Kansas State University

Putting a face to a name: Shanna Legleiter

Submitted by Division of Communications and Marketing

Meet Shanna Legleiter, Kansas State University's director of learning and development for Human Capital Services. She's in charge of the design and delivery of educational advancement programs for K-State's thousands of continuous learners. A graduate of Barton Community College, Friends University, Emporia State University and the Disney Institute, Legleiter is excited about improving K-State employees' ability to contribute to the university. In just a year at K-State, Legleiter has already brought several changes to her department, all of which are focused on helping K-State achieve its goals.

Learn more about Legleiter and how she and her team streamline processes for members of the K-State community in the following Q-and-A:

What are some of the big changes you hope to or have implemented since you started in this position, and how will this affect K-Staters?

Thanks to input from stakeholders, we overhauled Introduction to Supervision, a certificate program for supervisors of USS employees. The upgraded program includes the implementation of technology such as LiveBinder, a valuable resource that allows employees to make the most of face-to-face training time while still being able to access online resources as needed. For the first time, in 2015, new faculty and unclassified employee orientation shifted to learning and development. This was a great opportunity for our office to collaborate with other offices, coordinate and enhance an important event for new employees. A big change for not only K-State but also for the state of Kansas has been the implementation of a Kansas chapter of CUPA-HR, which provides professional development opportunities and networking for K-Staters around the state of Kansas. In time, our department will conduct a needs assessment so we can focus our time and efforts toward the initiatives that are most important at K-State.

What are your goals for improving employment at K-State?

Because our department provides support to and partners with various other units in Human Capital Services, one of our main goals is to continually support HCS in achieving its yearly goals. We have significant change going on in HCS and with that change comes opportunities to educate and train employees on new technology, processes and procedures. In the next five years, some of the identified goals are to ensure that training curriculums incorporate diversity, to develop a leadership program, and to enhance supervisory training. My ultimate goal is to support employees in developing and sustaining the skills and behaviors needed for workplace effectiveness and for achievement of K-State 2025. Having said that, I also recognize that there is a lot of work to be done between now and accomplishing that goal.

How will what you are doing help K-State employees?

I hope to provide employees with training or networking opportunities and resources to either do their job more efficiently or perhaps "skill up" for a specific career path. Sometimes, it's even just providing the right resources for employees to help them in their role.

What keeps you up at night?

Answering questions like this! I am only partly kidding. I am a detail person so what keeps me up at night is wondering what I have forgotten to do with various projects and tasks … and, honestly, wondering how I can make a bigger difference in the work lives of others.

What is your favorite part about K-State?

I can easily say the people and family atmosphere. I can't tell you how much it means to me that I can go to another building, see someone I know and receive a friendly smile and hello. The familiarity and sense of truly knowing the people I have an opportunity to work with is by far my favorite part about K-State. And, as a Manhattan resident, I do have to admit that I enjoy the short drive home after K-State sporting events … that is a plus, too!