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Surgery Hours

Kelly Mitchell

Has anyone put in place surgery or open office hours i.e. a specific time when people can drop in to discuss HR issues? It has been suggested by my Group MD and originally was not something I wanted to consider. However, I am inundated with people dropping in for a chat at the minute. 

I therefore wondered if anyone has this and how they found it in practice? 

Thanks for your help.

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  • Hi Kelly,

    Yes - I introduced a surgery whereby I set myself up in a smallish meeting room in our main offices (so I travelled to the people) and people could drop in and out as they wished. If no one came, I could get on with some non-confidential work, but if they did they got my full attention in private without the ability to see anything else going on in the HR office. As an HR team, we all conducted surgeries on regular basis e.g. our Payroll & Benefits lady did surgeries, L&D did IDP surgeries etc.
    We firmly communicated that these surgeries were not to replace our ability to respond to urgent or critical enquiries (e.g. you can message/visit at any time via our usual methods and we'd respond) but if the enquiry wasn't urgent or critical, we could politely ask them to wait for a surgery and they get a face to face answer.
    The first surgeries were mental - but it highlighted certain trends as we kept getting similar questions so we could provide other ways of answering (we improved our internal site, we pushed a lot of information out, improved some wording on policies to make things clearer etc).
    As we continued, the surgeries became less busy; however it was always specifically noted in engagement surveys that employees liked the 'proactive' nature of HR, getting out and being seen by the business, and being proactive in overcoming communication issues. It worked well for us - that being said, we were a team so whilst someone was holding a surgery, others were continuing with their case load. I might see it struggling as a process if stand alone.
    Kind regards,
    Laura
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  • Hi Kelly,

    Yes - I introduced a surgery whereby I set myself up in a smallish meeting room in our main offices (so I travelled to the people) and people could drop in and out as they wished. If no one came, I could get on with some non-confidential work, but if they did they got my full attention in private without the ability to see anything else going on in the HR office. As an HR team, we all conducted surgeries on regular basis e.g. our Payroll & Benefits lady did surgeries, L&D did IDP surgeries etc.
    We firmly communicated that these surgeries were not to replace our ability to respond to urgent or critical enquiries (e.g. you can message/visit at any time via our usual methods and we'd respond) but if the enquiry wasn't urgent or critical, we could politely ask them to wait for a surgery and they get a face to face answer.
    The first surgeries were mental - but it highlighted certain trends as we kept getting similar questions so we could provide other ways of answering (we improved our internal site, we pushed a lot of information out, improved some wording on policies to make things clearer etc).
    As we continued, the surgeries became less busy; however it was always specifically noted in engagement surveys that employees liked the 'proactive' nature of HR, getting out and being seen by the business, and being proactive in overcoming communication issues. It worked well for us - that being said, we were a team so whilst someone was holding a surgery, others were continuing with their case load. I might see it struggling as a process if stand alone.
    Kind regards,
    Laura
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