HR assistant
Anova Fertility & Reproductive Health
Spasija Turnbull first joined the team at Anova Fertility & Reproductive Health through a four-month co-op assignment in 2018, during which she was charged with setting up an in-house certification program during a period of high growth. The project was prompted by feedback from front-line and support staff, who regularly interacted with patients but felt they didn’t have sufficient training to make them fully confident in their performance, which was leading to high levels of stress and unnecessary turnover among staff. Turnbull used Anova’s procedure manuals to build a database of questions about their contents and generated questionnaires designed to train staff on their respective departments’ standard operating procedures. Since it was rolled out in July 2018, the program has led to 90% of front-line and support staff achieving certification.
“Although Spasija was brought in specifically to implement the certification program, she quickly proved able in other areas of HR, including recruitment, reference checks, correspondence, drafting job postings and offers of employment, documentation, performance reviews, orientation of new employees, and even workplace investigations,” says Evert Akkerman, the independent HR consultant who brought Turnbull onto the project. Turnbull’s stellar performance led to her being offered a one-year contract as a part-time HR assistant at Anova, followed by a permanent position as HR assistant after she completed university.