HSU Insider

"Top Challenges" are No Challenge for HSU's Human Resource Assistant

• By Janlyn Echols Thaxton
• Posted March 3, 2009 11:18 AM
• 1 Comment

Anyone chosen to interview for a job at Hardin-Simmons University is greeted first by a friendly face on the third floor of Sandefer Memorial. Peenie Walker holds an important job on the campus. She sits at the first desk you see when you walk in the door of Human Resources. She, most definitely, is the person any job-seeker wants to impress first!

Walker may have done some impressing of her own, however, because she is the Human Resources person Benefits Selling magazine selected to feature in its March issue.

Open to the Table of Contents and there's her photo. Each month, the magazine asks a Human Resources representative to share tips from their perspective to be posted in the last section of the magazine called "Exit Interview."

Walker says she was honored by the request to share the "Top 10 Challenges" she faces in the Human Resources department. While honored, she says, "I was also a little hesitant, perhaps, because I never had really thought about listing them."

She gives credit to her supervisor, Director of Human Resources, Earl Garrett, for assisting with identifying those priorities. Both Garrett and Walker recognized the scale and reach of the publication, so it was important to cobble out a very focused and concise list of ten challenges.

In fact, Walker may have been inspired by the name of the magazine itself, Benefits Selling, as she sought to assemble the best advice. One of Peenie's jobs is to advise prospective employees about the benefits they might enjoy as an employee of Hardin-Simmons.

She says, "We must convey the advantages of working at a private university -- like the great environment here, educational benefits, and a generous holiday schedule." "We are a private-sector university competing with the public sector for good employees."

Among the challenges, Walker lists as number one, "Developing confidentiality, trust, and goodwill." Also on the list, "Benefits packages must be tailored to fit the needs of the employees." When asked, Garrett says that's one of his favorites, "The University uses a Fringe Benefits Committee to identify special needs such as long term care insurance and identity theft protection."

But number ten on the list is probably the most telling of them all. It seems to encompass the attitude that is prevalent throughout the campus by staff and faculty members alike. She says, "I enjoy the challenge of serving others." "I enjoy influencing the lives of students and working in a Christian environment. It allows me, at the end of the day, to leave with a real sense of accomplishment."

By the way, here's a crazy note of interest. The magazine folks needed a photo of Walker, so they called an Abilene photographer. That photog just happens to be HSU's own Assistant Professor of Communications, Dr. Joe Bailey. The picture of Walker leaning on a wall was shot just outside Behrens Auditorium.