Things you wish you knew

In HR, there is unlikely to be a 100% right answer, it's all about context and what is the most appropriate course of action in the circumstances.

Congratulations Lee and good luck with your new role!

To paraphrase what Kevin rightly says - "context is all", or "context is king"!

Try to understand how the different parts of the organisation work together/interact and to develop a "helicopter" view of the company. Ideally, try to spend some time with the head of each department to develop this understanding.

Secondly, try to understand how your business actually makes money - volume? margin? operational excellence? cutting edge R&D? and how HR can support these different levers

Hi Lee

Congratulations on your new role and good luck! I'd advise that you spend the first few weeks getting to know the organisation and the managers - read all the HR policies and procedures and book in 'getting to know you' meetings with all the key stakeholders and find out what they think of HR. Find out what the organisation's culture and strategic aims are so you have affirm grounding before you look to change anything. ;-) Then look for some quick wins in terms of improvements.

Kind regards

Jackie

Congratulations, Lee. It's nice to hear from someone who has succeeded in making the shift, rather than from someone frustrated by not being able to do so. It would be interesting to hear how you came to make the move from accounts to HR.

As for what I wish I'd known...

Data is king.

When it comes to financial decisions, no business leader would dream of making big plans without looking at the numbers. And yet, people make people decisions all the time on the basis of "gut", "hunches" and "instinct".

Intelligence arises from the analysis of information. Without information, there can be no intelligence.

Hi Lee,

Welcome to the wonderful(?!) world of HR.

I would say - hang on to your 'open mind'. You will learn from every issue you deal with - in 20 years time you will still be learning and you will still be adapting.

Never assume you know how a situation will play out because you will, invariably, be wrong.

Learn to manage up, down and across - you will do it everyday and in every situation.

You are going to love it!

Debi

Welcome Lee. I would say expect the unexpected. There will always be something new that comes up and when you think you have seen and heard everything, there will always be something that makes you throw your hands up in the air and say "now I have heard everything".
As others have said, get to know the business. Spend time with each department getting to know what they do and why they do it. This will help to build your credibility with key stakeholders. Remember that no question is a stupid question. Look at any data that is available relating both to HR and other areas of the organisation and understand what key data you need to work with in order to add value to your role. Remember that the other departments in the business are your customers and you need to ensure that they are satisfied with the service you are providing to them. Build your relationships and review where you are with things on a regular basis.

Congratulations on your new role. That's a fab question to ask. I think my thoughts would be:

HR is not there to police the organisation - we are professional advisers in the same way as Solicitors or Accountants. This means as a general rule, our role is to provide the manager with information on options, together with the risks etc, so they can make an informed decision. There may be times ,when they seem determined to take a course of action so risky or inappropriate that we need to alert someone more senior, but as a general rule, the manager is the decision maker.

Having said that, you will come across many managers, who don't want to give a difficult message to an employee and will ask you just so they can say that HR have said 'no'

When considering courses of action, always try to think about whether that course of action is likely to improve the situation, make no difference, or potentially make it worse. If it would make it worse, you are just creating work for yourself, if it would make no difference, you are wasting your time. There are times, when you don't have much option, but is always good to consider what is likely to happen next.

I hope you enjoy your new role

Build trust and respect.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply! lots of very valuable responses! I will take it all in! thanks again!