Any HR professionals out there?

[JudgeRulesNutterButter]

I’m considering a career switch to HR, post DC.

I have experience managing people but haven’t worked in any field relevant to HR. But I like the idea of blending people management skills, a bit of law and the potential to gain a professional qualification.

What’s it like at the coalface? What do I need to know?

[dietstartsmonday]

Honestly I would like to move out of HR. I am an HR manager at a small /meduim company and its hard work.
Mind you having kids is good practice for it

[whirlygirly]

I normally love it but if I told you the shit I've dealt with today, you wouldn't believe me.
I went into it for similar reasons to you.

[whirlygirly]

I employ my parenting skills on a daily basis

[dietstartsmonday]

Sounds like we have had a similar day!!

[PilchardsonToast]

Honestly it's really hard going at times. I've worked on HR for over 15yrs and there's not much I haven't seen but it's still very emotionally draining sometimes. I think it very much depends on your sector though - I used to work for a tech company and it was great all about employee engagement and development, I work in the construction industry now and it's much more about constant cost reduction which you need to be pretty hardened to not be affected by day in day out!

[JudgeRulesNutterButter]

whirlygirly you’re tantalising me there...

Thanks for replies. I’m interested to hear more about what you do day-to-day, if anyone is up for sharing...?

[maxelly]

Hello, HR manager for the public sector here, what would you like to know?

I enjoy my work overall, obviously there are ups and downs, good bits and hard bits like in any career but generally I would say more positive than negative and I would recommend it although there are challenges too. I think a lot depends on the company you work for though, there are some shoddy employers out there and I can imagine it would be miserable working for one of them, particularly if you are the sole HR person...

The nice thing about HR particularly in larger organisations is that there are a lot of different roles - what part of HR are your particularly keen on?

There is recruitment and payroll which are more administrative and require good attention to detail and excellent customer/people skills.

Employee relations and operational HR management which need a firm grasp of employment law, resilience, good people skills, a cool head in difficult situations!

Learning and development, OD, staff engagement which are the 'fluffier'/nicer side of HR, helping people grow and develop, getting the best out of people etc. A whole different skillset there!

If this is your first job in HR you will probably be looking at more of an administrative/entry level type role, which hopefully would give you some exposure to all aspects of the work of HR and let you decide which direction you want to go in? Are you thinking of taking a CIPD qualification as this is another good way to understand the breadth of the profession although obviously an expensive step if you are self funding. Can you look at getting some work experience or volunteering in an HR department?

[jacksy2205]

I love bring HR I really do! I've worked in HR for 10 years now and before that I was in recruitment which I really disliked because of the sales targets.
It sounds a bit 'extra' but I love the side of my job where I'm helping people, mediating and listening to their problems and giving them advice, however this can be seldom depending on the client base and type of company you work for, cultures vary and so can the type of HR work you do.
Smaller companies you'll have a taste of everything I found, but predominantly will do payroll and recruitment and reports, larger organisations will have larger teams so you can specialise, like now where I do advisory.
There are downsides of course and where I said about helping people, problems can vary from having a bad day to working with someone who's having a clinical mental breakdown which as said by others is difficult, having to then help and manage their support as well as helping their manager/team to understand and how to also support the individual.
There is also helping people to 'exit' the company..... always difficult, especially if you live in the area you work, you can bump into ex colleagues down your local tesco

[JudgeRulesNutterButter]

what would you like to know?

My current wish would be to get a part time HR admin job, study for a CIPD qualification, and then hopefully have the basis for developing that into more of a career/move up the ladder a bit as my DC get older. Does that sound feasible? I could definitely consider self-funding the first CIPD course if it was worth it to kickstart things.

I’ve got no HR experience but I’ve had ten years’ experience of managing people/leading teams/recruitment/performance management experience, I’m hoping that will be considered relevant- do you think it will, even though I’ve never had an actual HR role?

what part of HR are your particularly keen on?

The parts of my last job that I found most satisfying were the employee relations aspects- I had a few tricky situations to manage and it felt really rewarding to negotiate and work through those.

Thanks for the help!

[jacksy2205]

Yes I think that sounds really reasonable! It may be an idea to find a full time role to see how you like it first before a qualification, it's expensive!

Your experience is really relevant, sounds like you just have to learn the employment law rules and regs, but in a lot of roles you'll all ready have good policies and processes in place so will pick that up as you go on. I think you should look for advisor/jnr advisor roles, or roles like office manager where you do HR on the side, just so you're not starting from the bottom, sounds like you dont need to.