Describe the path you took to arrive in your current role and how it was created.

Over the past 18 years I’ve worked in a variety of industries. My first job was in a call center, and I found myself interested in the information that was collected and used behind the scenes to answer the questions in the call center. I moved to business intelligence (BI) at another organization while finishing up my degree in business management and once I started working in BI, I knew that was my career path. I continued to move through different industries and organizations, studying various business models and learned from those experiences. I joined Medxcel as a Business Intelligence Analyst II, bringing my experience in a variety of disciplines to the role. My first assignment was to help shape a new report. It was early in the process and Power BI was being implemented as the reporting tool of choice for Medxcel. I learned the breadth and types of reporting that were desired, and as Medxcel continued to grow we saw that more and more data was becoming available to the organization. As the responsibilities and volume grew, I identified the need for leadership within our team, so I put that idea forward to my supervisor and he was fully supportive. We outlined the responsibilities for a team leader with a technical skill set, and in August 2020 my current Supervisor role was created, and I began leading the team in that capacity. I now have a team of four analysts reporting to me and we work together to develop strategies on how to deliver on the reporting needs of the organization.
 

What is the best part of your job?

For me, the best part of my job is taking information that others can’t understand or get answers from and making that information discoverable and easy-to-digest. As Medxcel grows and systems and technologies continue to advance, we have more and more data at our fingertips, but the challenging part is taking that data and making it discoverable to help drive sound business decisions. That’s my sweet spot. I love understanding the differences between what the business is thinking and what our information technology folks are doing, and shaping a story based on what the data is truly telling us. We make insights and recommendations based on our findings. That’s fun to me, because the thing that’s unusual about this job is that you have a view of the entire organization, and as you’re shaping reports in one area, you begin to see how it directly impacts other areas. We are able to provide insights across the organization and help our teams collaborate more effectively. I like to think our work helps to remove the silos around how what one department does impacts others.
 

Which of Medxcel’s Core Values is most important to you?

To me it’s Integrity. I have a mission to pull information from these huge amounts of data, figure out what it means, and I can’t come to my job with a preconceived notion of how it’s going to come together. We have to remain objective and open minded and let the data reveal the story so that we’re not influenced by any hunches we may have. Data integrity is huge to me. I focus on how I can convey the message the data is telling to the best of my ability.
 

How has COVID and the move to remote work affected your team?

It may sound strange, but I think COVID and the move to remote work has actually been good for our team. Our team is made up of associates with varying levels of skills and family situations, and the flexibility that comes with being remote has resulted in higher productivity for the team. I appreciate the way Medxcel has allowed us to adapt to the personal and professional challenges presented by COVID and I’m proud of my team and their productivity in the midst of chaos.
 

How does Medxcel help promote teamwork?

Shortly after I joined Medxcel, we did a teambuilding event, volunteering at a local women’s shelter. Our job was to clean and help get rid of junk. As part of our job we had sledgehammers and we were smashing old tables, breaking up bricks and putting the debris in bins. It sounds crazy, but being together out of the office, smashing things with sledgehammers was so much fun and brought our team closer together. Medxcel promotes teambuilding and also serving in our local communities and it’s fun when those two things come together. Just being with your peers outside of work is a terrific thing and bonds the team together in unexpected ways.
 

Is there anything about your role you didn’t expect when you started?

In my role as supervisor, I was initially surprised at the number of meetings I am involved in. I have learned the value of these meetings and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it was an adjustment at first as I learned to manage my time and the role of supervisor. I have learned that these cross-functional meetings allow me to get a fuller picture and better understanding of our organization as a whole. Often when you’re working in a silo and building out reports, you’re in the weeds with what you’re working on and you don’t always see the significance of what you’re doing and how it may impact multiple departments and the organization as a whole. I honestly had no idea how beneficial meetings could be!
 

Is there a project you’ve been involved with that you are particularly proud of?

I am very proud of the way our team (a collaboration between business subject matter experts, Information Systems – Development Operations and the COE) came together to create a report called CMOR which is our Customer Monthly Operations Report. This report supports our facility managers who meet with the heads of their hospital clients to provide a monthly assessment on Medxcel’s performance. To get this project organized our team had to take data that resided in an outside system, transfer it to our corporate system, and work to replicate the data within our system. It was very challenging because the systems didn’t talk well to each other.  It took a lot of time and many iterations working with our leaders and lots of back and forth until we were able to home in on all the pieces and deliver a report that was basically seamless from the original. Our new report has the same look and feel that our leaders were used to, and we developed it using a tool that none of our team had any prior experience with. The report, which was very much a manual endeavor in the past is now fully automated and runs seamlessly each month. That was a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the value we add to the business by automating a formerly manual process to produce a great product for our customers.
 

What would you tell someone asking you if they should consider working for Medxcel?

I would definitely tell them to come on board!  The theme I’ve seen here the entire time I’ve been with Medxcel is that associates are hired for a specific role, but after you come on board, leaders want you to be happy. That may mean that you decide to take your career in a different direction or want to learn something new. You may demonstrate a special skill or ability outside of the role you were hired for and management will help you to get to the perfect position within the organization to utilize all of your skills. I joined as an individual contributor, but once I showed interest in pursuing a supervisory position, I didn’t just get the brush off, I received guidance right away and was presented with opportunities to grow into the new role. I continue to experience that kind of support to this day. If someone want to grow and is willing to challenge themselves, Medxcel is a great place to come to work!