Skills for Change | Humans of Skills for Change - Tanya

We are proud to be a diverse organization comprising of staff from different backgrounds and areas of expertise. One of our frontline staff is Tanya who works as a Client Engagement Support. Like many of our team members, Tanya is a skilled Canadian immigrant who is contributing her talents to our mission of building equitable and welcoming communities. In addition to her many talents, Tanya’s a published writer. We checked in on how she’s coping with working from home remotely, and what her day-to-day work constitutes.

Please tell us a bit about yourself

Currently living my Canadian dream, I was born and brought up in India. After pursuing my MBA in Marketing & IT, I worked in the corporate for a few years before finally moving to Canada. Skills for Change is my first workplace in this new country and working here makes me feel that I am finally chasing my passion. I have been always wanting to work in the non-profit sector as it gives me a sense of contentment and accomplishment.

Tell us about what your daily work entails.

I am currently working as a Client Engagement Support for Employment Ontario East and my day-to-day work primarily involves client interactions like educating the client about the programs offered by Skills for Change, referring clients to various internal programs and services, managing the resource centre at the site, registering the clients to Employment Services, managing calendars for Employment Counsellors and Information and Referral staff, supporting in organizing events at the site, managing efficient client communications for Employment Ontario, managing Eventbrite contents and postings, creating and updating data on CaMS and Salesforce, training and managing volunteers/students as well as other office administration support.

How are you coping with the new remote working situation?

Before moving to Canada, I was working in IT Services where I got a lot of opportunities to work off site as well as remotely. So, I am quite comfortable working from home though I do miss my colleagues and the physical presence of people. As my role involves a lot of client interactions in-person, I do miss seeing people around.

What are you liking about working from home and what challenges are you facing with remote work?

Working remotely has given us an opportunity to explore a lot on the technological front and how we can utilize these technologies in delivering our programs and services. I believe that change is the only constant and with the changes in the method of delivering our services, I think we have discovered new avenues. Apart from missing the physical presence of people around, I think working from home makes me a little sedentary.

How are you taking care of yourself in this pandemic?

Apart from following social distancing, I have been focusing on fitness and have been doing HIIT workout sessions every morning. Also, reading wellness articles and following some of their practices is helping me maintain mental composure.

What’s been your favourite hobby these days?

I am a published writer and I am very passionate about composing stories. Working remotely is giving me a little extra time to pursue this passion and work on my next book.

What kind of book are you working on

So, I started my literary journey with my debut novel called ‘Dear Diary…’ which was published in 2012 followed by anthologies named ‘Crumpled Voices’ (2013), ‘Innocence Lost’ (2014) and the latest one called ‘Strangled Emotions’ got published last month (March 2020). I was a contributing author in all the mentioned anthologies. I also wrote the foreword for an anthology named ‘Drenched Souls’ in 2013. Currently, I am working on a fiction novel about workplaces!

Anything else that you’d like to share with us?

First of all I would like to thank our CEO, supervisors, managers, HR and fellow colleagues for their seamless support in helping us transition into remote working. I really appreciate how each one of us are reaching out to help! I really enjoy our all staff meetings every Monday and look forward to more activities of similar kinds. I am sure we would get through these difficult times together!