I came to NCR in January 2020, and it’s been such a fantastic experience ever since.

Prior to NCR, I worked at a telecommunications company, where I had worked for about 10 years. So, coming to NCR, I learned about a different culture — and what stood out to me most was the relationship I built with my colleagues and getting to see how much I was collaborating with others who were so supportive of me. This made my experience great.

As far as my background is concerned, I have a Bachelor’s in psychology and a Master’s degree in industrial labor relations, so HR is something that deeply resonates with me. It's also why I continue to develop myself in HR by working towards various certifications on the side, in my free time.

In HR, I’ve worked in various value chains from talent acquisition and talent management, to compensation and benefits. I’ve also collaborated with various centers of excellence to drive productivity within the business. Because of this, I get to work with many intelligent people who I’m constantly learning from.

Yes, extremely. Psychology is all about how you work with people and understand how they think.

This has had a major influence on me as a person, the way I relate with others on the job, and even how I connect with students. Psychology has had a lot of impact on my role in HR because in school, I learned about organizational psychology and this drove my decision to pursue HR.

Understanding psychology has even had an impact on developing my interpersonal relationship skills in the workplace because it helps me to better appreciate each person's differences and helps me better partner with them to bring out the best in them.

To begin, I’m so grateful for the level of connection, team spiritedness and partnership I've received from my colleagues and managers I work with every day.

I truly see people living the values of NCR every day in the workplace. This inspires me to do the same and it’s been so exciting. Everyone wants to support you, connect with you and even get to know you personally. Ultimately, we are all working to achieve the same goal, so you see a lot of collaboration and team spirit in the workplace, and this continually draws me to NCR and makes me happy to be here. Along with that, NCR’s values really resonate with me. Because I’m in HR, my employees are my customers. And with this, I come in every day ensuring that I am engaged with them and that they have an environment that is conducive for them to be productive and to grow.

At my previous job, I actually had a great work-life-balance but NCR has taken it to the next level for me.

When I was onboarded last year, within two months we had to start working from home due to the pandemic, however, throughout the entire process, the leadership team was so proactive in communicating transparently with us in a way that made us feel prioritized and safe. This made me feel very connected and additionally, the application of technology was taken to an entirely different level during the pandemic. As a company, NCR was able to adapt and connect via different technological platforms, which made a world of difference, especially compared to my previous job, where that level of technological expertise wouldn’t have been possible. Ultimately, the way that work-life-balance has been prioritized by the organization has been so impressive to me. Throughout the entire pandemic, the executive leadership team consistently kept us updated on what was going on and this showed me how truly invested the company is in its employees, which was key for me.

My role is such a fantastic role. My favorite part of the job is the fact I get to connect with so many diverse people, while also having the space and autonomy to innovate.

I’m able to measure and see my contribution to the company, but above all, I have a very supportive team that is always there to help me when I need it. My role helps me connect with people, which helps me solve people’s problems and create an environment for people to be the best that they can be. I want my colleagues to understand that no matter how they see themselves, they have a level playing field to be the best they can be within the organization.

The first thing I look for is someone who connects with the values of the organization.

When you hire people that don’t necessarily buy into your values or their values don’t connect with your own, you’re going to have a lot of challenges because they are not going to really understand what you’re trying to achieve as a company. So when I hire people, I’m looking for how they connect to the values of the organization, the competencies they have that are related to the role and ultimately, I want to be sure that they have a winning attitude that puts their customers first. I also want to be sure they have integrity and understand the need to collaborate, because we are all working to achieve the same goal. At NCR, we don’t see ourselves as competitors, but as collaborators and as people that are partners — so when we partner better, we collaborate better and then we are able to achieve the organization’s shared goals.

On weekends, I try to get some sleep because typically my weeks are so packed.

I also have little boys, so sometimes it’s difficult to get that sleep but I try to find a balance through exercise and researching the things I’m interested in like diversity and inclusion in my community. I also like to volunteer on my weekends, supporting different non-profit missions that speak to me. There is one I really support that is responsible for improving gender inclusivity and works with women undergoing violence. This is something I really care about and try to support in my free time.

Honestly, the work from home period was a new learning experience for me entirely.

Having to help them through schoolwork while also meeting my own KPI‘s at work taught me a lot of patience. It also gave me a greater appreciation for the kind of work teachers do in the classroom and opened my eyes a lot. At first, it was hard to find balance but I also had a very supportive spouse that helped me when I had competing requirements or responsibilities. Ultimately, the work from home period helped me build my capacity around multitasking so I’m really grateful for it because even though it’s been a big learning curve, it’s been a great experience.

Yes, it helped me develop a few more skills on the job such as improved time management and how to blend competing requirements or responsibilities on the job.

There were multiple times when I had to be in meetings simultaneously as my kids were in school so I had to find the perfect blend to ensure that I had minimal interruptions and that they (my children) were also effective in their classes. Ultimately, WFH taught me how to juggle competing priorities and that is a skillset I will definitely continue using in the future.

Well in regards to gender inclusivity, I must say that a lot of work has been done.

I’ve been able to work with a lot of intelligent people and I’ve been blown away with the kind of work we’ve achieved so far and the kind of work we are continuing to do. So yes, a lot of traction is being gained at NCR relating to gender inclusivity and underrepresented groups. Within my role in HR, I am constantly looking at what we can do to make these groups more visible within the organization and how I can continue to see traction there. I want to see this continued growth going forward so that we know every employee fully understands what this is about and is also part of this initiative. A lot of training has also been happening on the backend for employees to be more informed such as podcast series and learning programs, and I would love to continue seeing this training being widespread. I’m so happy to see the organization creating an inclusive space for everyone to be able to contribute the best of themselves with full acceptance. I love the fact that the leadership team is plugged into this vision and they are the ones really driving it. I can see this growth will continue to happen well into the future.