This past week marked my last in benefits and I'll really miss the benefits team!  As I mentioned last week I got the chance to shadow Ishbel and Neil who were visiting from Aberdeen. This was my first taste of HR and it seemed very fast paced, possibly because they were over for such a short time and had so much to cram in.

The majority of Ishbel's meetings had to do with Unity, an IT service company created by Wood Group to hopefully standardise and consolidate WG's IT systems into one. We met with Alliance IT staff that will soon be moved to Unity and discussed the logistics of the move including any changes in benefits, healthcare, work environment and pay. Introducing Unity, a centralized service, to such a decentralized company has been a difficult task I'm led to believe, but the company now has over 150 employees and is expanding rapidly. Neil and I met with the Pressure Control HR team to review their HR system because Management Services may change theirs so he wanted to discuss how successful their system is and the features that come with the package.

I spent my last few days working with Kenisha on the audit, which I passed onto Susan, the new benefits assistant. The whole benefits team took me for a lovely lunch on Friday and my day was topped off with a few gifts and an amazing Michael Jackson tribute by Kenisha to celebrate the August birthdays, the power even went out twice...Michael may have been trying to speak to us. I just want to thank the whole benefit team; Sharon, Jennifer, Amy, Barbara and of course Kenisha for making me feel so welcome and part of the team!

I've just spent my first day in corporate communications and it has been really interesting. Wood Group is in the process of creating a site for the MS 150, a bike ride from Houston to Austin to raise funds for multiple sclerosis. The company had a team of 48 cyclists last year but with the creation of the website hope to have a lot more this coming year. I'm really interested in the project because I know previous riders and have seen how much money can be raised for a great cause.

Hope everyone is making the most of their last few weeks,

Kirst