Having come from a secretarial role that had some responsibility of managing disciplinary hearings and whilst studying for my L3 CIPD which I have now passed, I secured myself a HR coordinator role in the same organisation however I feel this role is offering me limited experience to HR as the majority of HR is outsourced externally and my sole responsibility in my HR role is managing sickness absence. I am worried I have made a mistake and that I won't have much to offer in the future if I apply for more senior HR roles as my HR exposure is very limited in my current HR role. I have started seeing a mentor which I hope will help as at the moment my current role is making me lose confidence. Has anybody else felt like this when they first started out in HR and if so how did you go about gaining more exposure?
Welcome to the communities. The key challenge with anyone starting a career in HR is getting experience. Any experience. I would grab this opportunity and gain some good experience in helping managers deal with absence issues. Then over time see if you can develop it and grow your experience.
Work with your mentor to look for opportunities and after a while you will move into more interesting work either with these people or another firm.
Hi Cheryl
I was in the same position many years ago I'd taken my first qualification but was in the wrong job and unable to work in HR. I looked for a local employer who did have a local HR team and applied for an admin job that suited my experience back then. Once I got in there, I watched out for internal opportunities - after 6-9 months I moved sideways into HR. That worked for me.
Best of luck and don't give up
Relax. You're doing the right thing. At the end of the day, every role is temporary and in your next step, the main point will be having the "HR Coordinator" job title on your CV and making the best of what opportunities for experience come your way.
You've taken a great step, finding a mentor. I'm sure they will help you to spot your chances and encourage you when the time is right to move on to better things.
I had a similar issue. My background is finance and payroll. We outsourced our HR so I studied L3 to run alongside my payroll. I’m now half way through L5. Over the last year and a half I have grabbed opportunities at work (rewriting the employee handbook, attending various employee meeting, L&D etc) which have helped me develop. After one year I pushed for a change in my job including my title. I still do finance and payroll but my job title is now HR advisor. My plan was to get L5, develop as much as I can during the 2 years and hopefully move on to another employer. Grab any chances you can, even if they are not part of your current role, or try volunteering if you can. All of this can go on your CV...Good luck
I am too in the same situation. I'm losing all confidence in myself lately and this is down to my current role and the lack if HR activities it involves. I work in a hr department but as a Clerical Assistant. I do lots of HR tasks however, anything operational I'm only asked on very rare occasions (probably been 3 times in almost 2 years I've been offered to be involved in disciplinaries and to support other teams). I feel that time is ticking by and everyday I'm getting myself into a deeper hole as I'm currently not learning or developing. I really do understand.
Hi Cheryl, you say that the majority of HR is outsourced - is there a possibility that you can convince the company that they can reduce the amount they outsource and therefore reduce their outsourcing costs? Could you identify a few tasks that you could take on internally and put together a good argument for bringing them in-house under your care?
There is some great advice here, the CIPD community is a fantastic place to keep up with what is going on and how things can be handled (good to get a general feel for how things can be done). I would be lost without it!
Have you looked at the CIPD profession map? I try to evaluate myself against it twice a year and see what areas I can/want to improve in and where I am getting enough experience. It might help identify ares of HR that you could get involved in where you are contently, like Deborah said, could some of it be taken back in house?
Getting mentor is fantastic too. Do you attend local CIPD branch events? It's a good way to meet people and perhaps open up your network to find opportunities?
Don't loose heart. It just takes time which I know is frustrating.
Hi Cheryl, in my first HR role I was given absence management to look after and although I wasn't very excited about it initially I found it to be an area you can really get stuck into. I've since redesigned the RTW interview, led training sessions for managers on absence management and been involved in occupational health meetings and disciplinary hearings as well as dealing with some really difficult cases. I think a good starting point is analysis - if you can find a way to look at the absence within the company and present your findings to managers you can work with them to look at the bigger picture and find ways to improve it. Plus, as you'll be close to the statistics you'll start to identify patterns which is something you can be really pro-active with and help nip in the bud before any serious problems arise.
Hi Lorraine
Yes I'm finding the CIPD community really useful.
That's a good idea Lorraine. I've assessed myself prior to starting my CIPD L3 and towards the end and there has been some improvement. I have since met with our company HRBP and she has offered to give me some HR related work that could help with my development and help her also as she is struggling to get round to additional HR tasks.
I haven't attended any CIPD branch events yet however I have recently signed up to get notifications of events for my local branch.
Thanks again Lorraine.
Hi Olivia
Yes, I've started trying to implement processes that might streamline the absence management a bit better such as closing the absence when an employee returns to work as managers really struggle with this and it makes sense as I currently open the absences for a staff member.
I think having a look at our RTW is a good direction I can go in too.
I'm just about to start a project as part of my CIPD L3 which consists of monitoring absences from last year and this year and identifying any trends and departments most affected. I'm hoping this will be a valuable tool in enforcing more staff wellbeing and encourage managers to take a more proactive approach.
