Angela Chandler, Manager of Organization Effectiveness, shares her story about why she returned to Northrop Grumman after leaving to join another employer.
Valuing culture and leadership
After graduating from the University of Virginia, Angela joined Teach for America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to placing teachers in schools serving lower-income communities with significant teacher shortages.
She was assigned to one of the lowest performing schools in Baltimore City and saw first-hand the impact of the school's culture on student performance. Low teacher morale, poor teamwork, and inadequate communication across the school community significantly hampered student success.
"The school was really struggling to create the right conditions-the right culture-to tackle the student achievement issues we needed to address and it was impacting the teachers and our ability to work together, to collaborate and to share instructional practices that would help us all be more effective in the classroom," says Angela.
In Angela's second year with the school, the environment changed drastically. "A new team of principals joined our school and started to turn the school around," she explains. "They hired some really strong mentor teachers, promoted a positive work environment of open communication and collaboration and focused on increasing teacher growth and development opportunities."
Exploring new challenges and opportunities
That's when Angela realized she wanted to play a role in developing effective leaders, improving teams and building cultures that create better performance. However, she didn't know there was a job that focused on this kind of work. "I later learned that was the field of organization effectiveness," Angela recalls.
After attending Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to gain a master's degree in Human Resources and Organization Development, Angela joined Northrop Grumman, supporting learning and development, talent management and employee engagement.
However, after eight years with Northrop Grumman, she was offered a new opportunity outside the company following a former boss to work in their new organization. While having an insider at a new company made the career move a bit easier at first, Angela missed Northrop Grumman soon after her transition.
"It was very on in my tenure that I realized I wanted to come back," Angela remembers. "It just didn't ever feel quite like home."
Angela remained in touch with former co-workers through text messages and email. When there was an opportunity to return to support a new organization effectiveness team coming together to support the newly formed Mission Systems sector, she jumped at the chance and was re-hired at Northrop Grumman.
Returning to Northrop Grumman
"Our charter was very clear at that time," Angela said. "Our job was to support Mission Systems' integration and the kind of culture change and transformation that was needed to operate as one unified sector."
Today, Angela enjoys her job as a manager of organization effectiveness and is excited about the great work the company is doing to continually improve its culture and work environment for it employees.
"Our work is sometimes considered the softer side of business, but the reason why I came back to Northrop Grumman is that we have leaders in our organization that genuinely understand the importance of the 'soft stuff' to meet hard challenges for our customers," she comments.
Further your career with a prime employer
Northrop Grumman has a robust Human Resources team, including those who work in organizational effectiveness like Angela. Search HR related positions in a variety of locations.
Or search and apply for job opportunities in further sectors with Northrop Grumman.
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Disclosure: Where Women Work researches and publishes insightful evidence about how its paid member organizations support women's equality.