My Dream Became A Reality

As a career oriented wife and mother of two young boys, I felt I was missing out on so much of their childhood.  I had never gone on a field trip, had lunch with them or even picked them up from school.  Being a stay at home mom wasn’t even an option for our family [...]

Did you know?

Today I want to talk a little about benefits @ HCA West Florida. I used to hold benefits enrollment classes, Q&A sessions for employees & administer the plans in employer’s systems. However, that was a long time ago & for the most time nowadays in my Nurse Sourcer role, I only have to concern myself with my benefits choices during annual enrollment & not so much with advising employees of their options. Though my ears perked up a couple of weeks ago while listening to NPR in the car on my way to get the dog from doggie care (yes, doggie care!). They were discussing the upcoming changes to our Flexible Healthcare Spending accounts starting in 2011. Did you hear about the changes already? If not, I strongly suggest for you to educate yourself & speak with your doctor(s) about the upcoming changes! From the info I gathered thus far, purchasing OTC’s (over-the-counter drugs) with your FSA will be denied unless your doctor has prescribed them. However, I understand not all details have been worked out just yet. Orthodontia, deductibles, co-pays, & eyeglasses remain covered. Thankfully my family and I are not on a lot of drugs (yet); I only need Levothyroxine for my hypothyroid. But I’ve been buying Sinus Headache pills & general allergy meds for my family. And once a year I used to look forward to a new pair of fancy glasses. Now however, I can only purchase reading glasses & no longer sunglasses. I too will have to find out much more about the changes & what exactly will be covered for us starting 2011.

General info on HCA’s West Florida benefits package can be found here. Now don’t let time get away from you & be sure to educate yourself on the FSA changes & how they will affect your family! Be well!

Cheers,

How To Look & Feel Your Best While Searching For Employment

Looking for a job can be a difficult challenge and it’s so easy to neglect your health during a job search.  Looking for the “right” job takes a lot of time.  Combine that with application rejections or not hearing anything back and you may have a recipe for overeating and emotional binging on food and [...]

Resume Tips - Shining A Light On Yourself

We are nearing May graduation and the enthusiastic bright-eyed new grads will be hitting the job market.  At the same time we are experiencing a temporary situation with fewer opportunities for new RN’s and new grads.  How can you, as a new grad, create a resume that increases your chances for an interview? 

Think Advertisement.  Your [...]

The Sport of Recruitment

Originally from Michigan, Melissa has lived in Florida for about 26 years.  While attending USF to complete a Bachelor’s degree in Education, she began working in Recruitment with Capital One Financial.  Melissa is the Imaging Recruiter for the HCA West Florida Division.  She handles the recruitment process for the Imaging Departments of all 15 of our hospitals [...]

Intangibles Are Just As Important

As a recruiter for the HCA West Florida Division, my job in recruiting healthcare professionals involves many components, including informing candidates of the benefits of working for our hospitals.  The tangible benefits speak for themselves, comprehensive medical and dental benefits, competitive pay, 401K Plan, etc.  However, there are also the intangible, the less concrete benefits that may [...]

My Virtual Cubical

My meeting was very late so I absently grabbed another magazine. Hmmmmmm….” Business Week”, and only 8 months old with an interesting cover “China Goes shopping”. As I leaf through the magazine with one eye on the other people in the waiting room I fall into an article on Managing at a Distance and a subtitle “the ideal virtual worker”.
Working from home, or at least not in designated office space is becoming more common. I have been working at my dining room table for three years, and barring the dining room table moving several times through home renovations, I have managed to keep myself afloat.
It has had its ups and downs. No one to grumble to but the dog, and he has learned to ignore me just fine. First I worried I could not be disciplined enough to get the work completed, then I realized I needed to be disciplined enough to turn it all off. There was also some refrigerator rules that needed to be learned but that is being saved for another blog. I have survived and in some areas excelled with my new found freedom.
Now back to the magazine article that suggests to me that the ideal virtual worker is an (gulp) extrovert. Having completed a Myers Briggs seminar I became officially aware that I and extroversion are in opposite corners. Throughout my life I have had gregarious moments and introverted moments mostly with periods where I was somewhere in the middle. Always through it I have shunned psychological testing and labels. Damn it my parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be.
Maybe it is an antiquaited idea, but an ex boss, John Gunn, once told me I would probably never hire the perfect employee but I could create one. He believed through inspiration and training you could help anyone along the way. Perhaps there is hope for an old introvert like myself.

I still dislike the label. Not knowing what is in the box is what keeps us excited. Giving it a shake to guess what is inside is fine. But already knowing what is there is no fun at all!