By Guest Blogger Angie Schwab
My position at Granger is human resources and safety coordinator and it is truly a unique job. I haven’t yet met anyone who has a job that is even close to what I do every day. It’s kind of a hybrid position—part human resources, part safety and part liaison to our drivers and other operations staff. Since the on-the-road and other field staff are working offsite or at remote locations, it’s sometimes challenging for them to get to the main office to get some of the things they need or make special requests. That’s where I come in. I help our operations staff so they can focus on their main job function, but still complete supportive tasks. This can range from helping an associate complete paperwork to getting specialized safety gear for an associate to assisting them with enrolling their family in benefits each year during open enrollment.
I really enjoy being a part of the hiring process. I didn’t have much experience in interviewing or hiring when I started so I had a huge learning curve, but I continue to get better with each interview that I get to help lead. In addition to helping interview candidates, I’ve also increased the organization of the hiring process. I’ve created a new hire checklist to make sure we are getting all the information we need and all onboarding tasks (setting up a new associates’ free trash service, scheduling associates for orientation with our benefits coordinator, making requests to our communications staff to add new associates to our intranet’s staff directory and order their business cards, etc.) are completed. This has helped the hiring process flow smoothly for both Granger and the new associate.
Another part of my job is to make sure that the appropriate paperwork is completed when an incident or injury occurs, and our records are updated to keep track of lost and restricted days for OSHA. This involves important communication between the associate involved in the injury or incident, that associate’s supervisor, our safety staff and me.
So far, my favorite project has been our boot voucher program. I was responsible for creating the program, which ensures each Granger field associate receives a voucher to purchase boots annually. This included finding vendors near each of our four locations, figuring out what discounts they could offer to our associates and designing the voucher to include all the necessary information for billing. It was important to me to use local vendors who are also Granger customers, so I worked from that criteria. Once the program was created, I also took responsibility for providing the vouchers and information to associates and answering questions about the program. The program has been successful, and our associates have been well taken care of and enjoyed picking out their own brand of boots so that they are comfortable and safe.
Another important aspect of my job is helping to educate our communities about the career opportunities at Granger. With one recent event, I coordinated a team of Granger associates to plan and staff activities for career fair that reached around 4,700 mid-Michigan youths in grades 7-9. The event was new this year, and without really knowing what to expect, our team stepped up and did what they do best to help create an amazing, interactive exhibit. We were able to drive an actual trash truck into the event so students could see the truck up close, climb in the cab and view the different technology that helps our drivers do their jobs safely and efficiently. We also had a robot arm that simulated how some of our trash trucks pick up trash, a trash truck driving simulator game on tablets, information about how our engineering and landfill staff design and build landfills and a recycling game with information about careers in recycling. It was rewarding to hear the excitement in students’ voices as they left our exhibit, saying “I never knew that” or “I learned something today.”
My job includes a lot of variety and consists of many different projects. It changes sometimes minute by minute, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I truly enjoy the challenge of being able to recruit more amazing associates to work at Granger and to supporting those associates, continuing to make Granger a great place to work and serving our customers and communities.