Resource & Planning Manager for ExxonMobil

>> My name is Laura Taylor Johnson. And I graduated in 1997 from Penn State University with a degree in Chemical Engineering. My current assignment is as a Resource and Planning Manager, that's my title, for the Safety, Health, and Environment group at Exxon Mobil. And what that entails is working on business planning and analysis, so things like budgeting, planning around staffing and career development for employees worldwide. We have about a thousand employees that works safety, health, and environment worldwide in our upstream businesses, and I work to manage their careers and deploy people across the-- across the globe in all of our different operation, and so that's part of my job. I also get involved with business controls and especial presentations and projects. And so, I help write speeches and doing presentations and things when some of our managers present to outside organizations. We're always working new operations in various parts of the world, so trying to staff up those organizations, what should they look like, how people should be there, that's all part of my job as well. Another piece of job is to work with our management to understand some of the current issues that are going on in the world of safety, health, and environment. Of course the petroleum industry gets a lot of press and certainly part of my job is to work with our managers and our public affairs office to understand what our position should be on some of those issues. Before I hit the workplace-- I've got a great family so I've got two little ones at home. And so, when I talk about my career it's really about balancing my whole life. It's not just about the job that I clacking at but it's about, you know, my whole family situation. In the morning it's a little bit hectic at our house. But one of the things with my career that I've really focused on and worked with my management on, is making sure that I'm in a job where I don't have to do too much travel and where I don't have to sacrifice too much of my personal life. And so, I usually hit the office about 7:30 in the morning and I spend a good part of my day working emails, working PowerPoint, working Excel, but also a lot of interactions and meetings and things. And sometimes my day in the office and, you know, about 4:30 or 5 o'clock, but because I support operations globally I might have a phone call with somebody in Australia at 8 o'clock at night, or Indonesia, you know, at 9 o'clock at night. And so having that flexibility to be able to, you know, to work with folks from around the world on their time zones. We've workplace flexibility and certainly with two little ones at home that sometimes get sick or have, you know, have to go meet the teacher or even for my own personal needs if I have to need to get the car fixed or doctor's appointment or something like that, the company is very flexible. Certainly working with a global organization, it's even better sometimes to be able to work from home. So that if I have a phone call where I need to meet with somebody who's in Malaysia, it's always easier for me to be able to go home, maybe I can leave work a little bit early that day, go home, make dinner for my family, put my kids to bed and then at 9 o'clock at night I have a conference call. But even during the day if there's something that I need to do and I need to be home for, you know, everything can be managed over the computer and telephone calls and everything these days. So the company is very flexible with those types of arrangements. Early in my career, I did quite a bit of traveling which was wonderful. I loved it. The company's done great things for me to be able to travel and see the world and I had a lot of fun doing it. I would say that, generally, you know, I'm in a 40-hour a week job but I would probably say that most weeks I work more than 40 hours. And that's with the flexibility of knowing that they don't all have to be in the office. I really work hard to keep my weekends to myself although catching up on a few emails or correspondences here and there is fine with me too, but the company really values individual's personal time. And so there are some weeks where I might put in a 60-hour week because we have a report due or something due, but my manager knows that, you know, if I want to leave early the next Friday because we have a load in our workload, that's OK too.