Joslin Blench Is Bringing a Psychology Perspective to the Workplace

Joslin Blench’s professional direction has taken shape through several distinct but connected experiences: studying psychology, supporting children who had experienced trauma, volunteering in the Edmonton community, growing a family, and advancing from seasonal retail work into supervision. Now enrolled in a master’s program focused on Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Joslin is bringing those experiences together around a clear interest in how workplaces can better support people.

Her goals center on policy development, associate satisfaction, psychological wellness, and health and safety. These areas provide a bridge between her academic background and her current responsibilities as a supervisor with Bath & Body Works. They also reflect a path built through deliberate transitions rather than a single straight line.

Building a foundation in psychology and service

Joslin completed a three-year undergraduate program in 2013 while growing her family. During that period, she worked with nonprofit organizations that supported children who had experienced trauma. The work placed human needs and support systems at the center of her early professional experience.

Community involvement was another part of that chapter. Joslin volunteered with HIV Edmonton and served on her community league board. Together, her nonprofit work and volunteer commitments gave her opportunities to contribute in settings where care, participation, and community support mattered.

In 2020, she returned to Concordia University of Edmonton to complete the fourth year of her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Rather than immediately choosing another fixed destination, she took time to consider what she wanted her next steps to be. That pause allowed room for both personal commitments and a closer assessment of the kind of work she hoped to pursue.

A meaningful personal chapter

Family has remained an important part of Joslin’s story. After completing her undergraduate studies, she became a surrogate for parents who wanted to grow their family. She delivered twins for them in 2023.

The experience marked a significant personal chapter before her move into retail. It also illustrates the varied responsibilities that have accompanied her education and employment. Across those stages, Joslin has continued to make decisions with both her family life and longer-term direction in mind.

Growing into retail leadership

Shortly after the twins were born, Joslin joined Bath & Body Works as a seasonal employee. What began as a temporary role developed into a continuing opportunity. She was invited to stay as a permanent employee, later became a keyholder in a lower-level management role, and then moved into her current position as supervisor.

That progression has given Joslin direct experience with the everyday realities of a retail workplace. Supervision involves more than completing individual tasks; it places attention on how people work together, how expectations are communicated, and how employees experience their environment. Those practical questions align closely with the subjects she now wants to explore more deeply.

Her advancement also shows how an entry point can become a setting for discovering new professional interests. Retail was not presented as the endpoint of her earlier psychology education, yet it has become a place where questions about people, systems, satisfaction, and safety meet in concrete ways.

Connecting workplace experience with graduate study

After deciding that she wanted to work with policy development, associate satisfaction, and safety, Joslin enrolled in an Industrial/Organizational Psychology master’s program through Golden Gate University. The field offers a framework for examining people’s experiences within organizations, complementing both her psychology background and her current supervisory work.

Her stated goal is to help develop psychological wellness and health and safety within an organization or government setting. While the eventual form of that work is still ahead, her direction is grounded in issues she has identified clearly and wants to understand further.

Joslin’s path demonstrates how professional focus can emerge through the combination of education, service, personal responsibility, and workplace experience. Each stage has added a different perspective: nonprofit work introduced trauma-informed support settings, volunteering strengthened community involvement, retail created opportunities for leadership, and graduate study is providing a way to examine organizational life more intentionally.

For Joslin, the next chapter is not a departure from what came before. It is an effort to connect those experiences and apply them to a central question: how can policies and workplace practices help people feel safer, healthier, and more satisfied in the organizations where they work?