In this series, our trainers share insights on how employees grow with HGS.
HGS: Tell us about your education and experience.
Grace: I went to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Illinois Central College while working part-time as a restaurant assistant manager. I applied to work at HGS in mid-2016. My first role here was as a customer service representative, and I loved it. It was the first time I came upon the concept of customer experience. Soon enough, I became known for my positive attitude and my resolve to give 110% effort. My managers offered me the opportunity to work within many different roles on my account. It helped me learn about HGS and our business, in alignment with genuinely inspiring individuals.
I realized my primary love was helping out my teammates, and so, I set out to become a trainer. I applied to work part-time as a Customer Service University trainer along with my other assigned duties, and I earned the role. I also applied for the leadership training program, ReadyNow, and graduated this program with the support of my entire team. And then, last year, an account position for trainer opened up. I got the role, and I have been going full steam ahead since then. I am so happy to have found something I genuinely love doing with a group of such awesome people.
HGS: What’s a pro-tip you would share with those attending your training sessions?
Grace: I handle training for new hires and also, training sessions for upskilling, as required in our account. I believe my experience is worth sharing, so here are four training tips:
- Be on the job on time and every day. It is tough to catch up and learn if you miss information. There is a large amount of information packed into a small time frame.
- Care. Care about yourself. Care about other people. Care about your career.
- Think positively. Your thoughts create your reality. More accurately, your ideas about your reality create your experience of that reality.
- Be open and flexible. Things can change very quickly, based on the needs of the client. We have to be ready to adapt to them.
HGS: What about HGS do you share with your trainees?
Grace: You are where you want to be if you are looking for more than a job. At HGS, everyone gets to start a career. That is the first thing I tell new hires, who may not have much working experience in customer service. I also tell them about our work culture. Working is not synonymous with boring at HGS. We like to have a work-appropriate good time, considering that we spend eight hours of our day here.
HGS: How do you make learning easy for New Hires?
Grace: Our biggest goal as trainers is to make our sessions accessible for every learning style. We try to customize each session so that there is something for people who are visual, auditory, or hands-on learners. The idea is to give everyone a chance to reach their full potential.
I also seek out constructive criticism, as I believe it helps us grow as professionals and as an organization. For example, we ask trainees to take an anonymous survey every week in new hire training. We use the result of those surveys to optimize their training environment. If someone were to write they feel like they didn’t spend enough time on a topic, we make sure to do an activity that recaps it.