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How are you all doing?

Steve Bridger

The tweet below prompted me to ask this question. You are so busy. You may be feeling undervalued.  

It has been two years since Samantha asked this question, which generated a wonderfully open and supportive conversation days before the first lockdown.

 Are any other HR people feeling a bit lonely in all this :( 

So much has happened since then and while in some ways the pandemic accelerated a pre-exisiting direction of travel with regards remote working and technology, so much was new - not least 'furlough', which we were all talking about here. But there have also been deep structural changes and challenges - for example, in recruitment and retention. Now many of you are considering how you can support employees through the cost-of-living crisis. 

Amid all this, we need to look after ourselves and support one another - our peers. 

So... how are you doing?

  _

Parents
  • It's definitely been quite a difficult couple of years. In the first lockdown, my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We knew it was ultimately going to be terminal from an early stage, and I made the 'interesting' decision to change jobs earlier this year, knowing that time was running out. I took a month off to spend with her between jobs and (obviously) had Covid for two weeks of that precious time. She went into a hospice just before I started in my new role, and died a week later.

    The new job has significant legacy issues to resolve, no history of HR whatsoever, and a team that have been really personally affected by the issues of the last 2 years. Equally, the challenge is good, the perspective that my own bereavement has given me is probably quite healthy, and I'm making progress. Importantly, the people I'm working with are caring and supportive, and that makes the world of difference. And on the mental health side, I'm training for the London marathon in October, in support of the hospice who cared for my mum. I'm not one of those people who gets massive endorphins from running, but the time and space it gives me is healthy, I think.

    And this community is something I always come back to - it's such a help to share and discuss the issues that affect us all. Thanks to everyone who does so: I really appreciate it.
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  • It's definitely been quite a difficult couple of years. In the first lockdown, my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We knew it was ultimately going to be terminal from an early stage, and I made the 'interesting' decision to change jobs earlier this year, knowing that time was running out. I took a month off to spend with her between jobs and (obviously) had Covid for two weeks of that precious time. She went into a hospice just before I started in my new role, and died a week later.

    The new job has significant legacy issues to resolve, no history of HR whatsoever, and a team that have been really personally affected by the issues of the last 2 years. Equally, the challenge is good, the perspective that my own bereavement has given me is probably quite healthy, and I'm making progress. Importantly, the people I'm working with are caring and supportive, and that makes the world of difference. And on the mental health side, I'm training for the London marathon in October, in support of the hospice who cared for my mum. I'm not one of those people who gets massive endorphins from running, but the time and space it gives me is healthy, I think.

    And this community is something I always come back to - it's such a help to share and discuss the issues that affect us all. Thanks to everyone who does so: I really appreciate it.
Children