What key activities are you currently completing in your role?

Being (sort of)  retired is hard.  Trying to keep a diary is difficult as I no longer have to simply turn up at 9am and clock off at 5pm.   Now I can do what I want,  I need a diary now otherwise I miss things out  I was meant to be doing and not having to turn up to work means I'm undisciplined enough to coast from one thing to another without  achieving enough or being told off - except by Mrs P.  

When I get around to it I squeeze in hillwalking, canoeing, birdwatching and a bit of tour guiding.  

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?

Managing my time and money against what I'd like to do before I can no longer do them.  Keeping fit is one challenge.  To finish my tax return for last year and keeping focused.  So far this morning I've failed in that.  Memories getting bad.  I can't remember where I've kept stuff and I got bored too easily.  Must go now! - the dog (and myself) need a walk on the cliff. "Where's my binoculars?"

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?

None I can see or anticipate.   Thats a major problem.  Maybe!

What is keeping you up at night? (hopefully nothing, but...)

Wondering why I didn't do what I should have done yesterday and trying to ovoid  the obvious (whatever that was)..

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?
Reviews of pay and pensions for different groups of staff; complex subject access request; staff survey and related actions; managing change.

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?
See above! Trying to make things better without the budget that would be needed to do it all in the way you'd want to. Needing to plan for and respond to things beyond your control - but will nonetheless impact.

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?
Legislative change that will impact on income with a future change in government, and how we manage that as positively as we can.

What is keeping you up at night?
The impossibility of balancing different priorities, when you have a genuine desire to do the right thing by the people you work with. I've always chosen to work in a relatively small organisation, so I'm close to the people whose jobs I support. For the first time, I'm thinking that I'd like a bit of distance!

Hmmm. That all reads as pretty downbeat, but in truth I love what I do. But I would definitely admit that I'm ready for my summer break!

Nina

What key activities are you currently completing in your role? - Currently on my plate are facilitating our half-year performance reviews and competency assessments (a completely new approach that we're using for the first time!), and working my way through a simultaneous investment process and the acquisition of another company. Piece of cake!

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?- The biggest challenge is change management - with so much change in the business, it's so difficult to keep everyone feeling safe and secure, informed to the right level etc. The last thing we want is people jumping ship, but change makes everyone feel nervous.

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months? - The very rapid onboarding of new employees. It's tough enough when you recruit a new person to get them embedded into the business, and the acquisition will drop 20 at once, all coming with their previous baggage and their own concerns about their company's new ownership.

What is keeping you up at night? - Absolutely nothing, I'm knackered. It's waking up in the morning that's the issue!

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?
Staff Survey and facilitating actions resulting from it. I think line management training is required (nothing in place at the moment) so this needs attention. Review of handbook (6 years out of date)

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?
As a part-timer, I can sympathise with David's challenges :) as regards my non-working days! But for the working days: prioritising. Work seems to breed when I'm not looking so my days are always super busy (and not always with interesting stuff). I still consistently underestimate how long it will take me to do things.

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?
Our staff survey actions. It's mostly about mental health and wellbeing, and I feel we're tinkering 'round the edges too much - lots of info on how to deal with stress but not sufficient focus on organisational / job design to prevent stress (and resulting conflicts) from happening in the first place. Also persuading people who've done a job for donkey's years to engage with training once I get 'round to designing it. Retention - we're a business of two halves, one of which is hospitality, so keeping hold of our kitchen and front of house teams is an ongoing challenge.

What is keeping you up at night?
Thankfully, nothing. Loving my job (and I've had some bad ones).

In reply to David Perry:

Grateful you still find time to contribute so frequently to our Community, David Perry

Hello,

I’m doing fine, thank you!

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?

1. Developing comprehensive L&D frameworks for all departments and roles within the business.
2. Maximising the use of apprenticeship levy funds to support employee development.
3. Implementing a self-directed learning approach using Specific Learning Books tailored to various roles.
4. Formulating a new training strategy to align with the company's evolving needs and goals.

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?
1. Operating with a limited budget, which restricts the scope and scale of L&D initiatives.
2. Managing a high volume of tasks and projects, which can be overwhelming and difficult to prioritise at times…

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?

1. My biggest challenge might be employee engagement and participation in L&D programs, especially when it comes to a self-directed learning approach.

2. I need to develop an effective metric and/or method to measure the impact and ROI of L&D initiatives ( that’s the big one; if you have any suggestions please feel free to share some light )

What is keeping you up at night?
I’m slightly concerned ( I can sleep at night :) ) about whether I will be able to obtain enough resources to deliver high-quality L&D programmes within the confines of a tight budget.

Have a great day
Alex

In reply to Steve Bridger:

Brilliant answer Steve. I manage to wander from activity to activity quite easily. I still haven't finished my tax return...... :-)

First seven months in pure HR completed & I think I've covered everything that is expected in this kind of role.  As a stand-alone I've been massively grateful to all sorts of outside assistance, notably things I've learned by reading threads on here.

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?

Final round of recruiting, largely for maternity cover but also a last-minute resignation of a member of staff on probation. 

Sorting out my filing after the other recruiting I've been doing.

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?

Trying to find good quality candidates for the recruitment bearing in mind the vacancies are all for teachers.  Those available for September would have had to give notice before the end of the Easter holidays.

Supporting our Head with employee engagement and getting the team firing on all cylinders from September after a bruising time since January.

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?

Change of political landscape.  Thankfully I'm no longer in a position where I need to balance the books, but the potential 20% VAT on fees will make all sorts of HR processes and expectations pretty difficult.

Not a challenge but an opportunity, we are doing a deep dive into our culture and values over the summer.  We think we know them but we're trying to quantify & see if we live up to them!  This started with the pupils being asked what they thought.  When that's done I can then start revamping all our JDs with the values at heart.

What is keeping you up at night?

Strangely enough not something at work, but in my voluntary work where someone is making life very difficult for the rest of the team.  The behaviours exhibited, had it happened at work, would have led to a PIP at the least and quite likely summary termination!

In reply to Matthew:

Really good to have you as a member of our Community, Matthew.

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?

It's mostly about Reward, right now, and trying to unpick the consequences of a series of recent legal cases so far as they impact upon the contractual pay and reward of public sector employees, to try to find a solution that is legally compliant, acceptable to the unions, fair to employees but doesn't actually dig the fiscal hole any deeper than it absolutely has to.

It's a bloody nightmare.

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?

See above.

However, what makes it worse is what I have already been beating the drum about here and elsewhere for at least the last twelve months: the standard of management knowledge and skills among mid-level managers has reached a shocking state. And by no means only in the public sector. If anything, the private sector seems to be even worse. Ten years ago, we could hardly move for MBAs, MILMs and MCIMs. And if they didn't have institutional membership, at the very least they had two or three Level 3 qualifications under their belts.

But it is increasingly rare to meet managers with actual qualifications or undertaking qualifications. It is becoming completely routine for even junior HR staff to be coaching even quite senior managers on the most basic of management tasks, like how to conduct sickness absence review or compose a SMART objective. It feels like too many managers have failed upwards, bouncing out of struggling in one management role into a more senior role without any of the knowledge to be able to coach their subordinates.

And it's not that they don't want to learn. They will stay on Teams calls for hours talking through their various issues, getting walked through the policies, and having the fundamental principles of management explained to them with riveted attention. But persuading the budget holders to release the money and the time for them to get this knowledge in a structured, educational setting that gives them an actual qualification to rest on is next to impossible.

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?

What is keeping you up at night?

Juggling too many complex projects with zero job security. But that's what you get for being a consultant/contractor.

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?
My biggest priority at the moment is onboarding the newest member of my team in Mongolia. We're also setting up a new entity in Vietnam and so am in the process of moving our local teams over to new local contracts.

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?
Our Mongolian office is growing the quickest however we have a lack of senior presence out there and very inexperienced management. I completely second Robey's observation - there is a real gap in management skills in general and it's hard to convince a small business to put money into this (even though I believe it would have an incredible impact). In the UK, we've managed to plug this a bit with Apprenticeship levy funds but where we're growing our offices internationally, this is proving a lot harder and it's taking up a huge amount of time in growing ER issues and is really affecting the potential of the local teams. People want to do a good job and to do the right thing but for a small HR team, it's hard to get out of the weeds to pull something wider together (and training is very much not my strength!).

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?
Funding. I believe we'll start looking ahead to 2025 and making adjustments to our plans in order to keep momentum going. We've made various cuts over the last 18 months so finances are always top of mind (which also speaks to the current challenges above).

What is keeping you up at night?
How to improve the effectiveness of my team so that I don't feel the pressure is constantly sitting with me.

Thank you for asking Steve!

What key activities are you currently completing in your role?
A rash of recruitment – I work within a department where some tasks are devolved from our central HR, and so for me ‘onboarding’ means not only ensuring contracts/HR records/IT accounts are set up, but also dealing with a lot of queries from higher level incoming staff (relocation, visas, pensions, preparation for teaching in the new academic year, can I have my email account set up early, etc… I find some higher level staff very needy). Setting up contracts for sessional teaching staff. Preparing for the start of the new academic year in October, including inductions.

What key challenges are you currently facing in your role?
With a massive professional staff transformation project going on at my workplace, in order not to be sucked into changes going on in our central HR, and so that my job is not at risk, my line manager has had to change my job title by taking out the “HR” in it. It’s the most ludicrous thing – even more so because departments were told staff dealing with HR work in departments wouldn’t be affected. Goal posts are being moved constantly, and there’s a sense that project managers don’t really know what they’re doing (another example – arranging to meet with all HRBPs as their jobs are likely to change, but at the last minute cancelling the meeting because project managers realised they didn’t know what HRBPs do!).

What challenges can you see coming around the corner in the next few months?
I work with a senior academic colleague on academic staff development (probation, promotion, sabbaticals, mentoring…) and a new staff member is taking over in September. The current one has been a nightmare to work with and I’ll have the challenge of easing someone new into the role (there's a fair amount of managing-up involved). The new person seems super organised, and I get on well with them, so I’m hoping it will go better than the last one.

What is keeping you up at night?
This happens maybe once or twice a week for me. I’ve been looking for other jobs, but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I’m age is against me – I’ve applied for internal jobs at my company, and have had some interviews, but had no luck and little constructive feedback. I then discover those who got the jobs are always much, much younger than me. Applying for external jobs, especially via agencies, is proving futile (if unsuccessful with one job I rarely hear from the same agency again) and I feel that unconscious bias and ageism may be happening, but how can you prove it? As I have an MA and BA, I’ve deleted “O-levels” from my CV, in case that’s a giveaway that I’m not young! Also, with the “HR” being taken out of my current job title, I worry that this may impact on future applications. I’d hope employers look at the content of applicants’ jobs, but not having “HR” in my title could potentially be an instant turn off. I’ve sought a mentor internally, but senior HR staff don’t seem to want to bother with me. I have to say that I tried a few times via my local CIPD and never heard back. I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment, and although I’m CIPD qualified, highly capable, feel that still have a lot to give, I’ve become quite disillusioned with HR.

In reply to Matthew:

very insightful comment

In reply to Rose:

Rose, sorry to hear you are having a tough time. I have very limited experience of the education world but enough to know it is not for me. Is contracting or interim work a possibility?

In reply to Anka:

Hi Anka,

The point you raised concerning "job design to prevent stress in the first place" and "tinkering around the edges" are themes that I frequently encounter in my work.

If you give a highly competent worker too much work, eventually they will become overwhelmed, become stressed and make mistakes. A key issue that organisations fail to focus on isn sustainable workloads.

It is possible to identify metrics to track that would highlight when a person's workload is unsustainable and it's disappointing that organisations do not do so. Maybe certain organisation's don't want to know...