Getting to Know- Anna Story, Dropping From a Sky Near You!

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s Anna Story, the HRx Project Manager dropping from the sky!

Last weekend, after a lifetime of looking up at the sky, Anna Story decided that she wanted to get a different perspective on the world, so our project manager decided to jump out of a plane, and here’s what she saw:

Now, we know that after watching that video you would want to know more about the woman who is keeping HRx going, so we asked her some questions to help you (and us) get to know her better.

Where are you originally from? Where all have you lived?
I was born in Bamberg Germany. My father was an American Soldier in the WW 2 Occupation forces and my Mom was a German woman who worked for the Americans as a translator. I lived in Germany until I was 13 then we moved to New Jersey where I finished high school and college and taught in Rahway High School. I moved to Vermont when I was 26 and lived there until 2003. I moved to NYC for a few years for work and then came here to UNC.

What does being HRx Project Manager entail? What do you do?

Project Management is all about planning and juggling! I juggle schedules, processes and manage the budget and milestone timelines. I keep a close eye on the resource allocation and use and support the Ciber consultants so they can get their work done.

Aside from being the HRx Girl, you’re also the LMS Girl how has it been managing both?

LOL! What a challenging trip this has been! I could not do it without the support of my favorite teammates. Tim Boyd is the LMS database guru and has been watching my back since I started managing HRx. In order to keep the same quality and quantity of elearning projects going, I have taught Karyn Richardson and Mary Roach in LOD how to use Captivate and work with the clinical subject Matter Experts. I initiated them to this about 12 months ago so I wouldn’t be the one armed paper hanger and it has worked out great. They are doing a tremendous job and I only have to check on their work before it gets published to LMS and of course I continue to do other LMS work in the evenings from home and a few hours here and there during the day. Additionally, Donna Kaye the LOD Director has been most supportive. It is a challenge but I enjoy challenges and I believe UNCH will benefit from the work I am doing in both arenas.

What is your favorite way to relax?

I dance TANGO! I love TANGO! I belong to the Triangle TANGO community and dance on weekends and attend Argentine TANGO workshops. Tango is the dance of the heart….one heart and 4 legs! The music, the soul and sensations of dancing Tango relax me thoroughly though they play havoc with my feet! Nothing like dancing backwards in 3 ½ inch heels!!! But they are lovely shoes from Buenos Aires. I also relax at my beach house in Nags Head,OBX. I rent it out on occasion and it is named “TangOBX!” I also love to ocean kayak, swim, bicycle, and rollerblade.

You have three sons, what are they like?

I do have 3 sons. Paul is 31 and a fire fighter in Salt Lake City, Utah. He went to the University of Utah and graduated with an English and Photography degree. When he isn’t fighting fires, wildfire and structure, he is whitewater kayaking, telemark skiing or mountain climbing and rescue. He has taken professional photos of the forest fires out west and writes poetry. He is a bit of a renaissance man.

Sean is 28 and continues to live in Stowe, Vermont where he was born and raised. He owns his own subcontracting company for building and plays guitar in a band. He writes his own music and songs and hopes to become the next Vermont big band. You can find him playing at local establishments on weekends. He is an avid snowboarder and loves to visit his brothers in Utah annually to go to Snowbird Resort for a week of fun on the slopes.

Jeff is 24 and also lives in Salt Lake City Utah. He followed big brother out there to attend college and enjoy the outdoors that Utah provides. He is also an excellent telemark skier and has spent summers fighting forest fires as well. He is in his last year at U of Utah and is majoring in French and International Relations. He was a competitive figure skater in high school and now teaches figure skating to little kids at the arena in Salt Lake City.

Lawson on Our Brain

Lately we noticed that it is becoming increasingly difficult to forget about the new LAWSON implementation project, even after we leave work. Due to its complexity, the process has been quite intense and very time consuming when we are at work, but we can’t seem to stop thinking about it when we are trying to enjoy the wonderfully cool and sunny Fall weather with our friends and family.

We could not quite put our fingers on why it was so ever-present in our minds, till we were leaving last week’s To-Be sessions at Aloft Hotel to go home and we saw this:

Turns out, Lawson is running for Congress!

We’ve been so involved with the LAWSON software, that we forget that it is also a last name. We got curious to see what other Lawson’s are doing and this is who we found:

• Nigella Lawson: Famous British food writer, journalist and broadcaster who hosts the delicious cooking show, “Nigella Bites” on the Cooking channel.
• Henry Lawson: Often cited as Australia’s greatest writer, Henry Lawson was known for both his poetry and prose. His most famous works are “While the Billy Boils" and "Over the Sliprails.”
• Lawson Little: American professional golfer who won the 1940 US Open. He also had an amazing amateur career in which he won both the US Amateur and British Amateur in 1934 and in 1935.
• Cardinal Rex Lawson: Was a famous singer, trumpeter and bandleader from Kalabari, Nigeria.
• Alfred W. Lawson: A professional baseball player, manager and league promoter from 1887 through 1916, who also went on to play a pioneering role in the U.S. aircraft industry, publishing two early aviation trade journals.

If you know of other Lawson’s, please do not hesitate to share with us!
- HRx Team

HR Structure and Personnel Trainings w/ Cynthia Ferguson

“Beneficial. Useful. Enlightening” those were the words that Cynthia Ferguson, the HR Research & Analysis Manger, used to describe the two Lawson training sessions on HR Structure and Personnel. These two sessions are a part of fivve total sessions that will help UNC HC staff gain the necessary knowledge and skills to not only be able to use the new system, but also help give them a more concrete idea of how it works so that they can mold it to better serve our needs. The sessions are broken down to allow for 12 active participants and 6-8 additional non-active observers. They will be attended by various members of the HRx Core Team, as well as some representatives from our sister organization, Chatham Hospital, who is also transitioning to the new Lawson Human Capital Management System.

We sat down with Cynthia and asked her some questions about the trainings and this is what she said:

What was the focus of the HR Structure portion of the training session?

It was an overview of different aspects of the system which showed us how everything is inter-connected. They showed us the system from a global perspective and then showed how it worked on the much smaller, departmental, level. We learned about the system’s different process levels and business rules. Pretty much it was an overview of the system, a very detailed overview.

What about the Personnel portion of the trainings?

In these sessions we learned about how the system can help us more easily manage our personnel. For example, we can create employee groups by clustering employees by various criteria, and then when we want to apply “rules” to them, the system will apply them to all people within that group.

What is one of your favorite things about the new system versus the current GEAC system?

I love the concept of Drill Around where you can see different aspects of the employee and even how they relate to others in your department. For example, say you were interested in looking at overtime for a specific employee and then you wanted to see how they compare to overtime for the entire department, you can and easily. The current GEAC system is a flat file system which has a non-relational database, so this type of analysis is very difficult to do without using outside means.

Do you see any areas where the new system might be more difficult than the current system?

The main issue is that HRx is more structured and for people that have been working with the GEAC system, this new way may be a bit challenging. Until now, they have been able to make their own rules to accommodate the shortcomings in the system, but with the new one, they won’t be able to, since there is no need to.