By Michael Platco, Internal Communications & Employer Brand
At Cerence, we are always looking for opportunities to shine a spotlight on the countless stories from across our global teams. Recently, we had a chance to sit down with Rocky Graziano, our Senior Principal HR Program Manager in the Talent & Organizational Development department.
What are you responsible for at Cerence?
The things that I am responsible for includes all employee engagement activities like our fun Employee Appreciation Week, and our engagement survey. I also work on leadership and development initiatives and other projects as assigned by leadership.
What’s your favorite thing about working at Cerence?
The people here at Cerence make my job so rewarding and fun. I'm a morning person and I get to wake up every morning and have meetings with people all over the world from India to China to Germany to Italy to my colleagues right here in the US. I get to experience different cultures, backgrounds, and working styles and I get to learn a lot about myself in the process.
What’s kept you at Cerence?
The people here at Cerence are the reason why I am still here. I get the chance to develop and learn from different projects and I get the ability to be autonomous and sometimes even innovate and learn from some of my mistakes. Working with different people all over the world has given me a broader more global perspective and I’m really grateful for that.
Do you have a favorite moment from your time at Cerence?
When I'm thinking about some of the work that I've done here, one of my professional achievements would be how much I've been embraced by the managers. I get to host manager town halls every month and I get to help them work with their teams and also help them with some of the initiatives that they're trying to achieve within their own individual orgs and as a global community. In terms of a fun professional activity we have a bunch of different initiatives for health and wellness. Last year we had an Olympic-themed challenge and I came in first out of 500. I’m very competitive so I was very excited to share my fitness journey with the rest of my team and take the top spot.
What are you most looking forward to in the future at Cerence?
Being a one-person department allows me an opportunity to be in charge of a lot of different programs and what I'm most excited about is that I get to take perspective from the leadership team within the HR division as well as the global leadership team and learn a lot more about the business. In the last probably two years that I’ve been here I have learned so much about our technology and how we innovate and how we are making your vehicle your true digital life.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
When I'm not working lately, I'm addicted to Peloton and working from home it has been a great release because you can log on to the app and take a five minute or a ten minute class and burn off all that steam that you have working. So, I'm really focused on that and spending time with my two nephews and my niece.
Check out this video to hear more from Rocky!
Want to join Rocky and our other amazing team members? Check out our open roles at https://www.cerence.com/careers.