Congratulations to our August 2019 Employee of the Month, Alissa Chrisos, who is a member of our quality assurance team. Her nomination came from the Director of Quality Assurance, Karen Waluk.
I have enjoyed seeing the nominations fly in for her this month; it’s an extra special bonus when those you work shoulder to shoulder with every day [and night] take the time to recognize you. I’d can easily say ‘I can’t add to what so many have already said’…. BUT… you know I’m seldom at a loss for words.
Alissa became part our CDP family a relatively short time ago. She became an immediate valued contributor to her team and, of course, to CDP and our customers.
I knew when I interviewed Alissa in December 2017 that she had that special quality that made her a great fit for CDP. I recall her asking if she could have her start date with us be after the first of the year because she didn’t want to leave her current employer short over the holiday season. That is special and notable.
When she joined us in January the next year I observed her drive and commitment right off.
She embraced her mission to learn about WIC EBT systems and her current assignment.That’s Alissa. This is a constant with her; she dives in, soaks up the knowledge and builds on it sharing what she learns with all around her. I would love to share a story about her recommending just the right toy/stress reliever for a difficult family puppy named Elvis. Briefly, in her prior employment she had the opportunity to learn a lot about such things and shared that with me on day in casual conversation. [‘Elvis’ still has not destroyed the toy and it is his clearly his favorite]. This epitomizes how Alissa approaches any job she takes---with a serious passion.
I see this daily from Alissa and most recently she demonstrated this passion again in her work to build a team process for the team using the Azure Devops work boards. This has already improved productivity and make the workflow much smoother overall. She recognized the need, and we spoke about some options that she could explore and other coworkers she might talk to for knowledge transfer. We checkpointed only a few times after that.
She presented her pitch to her team at the meeting in Romeoville a couple of weeks back. She rocked it!!
And the process was implemented instantly!
And that’s Alissa! Again, jumping in. I was thrilled to see her tackle this and watch her in action.
To summarize in a few short words---
I gave her the keys to the Chevy and she didn’t return in a Cadillac as I had thought she would---
She returned in 50 passenger rocket ship! And… to add to the success, she didn’t even need to say ALL ABOARD!
As they say, “If you build it, they will come!”