Over the past several months, we have been doing a series of blogs on our team, our strengths, and our HR specialties.

I’m Catherine, a Collaborator with Purple Ink based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.  I’ve been with Purple Ink since 2013 and provide a broad range of HR and career services to our clients including recruiting, training, employee manual and policy development, compliance support, and career consulting.  I also work internally with the Purple Ink team to ensure all of our clients are happy with the JoyPowered™ outcomes we provide.  Prior to my time with Purple Ink, I served as an HR generalist for a nonprofit, a manufacturing company, and a law firm.

I feel grateful to work for Purple Ink, a workplace that allows each member of our team to flourish in each person’s own unique strengths.  I strive to be mindful every day about using my 5 strengths from Gallup StrengthsFinder in order to feel JoyPowered™ in my work, and I find that my strengths benefit our clients too – it’s a win-win for everyone!

My number one strength is Ideation – I love to brainstorm, think through different scenarios and find the best idea to meet a client’s needs.  I really get to amplify this strength when I’m putting together trainings.  I spend time thinking about the best ways to create engaging, unique, and interactive learning programs that help participants walk away with new knowledge about any number of different topics from workplace harassment to communicating across different generations.

My next highest strength is Deliberative.  This strength helps me anticipate obstacles and manage risk.  In HR, we’re all about managing risk and keeping a company compliant, and this strength comes into play for me when clients ask about various employee relations scenarios and how best to move forward.  I make sure I let clients know the pros and cons of certain actions and let them determine what level of risk they might need to manage depending on the action they’re considering.

Next for me is Intellection – I often get lost in my own thoughts and have a deep internal world.  This strength is one of the reasons I enjoy writing for our Purple Ink blog so much!  I get to think about any number of HR topics and spend time contemplating what I want to share and how to share it.

My fourth strength is Input.  I crave information and love to research.  This strength keeps me on top of new trends in workplaces and in HR.  I’ve been asked by clients to research different personality assessments, salary trends, legal updates, and a variety of other topics and I work hard to find enough information in order to give clients an accurate and thorough picture of what they want to know – and often have to stop myself before I go into information overload!

My fifth strength is Restorative and is the one that, I think, benefits our clients the most – I’m good at solving problems!  Whether it’s a career consulting client who needs help on a job search or a recruiting client who needs a position filled, all of our clients come to us with some sort of problem and I try to get to the heart of the issue and provide the most efficient and most effective solution.  I feel deeply satisfied when I’ve been able to help resolve a problem and make a positive impact.  Do you have a problem that needs to be solved?  Contact Purple Ink – I’m happy to help!

Keep following our blog to meet the rest of our team!  Want to learn more about your own unique strengths?   We’d love to provide you and/or your team with StrengthsFinder training and help you become more JoyPowered™ at work!