BA 2410 MOD 4 ASSN

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Note: This is a sample project and this organization (TinCaps) cannot be used.

Student Name

Indiana Institute of Technology

Human Resources

Dr. Walls

Interview with Cathy Tinney

February 19, 2017

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I interviewed Cathy Tinney of the Fort Wayne TinCaps. Cathy is the office

manager and human resources administrator for the TinCaps. I chose to reach out and

interview Cathy, because she is the human resources administrator in an area that I have

interest for in my future. My major concentration is sports management, so this was a

perfect opportunity for me. I was able to learn about different human resource processes

that the TinCaps use.

Here are the following interview questions and answers:

What do you like or dislike about your job?

 There isn’t anything I really dislike about my job. I do enjoy it very much and at

certain times of the year it is very fast pace. Around January is when I’m the

busiest, because that is when all the applications start coming in and I begin the

processing and interviewing of candidates. So there is always something keeping

me busy and it’s not a boring job whatsoever.

What brought you to the field of human resources and has it been a great fit for you?

 It has been a great fit, yes. It started for me when I first started with the team in

2002 and I fell into the office manager position. That was with the Fort Wayne

Wizards and when the team moved over here to the Tincaps the employment grew

and that’s when I took over as a human resources administrator. I actually don’t

have any college experience in this field so everything I have done since 2009 has

been a learning process.

What process do you go through for your staffing and recruiting?

 October is when we go through and make any changes needed to applications for

the upcoming year and then January is when we get the applications out. We

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have our radio guy who gets it out through the media, social media, and then we

have them on our website. We start our interviewing and hiring in February,

orientation is in March, and then our season starts in April. It’s typically a month-

to-month process.

What are some things you look at when making your final selection decision?

 I get the applications in and take care of all the background checks. I look over

the applications so see what applicants put down and what their age is to see

where they would be a good fit. So someone who is 17 might be a better fit in our

kid’s zone area or concessions verses being an usher. I put that into factor and

then put it off to each department, because all of our departments actually do their

own hiring. I basically filter through the process and determine who would be a

good fit for each department.

What training process do you put your employees through?

 Each type of department has their own training, but normally we do an open

house. The open house is usually on a Saturday sometime before the season and

we open up everything in the park and that’s when we go through and train

everybody. We do have a lot of employees return from the previous year, so that

also helps with the training of new employees. There is also individual training

along the way and even the first weekend of games is still part of the training for

some departments.

Do you do performance evaluation on your employees?

 Each department should be doing performance evaluation, but it doesn’t always

happen. It can be a lot, because the food and beverage department has about 300

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people. At the end of the year we do sit down with individuals and evaluate them

to see who was a good fit and this helps us make our list of who we will bring

back for the following year.

What is your policy for employees being absent?

 We do have a policy in place, but because there are so many people her we do

have an understanding. There may be someone who had a flat tire, or an illness,

or a lot of our employees have second jobs so they may have been caught up in

their first job that may cause them to be a little late, so we are very understanding

about it. But if we get someone who is consistently a half hour late and has no

reason then we do have a warning system where we give three warnings before

you are terminated.

How do you go about your drug testing and background checks of applicants?

 We don’t do drug testing, but if an employee is injured and has to go to a clinic

they are drug tested there. As far as background checks, we use three different

Indiana websites to do the general background checks of applicants and just

because someone did something 10 years ago doesn’t mean that is going to affect

them now.

How many employees are currently employed here with the Tincaps?

 There are around 500 people employed during the season and during the

offseason there’s 35 full time employees.

What has been your greatest accomplishment during your career?

 I think one of the greatest accomplishments for me has just been being able to

learn new things. Everyday is a new day, so it’s a process for different things and

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new things come up that other companies deal with on a daily basis but I never

really deal with and just being able to adjust and learn about this career has been

an accomplishment.

I enjoyed this interview, because I was able to learn more about not only human

resources, but about the sports industry and how a sports organization works. It was cool

to learn that Cathy had no school background in this area and it helps put in perspective

that your career path is not always going to be the way you plan it. This project has been

beneficial for me and I hope to be able to use this knowledge I gained from it in the

future.