What fascinates you about your industry?
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19/04/2022
Human Resources is such a vast, exciting, and quite honestly challenging space. The University of Minnesota defines Human resource management (HRM) as the process of employing people, training them, compensating them, developing policies relating to them, and developing strategies to retain them. For someone who has worked in the space for over ten years it’s almost scary to see HR and Recruitment wrapped up so succinctly. Human Resources and Recruitment to me is the art of managing people, it’s ensuring that you as the conduit between the business and the employee are able to achieve the best outcome for all involved.
While that all sounds amazing, if I am completely honest most days HR and Recruitment feel like herding cats, it feels like trying to get answers only to end up with more questions and sometimes it feels like a battle between my head and my heart. But these are also the things that fascinate me most about working in this industry.
HR and Recruitment certainly aren’t for everyone and even someday after a particularly challenging day I think why, why do I do this- but if I’m honest there is nothing else I can imagine doing. So, what is it about Human Resources and Recruitment that really does fascinate me?
PEOPLE
As my team will attest, I love calling people the X factor- they are the unknown in so many ways. This is at times as exhilarating as it is challenging.
As a human resource and recruitment professional the everyday tasks you do- the hiring the firing and everything in between you use a structure, you have a process- but what keeps it interesting and makes every interaction different is that you deal with different people at every turn.
I also genuinely enjoy learning from other people, interviewing people for me is just as much about getting to know the candidate for me as it is about learning new things about a person, place or thing!
For me speaking to people and forming relationships is one of my favourite things, which is a great fit because I do think I can talk underwater! It’s the ‘proud parent’ moments I have from supporting and working with someone who is at risk of not making it through probation to prospering in an organisation or seeing someone I knew had the skills but just needed someone to give them a shot to succeed.
People for me are by far the most fascinating and rewarding part of my role.
FACTS
Human Resources of today has changed a lot from the HR function (or should I say personnel departments) of 20 plus years ago.
What fascinates me about HR and Recruitment today are the constant legislative changes and how we help our clients best implement them. It May sound boring to some, but for me, I love the challenge of taking a policy or piece of legislation and allowing it to be useful and implemented by businesses and even more understood by staff. As human beings, our nature is to be led by either our head or heart- and as HR professionals we are often called upon to be the neutral opinion, we aren’t robots and this in certain situations can be hard. For me, it’s using the facts coupled with an understanding of behaviours and striving for the best outcome that fascinates me. It’s a constant and ever-changing environment.
OUTCOMES
Contrary to what you may believe as an HR and Recruitment Professional I am always striving for the best outcome.
Wearing my recruitment hat, that’s working as the ultimate matchmaker between our clients and candidates, it’s advocating for candidates and it’s supporting them through the process and consulting with them on some often life-changing decisions.
When I am wearing my HR hat- its works to achieve my client’s organisation objectives, ensuring we are doing everything required of us for our staff legally- but also supporting the business to create a culture and workplace that people want to be a part of- who feel energised to go to work every day. For the employees of these businesses, it’s to act as a sounding board to ensure they are receiving everything they are entitled to and often more and to support them in any way I can.
I guess really what fascinates me about HR and Recruitment are all the juxtapositions that exist and how every day we challenge ourselves as professionals to achieve results. To work out how to get the best outcome for the client and candidate without being ingenuine to either. About how we manage HR processes to benefit all parties as best as we can- and ultimately how we manage our people best.
I will certainly never stop learning or feeling challenged as long as I continue to work in this space. Because honestly for me the X-factor of people is what makes this whole thing worth it!
