Life at Travelers Podcast Ep.2 – Career Development

Kim: Welcome, everybody, to our second episode of the Life at Travelers podcast. I’m here today with my guest, Ellen Vyce. She is a career development expert and we’re so excited to have her. I’m going to pick her brain all about career growth at Travelers and what that means. Ellen, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Ellen: Yeah. Great. Thanks, Kim. My name is Ellen Vyce, and I’m a Senior Consultant in Enterprise Talent Management.

Kim: Awesome. Well, thank you for being here.

Ellen: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Kim: And talking all about career development with me, but before we get to career development at Travelers as a whole, I want to talk about you.

Ellen: Yeah.

Kim: So you have, kind of, quite the journey from starting, you know, as an intern at Travelers all the way through to, you know, working here full-time and working in Enterprise Talent Management. So, how did you first find out about Travelers?

Ellen: Yeah. Good question. So, my dad has actually worked at Travelers for about 23 years now.

Kim: Wow.

Ellen: So, growing up, you know, it was always a household name. So, I have always been familiar with Travelers, the Travelers Championship, the red umbrella was everywhere. So, when it came time to thinking about, you know, potential first jobs and careers, Travelers was at the very top of my list from early on.

Kim: That’s great. And what did you major in in college?

Ellen: I majored in industrial organizational psychology.

Kim: Wow. Okay. What does that mean?

Ellen: Basically, workplace psychology, very closely related to human resources, but more so the behavioral side.

Kim: Gotcha. Okay, so, so when you interned at Travelers, what did you focus on for project work?

Ellen: Yeah. So, the majority of my internship at Travelers focused on building out the career path and job family for the agile deliveries job family. So, I was working on putting together the experiences and the different career options for that job family specifically.

Kim: Yep.

Ellen: So even as an intern, I was working on career development focused work.

Kim: That’s awesome. Okay and so that was just agile delivery but this was happening across every job family?

Ellen: Primarily tech and ops, but yeah, throughout all of Travelers, a lot of job families were going through some restructuring at the time, and that was the one that I was tasked with, kind of, re-orging and figuring out. Let’s see, if I’m a scrum master, where should I go next? What are the skills and experiences needed to help me get there?

Kim: Yep. And did you feel like your internship at Travelers, did it bring your education into the experience? You know, did you walk away feeling like that real-world experience was valuable?

Ellen:  Absolutely. It really put things into perspective for me and allowed me to take what I learned in grad school and apply it to my internship. And a lot of the terminology was the same. A lot of the concepts were directly applicable to each other. And I felt even more capable and ready to go back to grad school in between my internship and my school time because Travelers had prepared me really well to be able to take that knowledge back and apply it to my degree.

Kim: That’s great. That’s great. And was your, your master’s degree, was that in the same major you had?

Ellen: It was, yeah.

Kim: Alright, so you went all the way through a master’s.

Ellen: I did.

Kim: You loved it.

Ellen: I really did. It’s such an interesting field and so much of what we learn about in industrial organizational psychology is directly applicable to talent management. You’re thinking about, you know, what can we do to retain our talent? What can we do to ensure our talent is continuously learning and growing? And overall, making the workplace a better place to be.

Kim: That’s great. That is awesome and congratulations, all the way through master’s.

Ellen: Yeah, thanks.

Kim: That’s something to be proud of for sure. So, post-grad, found your way back to Travelers.

Ellen: I did.

Kim: What was it about Travelers that brought you back?

Ellen: Honestly, the rotational nature of the leadership development program that I was in, the Human Resources Leadership Development Program.

Kim: Yeah.

Ellen: Knowing that Travelers valued careers so much and a lot of continuous learning, the leadership development program was a no-brainer for me. Through the leadership development program, I got to rotate through four areas of human resources over the course of a three-year period.

Kim: Okay.

Ellen: So I got to spend time in Talent Acquisition, Compensation, Employee Relations and Talent Management, which is where I landed.

Kim: Wow. Okay, so you got a taste of, like, every part of human resources.

Ellen: Indeed. Yeah.

Kim: And leadership development programs, there’s more than just HR. There’s several.

Ellen: There are eight, I believe.

Kim: Wow. Okay. And that was something that you applied directly to?

Ellen: Exactly. Yes. As result of the internship that is through the HRLDP, they also offer the full-time program, so, as soon as I got a taste of the internship, I knew that I wanted to come back full-time as a full-time participant.

Kim: That’s awesome. And I know it has a rotational nature, like you explained, but outside of the experience in LDP, is there, you know, is there work and play? You know, is there networking opportunities, team bonding, like, what happens outside of the day-to-day?

Ellen: Yeah, I think the leadership development programs are, kind of, the best of all worlds combined. You get not only the, you know, rotations and you get exposure to various lines of business, various leaders, but you also get to interact with other LDPs across the place. So, you can interact with Finance Leadership Development Program folks or Business Insights and Analytics Leadership Development Program folks.

Kim: Yeah.

Ellen: And yeah, you really get to put yourself out there and join different committees. And you get to network a lot. So, you know, a lot of us become friends outside of the program as well. So, it’s a really holistic experience.

Kim: That’s great. And then when you join full-time, it’s like you have a whole community already.

Ellen: Absolutely. Yeah.

Kim: Oh, that’s wonderful. And you said you landed in talent management?

Ellen: Indeed.

Kim: Okay, so what do you do now? What’s your day-to-day and what’s your team like?

Ellen: Yeah. So, in Enterprise Talent Management I’m primarily responsible for our top talent practices. So, think talent pools, think talent review, think succession planning in addition to career and leadership development.

Kim: Okay. And is your team small, large?

Ellen: Yeah. Enterprise Talent Management is about 12 to 13 people right now. Yep.

Kim: Yep.

Ellen: My immediate team is three. So, we’re small but mighty. We’ve got a lot going on, a lot of really exciting work.

Kim: That’s great. So, can you talk to me about some of those initiatives that your team works on for career development at Travelers?

Ellen: Yeah, absolutely. Right now, we have a really great platform that employees can use that is driven by AI and it will provide mentorship matches, it will provide available job matches and even some learning courses for employees to take based on employee skill sets, what they’ve entered as an interest or development area.

Kim: Okay and so, so this is geared toward all employees, right? Not just… Like, growing in your area or growing into a different space, it works either way?

Ellen: Absolutely. It’s actually great for both employees, whether you’re looking for a new opportunity or looking to grow in your current role, there’s really something for everyone at all levels.

Kim: That’s awesome. So career development is really a priority at Travelers, you’d say?

Ellen: It absolutely is. We’ve heard from Alan saying that our talent is our greatest asset, which means our people are our greatest asset. So, investing in our people and their career development is 100% a priority for the place.

Kim: Yeah. That’s great. I love to hear it. It’s, you know, it’s something that… You don’t know, you know, where you’re, where it’s going to take you when you start at a company and it just sounds like not only through your experience, but through the work that you do, exposure, right? Exposure to the different places in Travelers because it’s huge. There’s so many places you can go.

Ellen: There really are. And, you know, one way that employees are able to continue exploring what might be available is through our Map Your Career process. Which is the Travelers framework for career development.

Kim: Okay.

Ellen: Those four phases of map your career are explore, identify, plan and act and each one of those phases allows employees to focus on a different piece of the career development journey.

Kim: Yeah.

Ellen: So, you know, that was created to help our employees really explore what’s out there, hone their skills and get ready for whatever’s next.

Kim: Yeah, because I know in episode one, when I was talking to Brianna, she cited, you know, we have pilots, we have nurses, we have chemists. You know, I mean, you and I work in HR, right? And it’s yeah, it’s really amazing. And I think what you just laid out right there, map your career, it sounds, like, structured but simple, right?

Ellen: Absolutely. It’s meant to be a repeatable process for employees. You know, you learn the process once and then you’re able to go back and use it as needed as you continue along your own career development journey.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Repeatable, right? That’s a great resource. So, for folks listening to this episode right now who are potential candidates for us, right? They might be interested in working at Travelers. What would you tell somebody who was interested in working at Travelers?

Ellen: Yeah, I’d probably tell them quite a few things. But, the first thing that I tell them is to really invest the time getting to know the job that you’re applying for.

 

Kim: Yep.

Ellen: Read through that job description, think about the skills and experiences that you have and the skills and experiences necessary for the role that you’re applying for. And, you know, if there’s something that’s missing, think about how you can go about closing that gap and, you know, seek out some mentors to help you close that gap before you apply. And once you get here, we’ve got plenty of resources for you to help grow your career.

Kim: Yeah, I know, it’s like, now we’re at the point, I feel like where somebody could read a Travelers job description and think, okay, this is just where I’m starting, though.

Ellen: Yes. Oh, yes. It’s really just the ground floor and then, the sky’s the limit for employees now. Whether it’s, like I said, growing in your current role or exploring future leadership roles, we’ve got it all.

Kim: Yeah. That’s great. Ellen, thank you so much. Is there anything today that we didn’t cover that you feel is important to say?

Ellen: I don’t think so. I think we’ve covered it.

Kim: Okay. Good stuff. Alright. Well, well, thank you for being here today. And I’m sure you’ll be a resource to plenty of our listeners. If they connect with you on LinkedIn, is that okay?

Ellen: Absolutely.

Kim: Okay.

Ellen: Ellen Vyce on LinkedIn.com that’s me.

Kim: Alright, alright. Awesome. We will, we’ll definitely tag you in the social post.

Ellen: Thank you so much for having me.

Kim: Absolutely.