Hi all

I'm hoping the collective wisdom of the forums can offer me some advice.  When I started in HR, I worked my way up from HR admin roles to HR Adviser.  I then took a sideways step to be a HR Analyst for 11 years - it was a great role full of variety, dealing with HR Systems, reward, benefits, pensions and some really interesting projects.  But after 11 years I felt I'd exhausted the possibilities of the role so last year I again went sideways into an IT role, supporting Payroll systems.  That role didn't turn out as I had hoped as the projects that I was brought in to do didn't happen, so I was left doing minor system configuration day in day out which was very dull.  So  after 17 months there, I rather hastily took a new role about two months ago, back in HR but completely focussed on Data Protection and Data Governance. 

Now I feel I have made a horrible mistake.  I thought I would be getting back closer to the business and employees by moving back into HR, but I feel further away than ever.  There is a huge amount of work to be done to get data governance up to the organisation's standards and all the work to be done to get the People Function GDPR fit but there's no support or resources internally to undertake the projects.  Work on these things should have started months ago but it's been left until I started - I think they think I'm some sort of magic wand they can wave to fix all these problems.  Unfortunately I don't share that view!  I'm stressed to the point of tears most days and paralysed by the feeling of being so overwhelmed with work I don't know where to start.  I have little contact with my boss who is too busy to offer any support and he is relying on me just to get on and deal with all this.  I've talked to him about how I feel but he's made it clear that there will be no extra resource.  He's a nice chap but he's busy to the point of abruptness and I don't get the impression that he'll manage to give the support I need.  I've certainly had no feedback on how he thinks I'm performing which means that I automatically assume I'm not doing well enough.

I'm realising that I thrive on variety - focussing on one particular thing day in , day out really isn't suiting me at all.  I think I've taken a wrong turn in my career with my last job and this one and I need to find a way back to more generalist HR roles that really add value and excite me.  So my question to you all (finally, after all my moaning!) is what sort of roles should I realistically look at?  I haven't been a generalist HR Adviser for over 12 years, but my HR Analyst role had a lot of generalist elements such as advising managers, hearing grievances, investigating potential disciplinary cases, managing projects, delivering change, supporting redundancy programmes, due diligence for TUPE transfers etc.  I've also done voluntary HR work as a school governor, hearing grievance cases, advising on job shares and restructures and looking at pay and performance. Is it realistic to aim for a HR Adviser role, or should I go back to an administrator level and work my way back up?  I'm know I'll have to take a salary cut  but it would be a struggle to drop to an administrator salary.  There's a small pool of opportunities where I live so I can't afford to be too choosy.  And a second question is that if you were recruiting a HR Adviser or HR Administrator, how would you view me?  Does it look really bad to have changed jobs under two years ago and then two months ago and now be applying again or is it ok for me to say that I've found that such specialist roles don't suit me and I want to get back to generalist HR as that's where I find my job satisfaction?

Many thanks for reading my long story.

Jackie