Every year at SOME, we honor an employee who has gone above and beyond. This year was particularly difficult for all of our employees and clients due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the past nine years, SOME has been lucky enough to have Alisha Simmons (pictured left) on staff, and we are delighted to name her our 2020 Employee of the Year.
Ever since arriving at SOME nine years ago, Alisha has been known for her work ethic and for being very personable. Her first two years at SOME were spent as an on-call employee; she was then promoted to program manager for one of our affordable housing programs for single adults. She worked there for four years and then transitioned into Human Resources at the end of 2018. Alisha mentioned that she felt that HR was the place for her given her ability to work with people on a deeper level and empower them to be the best that they could be.
She joined HR as a recruiter but was eventually promoted to talent acquisition supervisor. As talent acquisition supervisor, Alisha is responsible for the full cycle of recruitment for potential employees, talent acquisition for the entire organization, handling recruiting and screening interviews, and facilitating the onboarding process as they’re hired. She explained that her favorite part about working for SOME was getting to network with other organizations and work with them to get people employed. By partnering with other organizations, there are more opportunities for career fairs, and pooling resources together to help community members find employment.
On winning SOME’s Employee of the Year award she said, “I was not expecting to win it at all. I was very shocked. I didn’t realize how much I impacted people in the way that I’ve done and winning gave me a sense of purpose and what I feel like I was brought to SOME to do. I’m on the right path, and it’s the one I wanted to take. It validated that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
She continued, “I want to shout out to the HR department because we work really hard as a department, even though we are so small. I appreciate the people I work with within my department because we are all go-getters, and everyone is very supportive. Also shout out to single adult housing (SAH) where I started, because that’s where I attribute a lot of my growth. All that I’ve learned and am utilizing comes from SAH. SAH was my first run at SOME, and it was very productive, and I did really well. And finally, shout out to everyone excited that I did well. I got a lot of love and I appreciated that.”
We asked Alisha for some parting advice and to describe a quote or mantra that she lives by in her field of work, and she shared the following:
“If we treat people as if they were what they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming. Whatever I’m doing I always try to assist people in finding that thing that lies inside of them, that drives them to be better. Sometimes they need someone to point it out.”