Personal Background:
My name is Tara Thornton and I am passionate about life. My husband and I currently reside in Amarillo, Texas where we are still getting settled in. He finished graduate school in August 2010 and accepted a wonderful job here and we moved shortly thereafter. I love the Lord and I am excited about the opportunities that He has blessed us with. I love HR and strive to be the very best HR professional! I love being around people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and have a huge heart to improve their lives in any capacity possible. I am involved with an auxiliary group here and we are planning the annual fundraisers for a local non-profit that serves people with disabilities. I am really excited about being involved in this! I completed my first two half marathons in 2010 and am excited to see what big goals I might try to achieve in the upcoming years.
Professional Background:
I have had a variety of jobs over the last ten years, but the most meaningful work I've been a part of and the most recent has been human resource management. My experience leading up to my HR career helped shape the way I approach employee relations and management philosophy.
A few years ago I had the privilege of developing my very own HR program for an organization in Midland. This organization had no idea what they were in for. It took a lot of work to undo some of the messes that had been made due to lack of an HR department. It also took some hard work to gain the respect that I thought I needed as the sole member of the HR department. Eventually, things began to come together nicely. I even brought on an HR Representative who brought some additional passion to the department that worked beautifully with my desire to be the best.
My favorite accomplishments in my HR career so far are the successful development of an employee appreciation system, the implementation of a fun safety program, the set up and administration of a progressive attendance policy, the implementation of some radical policies that save companies money and ensure that employees aren't walking off the job, turnover reductions, hiring quality applicants through a much improved on boarding process, and the list goes on...
In the fall of 2008 I took the Society of Human Resources Managers (SHRM) Learning System classes and in January 2009 I passed the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) exam. I am now PHR certified and proud to use those letters finally!
I have attended some wonderful seminars put on by SHRM and other organizations. I stay up to date by subscribing to SHRM and DOL emails. I am a member of my local SHRM chapter and I do a lot of HR related reading on my own time.
I am currently taking a risk and setting out to do my own HR consulting. I think that there are a lot of small businesses out there that need a little HR help but don't necessarily need an entire HR department. That's where I come in. A-la-carte HR department at your service.
