What is your HR job like?

[UghNewJobNeeded]

I work in HR and started a new role before Christmas. It’s a senior specialist post and I’ve never known anything like it! I’m absolutely burnt out, working ridiculous hours just to get the minimum done. I’ve worked in a similar level before and wasn’t expecting something like this, so I wanted to gauge perspective. I was with my old company for around 3 years and this is or should have been a sideways move - I wasn’t looking to move but the offer seemed amazing… such a regret.

I’m largely back to back with meetings and so the evenings/weekends are when I get my jobs done. There is only me in this team and I’ve already reviewed/broached about additional resource into but it’s been a flat out no! I’m interviewing currently, but worried that this is how companies are now - this is not how it was sold to me.

If you work in a senior HR role, do you have balance with your company or is it this full on?

I've worked in quite a few companies in recent years and I'd say that its probably an even split as to how full on it is. My last place was a nightmare, but that's because the company was so inefficient, that everything was done in the most convoluted way possible. Current role is a much slower pace, possibly a bit dull, but I don't mind for now.

I think HR isn't easy to quantify in terms of workload so things can get piled on you. Plus, you can end up getting pulled into something that isn't strictly HR just because you know how to deal with people.

The biggest alarm bells for me are when a HR team has a high turnover, but you normally don't know that until you are in post.

Another alarm bell is over ambitious HR Teams who use all the buzz words and Iatest initiatives, but can't even get the basics right.

I think you just need to go with your instincts at interviews - look at that dynamics of the people interviewing you eg how they interact together and pick up on any comments they make when interviewing you.

Completely agree.

I think that what has happened here. is the previous person may have said yes to everything.it also looks like they enabled the business to also contract/sign up for activity which has to be delivered by my area. However nobody told me (not I the handover) and I keep finding things out of the woodwork so close to external deadlines - it’s crating unnecessary pressure. I went to the business to understand what needed to be delivered, they gave me a full list (it wasn’t).

It’s a bit of a mess, but fingers crossed I can move on quickly!