorum can build a stronger relationship with her in the future. My classroom background did help me very much for my interviewing because my human resources management class focused extensively on appropriate interviewing techniques, skills, and questions. Although it wasn’t interviewing a candidate for a job, some techniques I learned in class did help me out when interviewing Valerie. For example, I didn’t rush right into the questions Glenn wanted me to ask her, instead I asked her a little about herself, how she started working for Quorum and Kraft, as well as gain some background information about her department. I build rapport with her before asking her more of the serious questions. It was helpful because it allowed the us to both feel comfortable during the interview and probably helped her open up to me more about her needs in the department, as well as how HR can help her within the department. I came out of the interview with a lot of good information on how HR can improve their role within her department (which is exactly what Glenn wanted to find out by interviewing her). After the interview, we went to the Kraft store and bought a ton of cookies and goodies for less than half price! We all went to a very late lunch with the entire HR team and then headed back to the office. For the rest of the afternoon I typed up my interview questions and gave them to Sandy. Finally, I sat with Glenn at the end of the day and we talked about the day, what I thought, any comments, and some of his ideas of the company. He told me how he is working very hard to build strong relationships with the companies Quorum services so people can come to them with any problems they might have. By having HR on the employee’s sides, they can build a strong relationship, which is needed to help employees with their hiring, firing, training etc. problems, which in turn builds a stronger company for both sides.
June 18th, 2010
Since it was Friday today, it was quiet a laid back day in the office. However, I was still pretty busy with interviews the HR team had set up for me. I interviewed two more people who worked at the federal credit union. The first interview was with a woman named Heather who is the director of marketing at Quorum. I asked her the same questions I asked Valerie the a few days prior. I found it interesting that one area that the HR department can improve on to help her department is training. I found it surprising when she told me her employees and she rarely uses the training that is offered at Quorum. When I asked her why, she said it was because the training does not pertain to the material they need to know to accurately do their job in marketing. She said a lot of the training that is given is very vague or general. Heather also said much of the training is for the employees who work in the call center (such as customer satisfaction, how to speak to customers on the phone, etc). I think Quorum could do a much better job at training development for each specific department. In my management class, I learned that training is a vital piece of organizational development; without it employees cannot continue to grow within their department. The fact that the marketing department does not have the training they need right at their company, can make it frustrating and difficult to grow within their jobs. I made sure to tell Sandy (the training specialist) about what I had heard from my interview with Heather and she seemed very grateful to have learned about this information. Since Sandy and several other HR employees are new at Quorum, I’m helping them to better understand the needs of the company through my interviews. After lunch I interviewed a systems controller in finance named Jamie. He expressed very similar needs from HR as Heather did: training. Jamie would like to see his employees have a training program they can go to that will help them develop their skills to move forward in their job position. Overall, what I attained from the interviews was that HR needs to develop their training methods and programs. I think the fact that some departments do not have sufficient training makes it nearly impossible for employees to continue growing individually and as a department. I’ve learned that training is a major part of any organization, and if Quorum wants to continue the growth of this rather newly emerged company, then training must be implemented more effectively.
Monday June 21, 2010
I met with Sandy, the training specialist a lot throughout the day today. She needs me to help her with some projects she’s working on for the next few months. After my interviews last week, she realized that training needs to seriously be implanted for different departments. Sandy showed me competencies she has for an individual contributor, a manager, a director, and an executive. Sandy has organized her competencies to fit the company’s overall strategy. I learned competencies and strategies in my I/O and HR management classes, and was able to understand what Sandy was saying, and help her in figuring out some competencies for Quorum. Since there are endless amount of competencies, she wanted to break it down into around 5-8 general organizational competencies, then branch out further into departmental competencies. For example, one competency Sandy and I came up with for the individual contributors at the call centers at Quorum was, “Provides Customer Satisfaction.” This can be measured by customer feedback and surveys, as well as call monitoring. I learned in my classes in MGT and psychology that competencies for a job are important to have so employees are aware of what type of behaviors and knowledge is expected of them to do their job effectively. Each level of employees has different competencies, which can make creating them extensive and time consuming (as I’ve learned today). After lunch, I took a break from the competencies and started helping Sandy with a PowerPoint on Microsoft PPT. I created a whole new PowerPoint with over 50 slides on “The Art of Influence.” I based many of the slides off of a template that Sandy had created in her old company in 2002. The PowerPoint looks great! It’s updated with its research, and has the Quorum logo and colors on each slide. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing Sandy’s PowerPoint, and had a brief end of the day meeting with Glenn (the VP of HR) to talk about the projects I had worked on today.
June 23, 2010
Today seemed to go by pretty slow for some reason. I think it was because I didn’t have too much to work on like I had the past few weeks. When I came into the office I started working on Sandy’s project she had given to me. Basically, I’m typing up an entire lesson plan about the “Art of Influencing” and putting it online. I made a PowerPoint for the same topic on Monday, so I am now making a step-by-step training lesson for the topic. I still haven’t finished it after working on it for the majority of the day. I was able to give my fingers a break from typing when I had my mid-way meeting with Glenn. I saw with Glenn in his office and he wanted to talk with me about my thoughts almost halfway through my internship. I can’t believe in a week or so I’ll already be halfway done! I told him how my expectations have definitely been met here at Quorum, and I’m glad I’m able to work with several different people within the company instead of just one HR manager or specialist. I’m lucky that I’m able to get my hands into several different projects and meet with the entire HR team to help them with anything they need help with. When he asked if there was anything he could do better for future interns, I honestly couldn’t come up with anything on the spot. They had given me my own office, work area, projects, daily schedules, and HR experience- all of which I wanted during my internship experience. So the only thing I told him was that it maybe would be nice to get to know different people in the company better (outside of the HR department). After my meeting with Glenn, I met with Tia. She went over the company’s intranet called “Passageways”. I learned about intranets in my HR management class. They are internal company information systems where company news, personal information and almost anything you’d need to know about the company is within the intranet. I looked at Quorum’s intranet with Tia and saw several problems with it. First, the company rarely uses the intranet. Second, the intranet is very unorganized with links all over the place (making it less appealing for employees and causing more headaches). Since one of Tia’s projects is to improve and update the intranet system, I decided that I would help her with it until I leave. So this afternoon her and I watched a one hour webinar on a company called Purdue that won an award for its organized and well-managed intranet system. I found it definitely informative and even got some great ideas for the reconstruction of Quorum’s intranet. Glenn had mentioned how he wants the intranet to capture the overall company culture and tie into some of the HR strategy. I think by building an intranet that will attract employees, it will help to build a company that will feel more closer and connected.
June 25, 2010
I worked with Tia for the majority of the day today. Although I still had Sandy’s projects to work on, I mostly worked on organizing the company’s intranet with Tia by making rough drafts of what we want the intranet to look like. The problem currently is that the information on the intranet is also on other sites like ADP and fidelity. (outside companies they pay for to create benefit info and compensations). So the majority of the morning was working with Tia on the intranet. After lunch, I sat with Sandy as we went over the company’s stress levels and what they do to alleviate employees of their stress. Employees have numerous sources of stress that come from the workplace as well as the home. Currently, Quorum does not have any type of system for stress management besides allowing “sick” days or paid vacations. What I talked to Sandy about was hopefully coming up with mini seminars once every few months on how to reduce stress and what to do when feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes talking with people really does help. I learned about stress in my I/O psychology class so it’s interesting to see some connections from the class to real-life situations. I learned in I/O that stress can result in unhappy employees and in turn lower company performance. I think having someplace to talk and release some stress would be great for some Quorum employees. Although it is not a major problem at Quorum, it’s definitely something to consider for all companies. With more pressure on employees today in the workforce, I think stress management is something that should be at hand if needed in any workplace. The final hour or so of the afternoon I took an employee Wonderlick test just for fun. Tia simply wanted to show me the tests they give potential employees before they sit in on an interview. If the score is below a certain standard, then they are not asked back to continue on with the hiring process. I wasn’t told how I did-hopefully not too bad!
June 28, 2010
I finally finished my employee recognition program PowerPoint today. It’s my personal project I’ve been working on the past few weeks for Glenn, the VP of HR. As I mentioned in one of my last postings, Glenn wanted me to revise the entire employee recognition program. Instead of having an “Employee of the Month” I changed it to an “Employee of the Quarter”. With a smaller sized company like Quorum, I thought a quarterly winner would make it more appealing for employees and something to truly be proud of. I also added a “Department of the Year” award. I thought this would be a great way for each department within Quorum (marketing, finance, HR, etc) to work toward a common goal and strive to be the best department. This will give employees a sense of teamwork and unity within their department. I also thought that the idea of a “Caught in the Act” note would be nice for employees to return to if they had done something noteworthy. I compiled all my thoughts onto a PowerPoint presentation and sent it to Glenn. I also made changes to the “Employee of the Quarter” nomination process. I made it so instead of the managers filling out an entire 2 pages of questions to nominate someone, they can answer one simple question that asks “Which of Quorum’s core values did the employee best demonstrate and how? Please give specific examples.” I think this will allow managers to build off this question and gives off a less intimidating vibe for managers. Glenn will be looking over my PowerPoint and setting up a meeting time for me to present it to the CEO. I am looking forward to it. Besides the PowerPoint which took up most of my day, I continued to work with Tia and the company’s intranet at the end of the day. It’s an ongoing process that will continue to be worked on for months after I leave. Her and I outlined our progress and came up with a few survey questions to ask current managers and employees about their uses with passageways.
July, 7, 2010
At Quorum today I got back into helping Tia with the intranet. We came up with a list of managers and supervisors who we need to meet with to discuss how they’re using intranet, Passageways, in their department. After helping Tia for a few hours in the morning, I took an online course on sexual harassment. I talked with Sandy about what I had learned from the online course and went over some of Quorum’s procedures. Quorum has a procedure because they are required by law to have a procedure in place. Sandy said there’s never really been a huge issue regarding any type of harassment in the office and so the procedure is rarely used. First, the employee would talk with a human resource manager about the incident and be sent a warning letter. If the incident continues to be a problem, the employee can file a claim to the EECO (Equal employment opportunity commission) and the harasser will most likely be terminated. Quorum employees are all trained on sexual harassment and are made aware of the company’s definition and procedures for sexual harassment. On the information I gathered about sexual harassment, much of the information was review from my psychology and management classes. I learned about the EEOC in my HR management class. I learned that it is a federal anti-discrimination law that investigates and mediates sexual harassment claims. I did however learn today that the EEOC are actually the ones that employees file a lawsuit with (the employee deals directly with the EEOC). Also, I was told that if any company that has more than 15 employees, they are obligated to have policies and procedures that deal with sexual harassment. The training talked a lot about some of the topics I learned in my classes such as “Quid pro Quo” and how to handle situations, as well as what constitutes sexual harassment. I found the training and talk with Sandy very helpful in reviewing some ideas as well as learning some new things. The last few hours of my day I spent looking over the company’s current intranet. They had several links to look at regarding Quorum’s HR department such as employee motivation, recruitment, labor relations, and other interesting topics to look at. I also looked around on the SHRM website using Glenn’s account information and found some things to read about there. Some ideas were review of what I’ve covered in class, but I found a lot of the information interesting (as well as things I can talk about and relate to in my Canisius classes for my final essay.)
July 9, 2010
Since Tia was out of the office today, I worked with Sandy the entire day. She had me working on some of her training outlines as well as some employee service aids. For example, when a customer calls a Quorum representative, most times the representative will have to describe how to navigate the Quorum website to the customer. An example would be someone wanting to open up a checking account. If the representative does not know what to say, or what steps to take, the customer will leave confused and probably more frustrated than before he/she called. What I started working on today were different manuals for employees. I had to write step-by-step directions of where to go to find something on the Quorum website. Along with the directions were screenshots of the actual webpage. I worked on this for the majority of the day. At the last hour of my day I took a break from Sandy’s project and sat in with Lisa Brandt (the HR manager). She talked to me a little bit more about their recruiting process and some of the needs Quorum has presently. She said they are looking for new hires but prefer to start internally first. (meaning, promoting from within, and/or asking current employees if they could suggest anyone looking for a job). She said that any Quorum employee who successfully recommends a person for a job (the person is hired and stays with Quorum for at least 60 days), gets a free Apple iPad! I thought it was pretty neat how they market their open job positions to current employees, and then rewards them if they find a good-fit hire. The new hires go through a series of obstacles before getting hired however. As I may have mentioned earlier, they have a phone interview, then an initial interview, and a final interview. Before they even sit in on the first interview they must take a math test and a Wonderlick test. They are also required to take a drug test and sign off to a background check. Once the applicant has passed all of those requirements, he is asked to give references. Finally, once the references check out O.K, they come in for the final interview to talk about salary, hours, etc. If that all works out fine, then they are hired.
The process is quite long but I think it is a safety net for the company. They want to make sure they are hiring someone who is the right fit for the job, and even if it takes longer in the beginning, it’ll hopefully help with a high turnover rate later on.
July 12, 2010
Today was a very exciting day for me. I came into the office and prepared for my presentation on the employee recognition programs. As I had told you earlier in my blogs, one of the projects Glenn had me work on is their employee recognition programs. I had several ideas for the company such as changing it to “Employee of the Quarter” and “Caught in the Act” rewards. I also brought up the idea of a “Departmental Award.” I was very nervous going into the CEO’s office to present my idea to Bruno (the CEO), Glenn (the VP of HR) and some other managers and VP’s in different departments. All in all there were about 7 of us in the room going through my PowerPoint. Each person had a copy of my slides as well as any documents I had to go along with the PowerPoint. For example, one change I recommended was making the nomination process for “Employee of the Quarter” much shorter with only one simple question asking managers to describe how the employees exhibited Quorum’s core values. I gave each person in the meeting a copy of my revised nomination form to show them what I was talking about. I was very nervous at first, but I quickly became very comfortable expressing the ideas that I had and swapping ideas between all the people there. The CEO loved my idea for a departmental award and even thought it would be a great way to build team spirit within Quorum. My presentation also tied in a lot with my project that I ‘m working on with Tia in reconstructing and rejuvenating the company’s Intranet (Passageways). Since a lot of my ideas for employee recognition involved publically recognizing the winning employee, they thought it was great timing to post all of the awards on the intranet for everyone to see. Overall, the presentation went really well, and they all really appreciated my time and effort in making the presentation. They are now currently in the process of organizing the ideas I came up with and planning on rolling out a new recognition program/process in 2011! It was definitely the highlight of my week! Possibly even the entire internship experience! It was a great feeling to have my hard work be recognized and in the end actually be used in their company’s future! The rest of the day I worked with Sandy on her training facilitator guides. This facilitator guide is meant to help trainers say and do the appropriate things when training others. So it’s a step-by-step process I started typing out for a training program they will have here at Quorum in the near future. I didn’t even come close to finishing the facilitator guide today, so I’ll have to continue that the next few days.
July 14, 2010
Today was a pretty quiet day. The rest of the week will pretty much be quiet and simple. For the rest of the week I’ll probably be helping Sandy since Tia and the rest of the HR department is in Chicago visiting a Quorum service center until next week. Sandy has me working on similar projects I’ve helped her with in the past such as typing up job aids for “The Art of Influence” PowerPoint I made a few weeks ago. Also, I’m creating training guides for more training programs she has. So pretty much for the next few days I’ll be typing up all of Sandy’s guides and creating PowerPoints and facilitator guides. I found a lot of the information informative such as how effective body language is when presenting yourself. Also, the power of voice is important, and one’s pitch, volume, rhythm, etc. all creates influence and power when trying to communicate a point. So although the busy work wasn’t too exciting, and I sat typing for the entire day, I did pick up some interesting tips here and there about the power of influence. I’ll be working on all of Sandy’s facilitator guides, PowerPoints and job aids until I meet with Tia again next week to start back up on Quorum’s intranet update with Passageways. I’m sure Lisa, the HR manager may have some things she needs me to do. I can’t believe I only have another week or so of interning and I’m finished! These past two months really have flown by!
July 19, 2010
Today I worked with Tia mostly on the continued update of Passageways. The company’s intranet needs an entire wipeout and re-implementation of programs. Much of the items within the intranet are not being used. I started off my morning with a conference call meeting with a woman named Anna from the company Passageways (whom will be creating a new intranet for us once we’ve organized what we want and don’t want in it). Also at the meeting was Glenn (VP of HR), Amanda (Executive Assistant), Tia (HR analyst) and George (Manager in the IT department). We all sat and went through different intranets from various companies and sorted out what we wanted and didn’t want in Quorum’s intranet. I found the whole meeting really interesting. I had never sat in on a conference call meeting like that before. Anna was all the way in Milwaukee but was able to see our computer screen, and we were able to see hers. This way when she scrolled around on her desktop and through her intranet, we could actually see what she was during in live time. It was definitely surprising to see how far we’ve come in the technology world with business meetings and communication. After the meeting which lasted for hours because of how many links and information there was to go through on Quorum’s current intranet, I ate lunch and talked about last week’s episode of True Blood with Sandy and Glenn for a while. They’re really fun people to work and socialize with, so I’m pretty lucky! After my much needed lunch break, I worked with Sandy on the Meridian Link job aids some more. All of Sandy’s work is mostly associated with what HR calls “Improving Employee Performance.” Sandy works on all the training programs that are designed to help current employees improve their skills, stay on top of programs, etc. which in turn is meant to improve their performance and the overall company’s performance. Talking with Glenn later on in the day it was clear that he wanted to align the company’s goals and strategy with the overall company and practice. There are core values that Quorum has; Trust, Integrity, Innovation, Teamwork, Accountability, and Flexibility. For example, HR has a strategy that ties in with the company’s goals and values. This strategy will tie in with the company culture. Everything is all tied in together at Quorum. I also talked with Glenn about their compensation packages and so on. I learned a lot from Maureen about employee benefits, but Glenn told me that almost every employee gets some annual raise in their salary each year. Each person contributes to the success of Quorum, therefore they should be compensated for that. Bruno (the CEO) writes each person a letter saying how much they earned this year, what their new raised salary/ hourly wage will be, as well as thanking them for their efforts this past year. It’s a great way for employees to stay motivated and feel like an important piece of the company. A simple thank you letter from the CEO and a small pay increase can help to motivate employees for the next upcoming year and hopefully help turnover rates. So today I sat in my first real conference call meeting about the company’s intranet and even talked with Glenn a lot about different aspects of the HR department like compensation and Quorum’s overall strategy/values.
July 21, 2010
I only have 3 more days with Quorum! I can’t believe it! August is almost here which means my internship will be done! Time really did fly by. Today I worked with Tia on her intranet Passageways project. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, this will be a project that will continue most likely up to the new 2011 year. I worked on setting up interview with senior management within Quorum. I also started creating a project plan. I made a project outline a few weeks ago for Tia, but now I’m getting into the more detailed, step-by-step planning of the intranet upgrade. I did a lot of reviewing notes and typing but was able to get a nice start on the project plan. The plan is broken up into 4 phases. Phase 1 will take the longest and is the phase we’re currently in. It’s the cleanup of the old intranet, figuring out what is being used on the current intranet, and looking into what a new upgrade offers. The current Passageways at Quorum has several modules or functions that have become obsolete. In conjunction with an upgrade will be sifting through each program within their intranet to make sure they’re not getting rid of things that employees are currently using. I worked on this with Tia for the entire day, taking a nice hour lunch break in between. The last hour I was there however I did file some mid-year employee reviews. I noticed that each employee was rated overall on a scale from 1 to 5. (5 being the best). No one that I had filed scored higher than a 4, and 3’s were very common. The evaluation sheet had a checklist of all the job requirements/competencies. The manager can then check the appropriate box (3 choices) if the employee did 1) exceptionally well, 2) did well, 3) not so well. I just found the sheet interesting because employee evaluations is a major part of HR, and I think there could have been a few improvements on the sheet which I’m sure I’ll talk more about in my essay. However, they did leave room for the manager to leave comments as well as the employee to leave comment after he/she has seen their evaluation. These evaluations will be overseen by the managers and CEO at the end of the year for a raise the following year. The rest of the week I’ll be helping Tia with Passageways most likely sitting in on interviews with managers in different departments as well as sitting in on more conference calls with Passageways experts. The calls will give us a better idea of what new systems are available in the new upgrade. Then my last day at Quorum will be here before I know it! I also was invited to a company picnic which conveniently falls on my last day of work. So I’m excited!
July 31, 2010
I just finished my internship this past week. I can't believe it's over already. I spent my last few days working on some recruiting techniques with Lisa Brandt, the HR manager. She had me go through the handful of applicants that applied to a member services position at Quorum. She had me organize their resumes, references, and take notes on anything I found to be "out of the ordinary" or something that "stood out" for her to look at when she calls them for a phone interview. Some things I noticed when looking through resume's were the experience levels. It was easy to see who had just come out of college vs. who has been in the working field for quite a while. I also worked with Sandy with her training guides. I also sat in with Sandy when she met with one of the new potential hires to discuss the math test, background checks, drug test, etc. She also talked about the training procedure they would go through once hired. I found all of it very informative and allowed me to see how Quorum's recruitment and training processes work. Although Tia needed a lot of work with the Intranet, I didn't get to work with her as much as I would have liked because I was busy with a lot of work that Lisa and Sandy had given me. I did however sit in on an interview with the Marketing director to talk about how her department uses Passageways (the intranet). I took down a lot of notes that will be useful for Tia when going through and cleaning up the current Passageways. My last day was Friday and the entire HR team surprised me with a bagel & donuts breakfast. They also gave me a really nice Coach card holder with all of their business cards inside, as well as a "Thank You" card. I was overwhelmed and was not expecting to receive a farewell breakfast, nonetheless a present! They all expressed their appreciation for my help this summer and it made me realize I'll miss them all very much. After work, the company happened to have a picnic from 7-10. I stayed for a few hours to say goodbye and eat with everyone in a relaxed setting on Rye Beach in Rye, NY. It was a great way to end my internship and make me really appreciate my time at Quorum. There were aspects I loved as well as some that I did not like as much, but overall I had a wonderful experience working in their HR department. I don't think many companies are as lucky to have a fun, understanding HR VP as Glenn, as well as an overall positive, close-knit, family-like work environment. I've always heard that the people you work with can make all the difference in how happy you are in a job; my experience at Quorum only confirmed that for me. The people I worked with were so great and I'll truly miss them.
Today I came into the office at 9 am was introduced to the entire human resources team at Quorum. Since I had only spoken to and met with Glenn Shuster (VP of HR) and Lisa Brandt (HR manager), they wanted to give me the rest of the morning to familiarize myself with the office and the other HR team members. I first reviewed my schedule for the rest of the summer, and will be working 9-4/5 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The morning flew by with Lisa Brandt assigning me my own desk to work at, with my own telephone and voicemail, my email and intranet (internal office communication center), as well as my own swipe card and locker key. After getting situated at my new office space, the entire HR team went out to sushi at a really great restaurant in Rye Brook, NY. The lunch was a great way for me to meet everyone on a more personal level and welcome me to their new team for the next few months. I met great people such as Sandy, Tia, and Maureen who also work in the HR department, as well as the CEO of Quorum, Bruno. The lunch was my favorite part of the day because I was able to see the people I’ll be working with on a less formal, more relaxed environment. Once we returned from our lunch, I met with each member of the HR department to talk with them about their personal projects they are working on this summer, and how I will be helping them complete their projects. For example, Tia is working on the company’s intranet and website. She wants to make the intranet a place where employees could go to get the latest company news and policies. She told me that no one (including herself) unfortunately really uses the company’s intranet for anything- and she wants to change that. Sandy is working on a few projects but mentioned how she was updating the company’s core competencies and the employee handbook. Lisa is working on the file audits for each employee before August. Since the company gets audited in August, all the files need to match the online databases (ADP & Fidelity). This is something she really needs help with because of the amount of employees they have and how much needs to be perfectly matched in a short period of time. Glenn also spoke to me about his project of improving the company’s employee performance evaluations. The company currently only has a performance evaluation once a year for employees to go over future goals for the next year and past performance. Glenn really wants to change that into meeting with employees a few times a week or month as well as meeting with the executive employees to go over not only individual goals but organizational and departmental goals.
Overall today was a very busy, exciting day for me. I met so many people in the office (I forget half their names already), and was able to get an overall idea of some of the HR projects I’ll be helping out with this summer.
June 4, 2010:
Upon arriving to work, I was met by Sandy who gave me a stack of packets for new hires. The packets are for training purposes and are meant to familiarize me with working at a federal credit union. For example, one packet was all about what a federal credit union is and how they differ from regular banks. I learned that many of the members who join federal credit unions join because the company they work for are affiliates with the union for several reasons (benefits, insurance, loans, etc.). Another packet was all on checking and savings accounts at Quorum. There were at least eight or nine packets I had to read through and then take a mini quiz on each one. I worked on them for the whole morning and still had not finished them entirely. After my lunch break I met with Marlo from the loans/service department where she sat with me for about an hour to answer any questions I had about the federal credit union (FCU) and explain the benefits of being in a FCU. She also talked about the background of Quorum, and how until 2005, the company used to be called Kraft Foods and was meant to be a financial service for the Kraft Foods employees. Since their federal credit union expanded into servicing other companies besides solely Kraft, they decided to rename their company Quorum. After meeting with Marlo, I continued to work on the packets for the rest of the day. Before I left to go home I met with one of the HR specialists, Sandy, who debriefed me on the day and went over any questions or concerns I had.
June 7, 2010:
Today was a quiet day, maybe because it was a Monday, but there were also a few HR employees who were working from home. Lisa had left me an e-mail describing a project she wanted me to get started on. Since she was at home today, she left me her number so I could call her in case I had any trouble. Lisa wanted me to work on the file audits, and so pretty much for the whole day I worked on those. They were pretty repetitive and tedious at first, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t too bad. What I had to do was in alphabetical order, pull the files of each employee and bring them to my desk to review their information to make sure the information in their files matched in the databases. The databases Quorum uses are ADP and Fidelity (for their 401k and benefits). Although I worked on only those files today, I still only got to the last names beginning with a “C”. I immediately understood why Lisa was adamant about getting started on the file audits, because of how time consuming and tedious they are. Although it wasn’t the most exciting day, it still was work that exposed me a section of their daily work-life. It definitely is a good feeling to help the team out with some of their workload since everyone seems to be pretty busy with their own project. Besides the audits, I met with Glenn at the end of the day to review my overall expectations so far at Quorum. Glenn is an extremely nice person who wants me to ask questions and give my input at any time. I like how comfortable I feel at Quorum and the constant open communication that is available at the office. Everyone is extremely friendly and open which I really love. The office in itself is neither hectic nor enclosed, but everyone’s desk can be seen from the walking area, and even the VP and CEO have their doors open for you to come in and ask questions. It’s a great atmosphere and I really enjoy working with the entire HR team so far!
June 9, 2010:
I met with Lisa, the HR manager first thing this morning to go over my progress with the auditing. Sandy, one of the HR specialists gave me today’s schedule as well as some paperwork on the company’s executive/manager contact information. The morning consisted of working on the audits. After my lunch break I met with Glenn Shuster, the VP of HR. We sat and discussed a project he wants me to start working on. He wants me to research performance appraisal systems in small companies (around 150 or less) and see if they can change their “employee of the month” system to something more effective and new. He gave me his SHRM membership number to go on the SHRM website to do some research. I spent some of the afternoon finding some websites and articles to research to help me to present my project to Glenn later towards the end of the internship. The last hour and a half of my day I spent with the benefits specialist Maureen. She went over Quorum’s benefits for their employees such as the 401k, the pension plan, the life insurance and medical plans. Relating this to what I have learned in my HR management and I/O classes is that employees want to work for a company that provides competitive benefits. Quorum is constantly working towards creating appealing benefits for their employees. With better benefits comes a better workforce. I found it all to be very informative, and our talk allowed me to learn even more about the company I am working for, for the next few months. Before I left to go home, I met with Sandy for our end of the day meeting to discuss today’s activities as well as briefly go over some things I will be doing on Friday.
June 11, 2010:
Today was a quiet day in the HR department with the VP Glenn and the HR manager Lisa out of the office for a meeting for the day. It was mostly just Sandy, Tia and I working on our individual projects for the day. I finally finished up auditing Lisa’s files, and I started outlining my individual projects I will be working on with Glenn (performance appraisal/employee of the month system), as well as my own end of the term presentation I will be giving to the HR department about some likes and dislikes of their company’s strategy, etc. I had a really good conversation with Sandy, the training and organizational development specialist about her role at Quorum. We also talked about how she plays a major role in making sure managers within the different departments accurately hire and retain the right employees for the company. I actually was excited to learn that I was able to help Sandy out by suggesting a realistic job preview when hiring employees. I learned in my HR management class that a realistic job preview provides the employee with good and bad aspects of the job, so they get a realistic sense of what they will be doing as a part of their job. Sandy surprisingly hadn’t heard of that before and was really excited to tell Glenn about it in their next meeting as a suggestion for the future hiring process. For lunch I had a nice Mexican lunch with the few HR team members that were in the office today, and then took an online class about training. The class took about 2 hours and had a pre-test and post-test to see how much I learned overall throughout taking the course. I scored a 65% on the pre-test prior to taking the online course, and scored an 90% on my post-test. I found it helpful in understanding more of the roles within Sandy’s job as a training specialist.
June 14, 2010:
Quorum was extremely busy today. From the moment I walked into work people were running around preparing for a company training program they will be rolling out tomorrow. I briefly met with Sandy when I came in to go over today’s activities. First on my list was to take an online course on interviews. I found most of it as a review from my HR management class last semester with Dr. Meyer. The course talked a lot about structured vs. unstructured interviews as well as behavioral and situational questions for the interview. I learned a lot about interviews both in my industrial psychology class as well as my more recent HR class. The online course mentioned how the interviewer can build rapport with the interviewee. I also reviewed how ineffective interviewing could lead to bad hiring decisions which could lead to a high turnover rate which in turn could negatively affect the overall company’s success. The only part of the course that I found to be new information was how they suggest the interviewer conducts four interviews: a telephone interview, the initial interview, the second interview, and the final interview. I found this to be a lot of time spent on interviewing and wasn’t something I had discussed in my classes at Canisius. Thinking about it further however, it does seem to make sense to conduct several interviews when trying to find an employee that will be a perfect fit for the position. Although it may be a hassle in the beginning, conducting several interviews seem to be a smart investment to avoid any problems or turnovers later on. The rest of the afternoon was pretty laid back. It was Tia’s birthday so I baked her a cake last night and brought it in today. After lunch and cake, I worked on my individual project for the VP of HR Glenn. The project is trying to come up with a better system for their employee recognition awards. Currently they have an employee of the month, but I am creating a powerpoint on why it would be better to have an employee of the quarter, as well as other smaller recognition awards along the year such as “Caught in the Act” notes from managers and department lunch celebrations. I spoke with the CEO’s assistant, Amanda today about the whole recognition they have in place and she expressed several concerns both Glenn and the CEO have about their current system. One problem was that people in more respected positions seem to win over other employees, as well as the biases that have arose from the nomination system. I have several ideas, so this afternoon I made sure to jot some ideas down and started on my PowerPoint I will be presenting to Glenn. Overall it was a pretty busy day for the HR department but definitely a productive one for me!
June 16,2010:
Today was a really fun day. I came in and within thirty minutes of arriving to work the entire HR team was out of the office in a car for a field trip to Kraft Foods. Since Quorum Federal Credit Union used to be called Kraft Federal Credit Union (since it was a FCU designed only for Kraft foods employees). The credit union expanded into servicing other companies besides Kraft (like Heineken, Hitachi metals and dozens more), the named changed from Kraft Federal Credit Union to Quorum around 2005. So today we went to one of the Kraft foods locations in Tarrytown, NY. It was pretty exciting. The complex was very big, and although it wasn’t where all the food is manufactured, it was where the business development and office employees worked. We checked up on the Quorum kiosk and ATM machines within the building, and met up with Valerie Stangarone who is the regional manager for Quorum who works within the Kraft foods building. One of my tasks for the day was to sit down with Valerie and have an interview with her. The reason why the HR department wanted me to interview her was to see if the HR department was doing a good job in the past of meeting her department’s needs. Since the HR department at Quorum is a very new group of employees (all starting within the past year) as well as having Glenn be the new VP of HR, he wanted to make sure human resources understood her needs, concerns, achievements and so on so that Quorum can build a stronger relationship with her in the future. My classroom background did help me very much for my interviewing because my human resources management class focused extensively on appropriate interviewing techniques, skills, and questions. Although it wasn’t interviewing a candidate for a job, some techniques I learned in class did help me out when interviewing Valerie. For example, I didn’t rush right into the questions Glenn wanted me to ask her, instead I asked her a little about herself, how she started working for Quorum and Kraft, as well as gain some background information about her department. I build rapport with her before asking her more of the serious questions. It was helpful because it allowed the us to both feel comfortable during the interview and probably helped her open up to me more about her needs in the department, as well as how HR can help her within the department. I came out of the interview with a lot of good information on how HR can improve their role within her department (which is exactly what Glenn wanted to find out by interviewing her). After the interview, we went to the Kraft store and bought a ton of cookies and goodies for less than half price! We all went to a very late lunch with the entire HR team and then headed back to the office. For the rest of the afternoon I typed up my interview questions and gave them to Sandy. Finally, I sat with Glenn at the end of the day and we talked about the day, what I thought, any comments, and some of his ideas of the company. He told me how he is working very hard to build strong relationships with the companies Quorum services so people can come to them with any problems they might have. By having HR on the employee’s sides, they can build a strong relationship, which is needed to help employees with their hiring, firing, training etc. problems, which in turn builds a stronger company for both sides.
June 18th, 2010
Since it was Friday today, it was quiet a laid back day in the office. However, I was still pretty busy with interviews the HR team had set up for me. I interviewed two more people who worked at the federal credit union. The first interview was with a woman named Heather who is the director of marketing at Quorum. I asked her the same questions I asked Valerie the a few days prior. I found it interesting that one area that the HR department can improve on to help her department is training. I found it surprising when she told me her employees and she rarely uses the training that is offered at Quorum. When I asked her why, she said it was because the training does not pertain to the material they need to know to accurately do their job in marketing. She said a lot of the training that is given is very vague or general. Heather also said much of the training is for the employees who work in the call center (such as customer satisfaction, how to speak to customers on the phone, etc). I think Quorum could do a much better job at training development for each specific department. In my management class, I learned that training is a vital piece of organizational development; without it employees cannot continue to grow within their department. The fact that the marketing department does not have the training they need right at their company, can make it frustrating and difficult to grow within their jobs. I made sure to tell Sandy (the training specialist) about what I had heard from my interview with Heather and she seemed very grateful to have learned about this information. Since Sandy and several other HR employees are new at Quorum, I’m helping them to better understand the needs of the company through my interviews. After lunch I interviewed a systems controller in finance named Jamie. He expressed very similar needs from HR as Heather did: training. Jamie would like to see his employees have a training program they can go to that will help them develop their skills to move forward in their job position. Overall, what I attained from the interviews was that HR needs to develop their training methods and programs. I think the fact that some departments do not have sufficient training makes it nearly impossible for employees to continue growing individually and as a department. I’ve learned that training is a major part of any organization, and if Quorum wants to continue the growth of this rather newly emerged company, then training must be implemented more effectively.
Monday June 21, 2010
I met with Sandy, the training specialist a lot throughout the day today. She needs me to help her with some projects she’s working on for the next few months. After my interviews last week, she realized that training needs to seriously be implanted for different departments. Sandy showed me competencies she has for an individual contributor, a manager, a director, and an executive. Sandy has organized her competencies to fit the company’s overall strategy. I learned competencies and strategies in my I/O and HR management classes, and was able to understand what Sandy was saying, and help her in figuring out some competencies for Quorum. Since there are endless amount of competencies, she wanted to break it down into around 5-8 general organizational competencies, then branch out further into departmental competencies. For example, one competency Sandy and I came up with for the individual contributors at the call centers at Quorum was, “Provides Customer Satisfaction.” This can be measured by customer feedback and surveys, as well as call monitoring. I learned in my classes in MGT and psychology that competencies for a job are important to have so employees are aware of what type of behaviors and knowledge is expected of them to do their job effectively. Each level of employees has different competencies, which can make creating them extensive and time consuming (as I’ve learned today). After lunch, I took a break from the competencies and started helping Sandy with a PowerPoint on Microsoft PPT. I created a whole new PowerPoint with over 50 slides on “The Art of Influence.” I based many of the slides off of a template that Sandy had created in her old company in 2002. The PowerPoint looks great! It’s updated with its research, and has the Quorum logo and colors on each slide. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing Sandy’s PowerPoint, and had a brief end of the day meeting with Glenn (the VP of HR) to talk about the projects I had worked on today.
June 23, 2010
Today seemed to go by pretty slow for some reason. I think it was because I didn’t have too much to work on like I had the past few weeks. When I came into the office I started working on Sandy’s project she had given to me. Basically, I’m typing up an entire lesson plan about the “Art of Influencing” and putting it online. I made a PowerPoint for the same topic on Monday, so I am now making a step-by-step training lesson for the topic. I still haven’t finished it after working on it for the majority of the day. I was able to give my fingers a break from typing when I had my mid-way meeting with Glenn. I saw with Glenn in his office and he wanted to talk with me about my thoughts almost halfway through my internship. I can’t believe in a week or so I’ll already be halfway done! I told him how my expectations have definitely been met here at Quorum, and I’m glad I’m able to work with several different people within the company instead of just one HR manager or specialist. I’m lucky that I’m able to get my hands into several different projects and meet with the entire HR team to help them with anything they need help with. When he asked if there was anything he could do better for future interns, I honestly couldn’t come up with anything on the spot. They had given me my own office, work area, projects, daily schedules, and HR experience- all of which I wanted during my internship experience. So the only thing I told him was that it maybe would be nice to get to know different people in the company better (outside of the HR department). After my meeting with Glenn, I met with Tia. She went over the company’s intranet called “Passageways”. I learned about intranets in my HR management class. They are internal company information systems where company news, personal information and almost anything you’d need to know about the company is within the intranet. I looked at Quorum’s intranet with Tia and saw several problems with it. First, the company rarely uses the intranet. Second, the intranet is very unorganized with links all over the place (making it less appealing for employees and causing more headaches). Since one of Tia’s projects is to improve and update the intranet system, I decided that I would help her with it until I leave. So this afternoon her and I watched a one hour webinar on a company called Purdue that won an award for its organized and well-managed intranet system. I found it definitely informative and even got some great ideas for the reconstruction of Quorum’s intranet. Glenn had mentioned how he wants the intranet to capture the overall company culture and tie into some of the HR strategy. I think by building an intranet that will attract employees, it will help to build a company that will feel more closer and connected.
June 25, 2010
I worked with Tia for the majority of the day today. Although I still had Sandy’s projects to work on, I mostly worked on organizing the company’s intranet with Tia by making rough drafts of what we want the intranet to look like. The problem currently is that the information on the intranet is also on other sites like ADP and fidelity. (outside companies they pay for to create benefit info and compensations). So the majority of the morning was working with Tia on the intranet. After lunch, I sat with Sandy as we went over the company’s stress levels and what they do to alleviate employees of their stress. Employees have numerous sources of stress that come from the workplace as well as the home. Currently, Quorum does not have any type of system for stress management besides allowing “sick” days or paid vacations. What I talked to Sandy about was hopefully coming up with mini seminars once every few months on how to reduce stress and what to do when feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes talking with people really does help. I learned about stress in my I/O psychology class so it’s interesting to see some connections from the class to real-life situations. I learned in I/O that stress can result in unhappy employees and in turn lower company performance. I think having someplace to talk and release some stress would be great for some Quorum employees. Although it is not a major problem at Quorum, it’s definitely something to consider for all companies. With more pressure on employees today in the workforce, I think stress management is something that should be at hand if needed in any workplace. The final hour or so of the afternoon I took an employee Wonderlick test just for fun. Tia simply wanted to show me the tests they give potential employees before they sit in on an interview. If the score is below a certain standard, then they are not asked back to continue on with the hiring process. I wasn’t told how I did-hopefully not too bad!
June 28, 2010
I finally finished my employee recognition program PowerPoint today. It’s my personal project I’ve been working on the past few weeks for Glenn, the VP of HR. As I mentioned in one of my last postings, Glenn wanted me to revise the entire employee recognition program. Instead of having an “Employee of the Month” I changed it to an “Employee of the Quarter”. With a smaller sized company like Quorum, I thought a quarterly winner would make it more appealing for employees and something to truly be proud of. I also added a “Department of the Year” award. I thought this would be a great way for each department within Quorum (marketing, finance, HR, etc) to work toward a common goal and strive to be the best department. This will give employees a sense of teamwork and unity within their department. I also thought that the idea of a “Caught in the Act” note would be nice for employees to return to if they had done something noteworthy. I compiled all my thoughts onto a PowerPoint presentation and sent it to Glenn. I also made changes to the “Employee of the Quarter” nomination process. I made it so instead of the managers filling out an entire 2 pages of questions to nominate someone, they can answer one simple question that asks “Which of Quorum’s core values did the employee best demonstrate and how? Please give specific examples.” I think this will allow managers to build off this question and gives off a less intimidating vibe for managers. Glenn will be looking over my PowerPoint and setting up a meeting time for me to present it to the CEO. I am looking forward to it. Besides the PowerPoint which took up most of my day, I continued to work with Tia and the company’s intranet at the end of the day. It’s an ongoing process that will continue to be worked on for months after I leave. Her and I outlined our progress and came up with a few survey questions to ask current managers and employees about their uses with passageways.
July, 7, 2010
At Quorum today I got back into helping Tia with the intranet. We came up with a list of managers and supervisors who we need to meet with to discuss how they’re using intranet, Passageways, in their department. After helping Tia for a few hours in the morning, I took an online course on sexual harassment. I talked with Sandy about what I had learned from the online course and went over some of Quorum’s procedures. Quorum has a procedure because they are required by law to have a procedure in place. Sandy said there’s never really been a huge issue regarding any type of harassment in the office and so the procedure is rarely used. First, the employee would talk with a human resource manager about the incident and be sent a warning letter. If the incident continues to be a problem, the employee can file a claim to the EECO (Equal employment opportunity commission) and the harasser will most likely be terminated. Quorum employees are all trained on sexual harassment and are made aware of the company’s definition and procedures for sexual harassment. On the information I gathered about sexual harassment, much of the information was review from my psychology and management classes. I learned about the EEOC in my HR management class. I learned that it is a federal anti-discrimination law that investigates and mediates sexual harassment claims. I did however learn today that the EEOC are actually the ones that employees file a lawsuit with (the employee deals directly with the EEOC). Also, I was told that if any company that has more than 15 employees, they are obligated to have policies and procedures that deal with sexual harassment. The training talked a lot about some of the topics I learned in my classes such as “Quid pro Quo” and how to handle situations, as well as what constitutes sexual harassment. I found the training and talk with Sandy very helpful in reviewing some ideas as well as learning some new things. The last few hours of my day I spent looking over the company’s current intranet. They had several links to look at regarding Quorum’s HR department such as employee motivation, recruitment, labor relations, and other interesting topics to look at. I also looked around on the SHRM website using Glenn’s account information and found some things to read about there. Some ideas were review of what I’ve covered in class, but I found a lot of the information interesting (as well as things I can talk about and relate to in my Canisius classes for my final essay.)
July 9, 2010
Since Tia was out of the office today, I worked with Sandy the entire day. She had me working on some of her training outlines as well as some employee service aids. For example, when a customer calls a Quorum representative, most times the representative will have to describe how to navigate the Quorum website to the customer. An example would be someone wanting to open up a checking account. If the representative does not know what to say, or what steps to take, the customer will leave confused and probably more frustrated than before he/she called. What I started working on today were different manuals for employees. I had to write step-by-step directions of where to go to find something on the Quorum website. Along with the directions were screenshots of the actual webpage. I worked on this for the majority of the day. At the last hour of my day I took a break from Sandy’s project and sat in with Lisa Brandt (the HR manager). She talked to me a little bit more about their recruiting process and some of the needs Quorum has presently. She said they are looking for new hires but prefer to start internally first. (meaning, promoting from within, and/or asking current employees if they could suggest anyone looking for a job). She said that any Quorum employee who successfully recommends a person for a job (the person is hired and stays with Quorum for at least 60 days), gets a free Apple iPad! I thought it was pretty neat how they market their open job positions to current employees, and then rewards them if they find a good-fit hire. The new hires go through a series of obstacles before getting hired however. As I may have mentioned earlier, they have a phone interview, then an initial interview, and a final interview. Before they even sit in on the first interview they must take a math test and a Wonderlick test. They are also required to take a drug test and sign off to a background check. Once the applicant has passed all of those requirements, he is asked to give references. Finally, once the references check out O.K, they come in for the final interview to talk about salary, hours, etc. If that all works out fine, then they are hired.
The process is quite long but I think it is a safety net for the company. They want to make sure they are hiring someone who is the right fit for the job, and even if it takes longer in the beginning, it’ll hopefully help with a high turnover rate later on.
July 12, 2010
Today was a very exciting day for me. I came into the office and prepared for my presentation on the employee recognition programs. As I had told you earlier in my blogs, one of the projects Glenn had me work on is their employee recognition programs. I had several ideas for the company such as changing it to “Employee of the Quarter” and “Caught in the Act” rewards. I also brought up the idea of a “Departmental Award.” I was very nervous going into the CEO’s office to present my idea to Bruno (the CEO), Glenn (the VP of HR) and some other managers and VP’s in different departments. All in all there were about 7 of us in the room going through my PowerPoint. Each person had a copy of my slides as well as any documents I had to go along with the PowerPoint. For example, one change I recommended was making the nomination process for “Employee of the Quarter” much shorter with only one simple question asking managers to describe how the employees exhibited Quorum’s core values. I gave each person in the meeting a copy of my revised nomination form to show them what I was talking about. I was very nervous at first, but I quickly became very comfortable expressing the ideas that I had and swapping ideas between all the people there. The CEO loved my idea for a departmental award and even thought it would be a great way to build team spirit within Quorum. My presentation also tied in a lot with my project that I ‘m working on with Tia in reconstructing and rejuvenating the company’s Intranet (Passageways). Since a lot of my ideas for employee recognition involved publically recognizing the winning employee, they thought it was great timing to post all of the awards on the intranet for everyone to see. Overall, the presentation went really well, and they all really appreciated my time and effort in making the presentation. They are now currently in the process of organizing the ideas I came up with and planning on rolling out a new recognition program/process in 2011! It was definitely the highlight of my week! Possibly even the entire internship experience! It was a great feeling to have my hard work be recognized and in the end actually be used in their company’s future! The rest of the day I worked with Sandy on her training facilitator guides. This facilitator guide is meant to help trainers say and do the appropriate things when training others. So it’s a step-by-step process I started typing out for a training program they will have here at Quorum in the near future. I didn’t even come close to finishing the facilitator guide today, so I’ll have to continue that the next few days.
July 14, 2010
Today was a pretty quiet day. The rest of the week will pretty much be quiet and simple. For the rest of the week I’ll probably be helping Sandy since Tia and the rest of the HR department is in Chicago visiting a Quorum service center until next week. Sandy has me working on similar projects I’ve helped her with in the past such as typing up job aids for “The Art of Influence” PowerPoint I made a few weeks ago. Also, I’m creating training guides for more training programs she has. So pretty much for the next few days I’ll be typing up all of Sandy’s guides and creating PowerPoints and facilitator guides. I found a lot of the information informative such as how effective body language is when presenting yourself. Also, the power of voice is important, and one’s pitch, volume, rhythm, etc. all creates influence and power when trying to communicate a point. So although the busy work wasn’t too exciting, and I sat typing for the entire day, I did pick up some interesting tips here and there about the power of influence. I’ll be working on all of Sandy’s facilitator guides, PowerPoints and job aids until I meet with Tia again next week to start back up on Quorum’s intranet update with Passageways. I’m sure Lisa, the HR manager may have some things she needs me to do. I can’t believe I only have another week or so of interning and I’m finished! These past two months really have flown by!
July 19, 2010
Today I worked with Tia mostly on the continued update of Passageways. The company’s intranet needs an entire wipeout and re-implementation of programs. Much of the items within the intranet are not being used. I started off my morning with a conference call meeting with a woman named Anna from the company Passageways (whom will be creating a new intranet for us once we’ve organized what we want and don’t want in it). Also at the meeting was Glenn (VP of HR), Amanda (Executive Assistant), Tia (HR analyst) and George (Manager in the IT department). We all sat and went through different intranets from various companies and sorted out what we wanted and didn’t want in Quorum’s intranet. I found the whole meeting really interesting. I had never sat in on a conference call meeting like that before. Anna was all the way in Milwaukee but was able to see our computer screen, and we were able to see hers. This way when she scrolled around on her desktop and through her intranet, we could actually see what she was during in live time. It was definitely surprising to see how far we’ve come in the technology world with business meetings and communication. After the meeting which lasted for hours because of how many links and information there was to go through on Quorum’s current intranet, I ate lunch and talked about last week’s episode of True Blood with Sandy and Glenn for a while. They’re really fun people to work and socialize with, so I’m pretty lucky! After my much needed lunch break, I worked with Sandy on the Meridian Link job aids some more. All of Sandy’s work is mostly associated with what HR calls “Improving Employee Performance.” Sandy works on all the training programs that are designed to help current employees improve their skills, stay on top of programs, etc. which in turn is meant to improve their performance and the overall company’s performance. Talking with Glenn later on in the day it was clear that he wanted to align the company’s goals and strategy with the overall company and practice. There are core values that Quorum has; Trust, Integrity, Innovation, Teamwork, Accountability, and Flexibility. For example, HR has a strategy that ties in with the company’s goals and values. This strategy will tie in with the company culture. Everything is all tied in together at Quorum. I also talked with Glenn about their compensation packages and so on. I learned a lot from Maureen about employee benefits, but Glenn told me that almost every employee gets some annual raise in their salary each year. Each person contributes to the success of Quorum, therefore they should be compensated for that. Bruno (the CEO) writes each person a letter saying how much they earned this year, what their new raised salary/ hourly wage will be, as well as thanking them for their efforts this past year. It’s a great way for employees to stay motivated and feel like an important piece of the company. A simple thank you letter from the CEO and a small pay increase can help to motivate employees for the next upcoming year and hopefully help turnover rates. So today I sat in my first real conference call meeting about the company’s intranet and even talked with Glenn a lot about different aspects of the HR department like compensation and Quorum’s overall strategy/values.
July 21, 2010
I only have 3 more days with Quorum! I can’t believe it! August is almost here which means my internship will be done! Time really did fly by. Today I worked with Tia on her intranet Passageways project. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, this will be a project that will continue most likely up to the new 2011 year. I worked on setting up interview with senior management within Quorum. I also started creating a project plan. I made a project outline a few weeks ago for Tia, but now I’m getting into the more detailed, step-by-step planning of the intranet upgrade. I did a lot of reviewing notes and typing but was able to get a nice start on the project plan. The plan is broken up into 4 phases. Phase 1 will take the longest and is the phase we’re currently in. It’s the cleanup of the old intranet, figuring out what is being used on the current intranet, and looking into what a new upgrade offers. The current Passageways at Quorum has several modules or functions that have become obsolete. In conjunction with an upgrade will be sifting through each program within their intranet to make sure they’re not getting rid of things that employees are currently using. I worked on this with Tia for the entire day, taking a nice hour lunch break in between. The last hour I was there however I did file some mid-year employee reviews. I noticed that each employee was rated overall on a scale from 1 to 5. (5 being the best). No one that I had filed scored higher than a 4, and 3’s were very common. The evaluation sheet had a checklist of all the job requirements/competencies. The manager can then check the appropriate box (3 choices) if the employee did 1) exceptionally well, 2) did well, 3) not so well. I just found the sheet interesting because employee evaluations is a major part of HR, and I think there could have been a few improvements on the sheet which I’m sure I’ll talk more about in my essay. However, they did leave room for the manager to leave comments as well as the employee to leave comment after he/she has seen their evaluation. These evaluations will be overseen by the managers and CEO at the end of the year for a raise the following year. The rest of the week I’ll be helping Tia with Passageways most likely sitting in on interviews with managers in different departments as well as sitting in on more conference calls with Passageways experts. The calls will give us a better idea of what new systems are available in the new upgrade. Then my last day at Quorum will be here before I know it! I also was invited to a company picnic which conveniently falls on my last day of work. So I’m excited!
July 31, 2010
I just finished my internship this past week. I can't believe it's over already. I spent my last few days working on some recruiting techniques with Lisa Brandt, the HR manager. She had me go through the handful of applicants that applied to a member services position at Quorum. She had me organize their resumes, references, and take notes on anything I found to be "out of the ordinary" or something that "stood out" for her to look at when she calls them for a phone interview. Some things I noticed when looking through resume's were the experience levels. It was easy to see who had just come out of college vs. who has been in the working field for quite a while. I also worked with Sandy with her training guides. I also sat in with Sandy when she met with one of the new potential hires to discuss the math test, background checks, drug test, etc. She also talked about the training procedure they would go through once hired. I found all of it very informative and allowed me to see how Quorum's recruitment and training processes work. Although Tia needed a lot of work with the Intranet, I didn't get to work with her as much as I would have liked because I was busy with a lot of work that Lisa and Sandy had given me. I did however sit in on an interview with the Marketing director to talk about how her department uses Passageways (the intranet). I took down a lot of notes that will be useful for Tia when going through and cleaning up the current Passageways. My last day was Friday and the entire HR team surprised me with a bagel & donuts breakfast. They also gave me a really nice Coach card holder with all of their business cards inside, as well as a "Thank You" card. I was overwhelmed and was not expecting to receive a farewell breakfast, nonetheless a present! They all expressed their appreciation for my help this summer and it made me realize I'll miss them all very much. After work, the company happened to have a picnic from 7-10. I stayed for a few hours to say goodbye and eat with everyone in a relaxed setting on Rye Beach in Rye, NY. It was a great way to end my internship and make me really appreciate my time at Quorum. There were aspects I loved as well as some that I did not like as much, but overall I had a wonderful experience working in their HR department. I don't think many companies are as lucky to have a fun, understanding HR VP as Glenn, as well as an overall positive, close-knit, family-like work environment. I've always heard that the people you work with can make all the difference in how happy you are in a job; my experience at Quorum only confirmed that for me. The people I worked with were so great and I'll truly miss them.
