To ask what HR actually is?

[SummerDays95]

So I'm looking for a complete career change from teaching, been doing it for 7 years since I left uni. I've been looking at jobs in companies that I like the sound of as a starting point, as I have absolutely no clue! HR admin assistant has come up quite a lot, and I like the sound of it and I think it would suit my skillset. I don't know much about it and don't think I'm in a position to apply just yet, but would like to learn. Day to day, what does it involve, and what sort of qualifications would I need? I've never worked in admin before!

Examples

“You can’t wear that, it’s not policy”

All while Hun is wearing the exact same shoes…

By the above I mean all the conversations with staff are handled by the Manager. Other than having an HR witness to a call, I've led every single interaction they were involved in.

Where I work there are lots of aspects to HR relating to staff. Learning and development, pensions, payroll, Health & Safety, equality and diversity, Union representation and I am sure there are more. All have different skills and then there are the "front facing" people dealing with staff face to face, leavers, starters, recruitment, wellbeing, to name but a few. It's worth thinking about what you will be interested in and looking for something with "assistant" or similar in the job title if you want to escape the stress of being in charge for a while! One of my colleagues was previously a teacher and has been able to advise on and develop some of the internal training provision with and without delivering training.

Office manager, personal assistant or other admin roles are all much better options than HR imo.
I know you said you are looking for a role where you just leave it at work and don't want to be too invested in the job as your identity, but...when someone tells me they work in HR, I do (perhaps unfairly) automatically peg them as a certain "type" in my mind, and it's along the lines of the unfavourable descriptions from PP. Usually someone pretty tone deaf who is convinced they are "a people person" and that they are super busy, important and professional and feel the need to tell you this with lots of corporate guff thrown in for good measure.

You forgot "deal with an overstretched and burnt out workforce by putting on webinars on mental health and wellbeing in their lunch hour"

agree with all the other posters here who have pointed out that HR are there to protect their employer from legal claims. they are not there to neccesarily make the workplace a better one, or genuinely care about wellbeing, these things just occasionally overlap - they're being paid to do a job that the company needs in order to function.

on the other hand i've yet to meet an HR person that has an ounce of common sense or (in my particular career) even a basic comprehension of what we make, how we make profit and what our engineers actually do. it's a constant shock to me how senior some pretty stupid people can go in a company if they wave the HR flag. and i say that as someone in a senior leadership role - how they are sitting on the same bench as some of my CFO, COO colleagues i have no idea. they don't bring anywhere near the same skill or value to the organisation.

I used to work in oil and gas.

You forgot nail filing, and collecting postcards from everyone else in the dept from their lovely holidays.

The OP may also be out if they can turn a computer on and remember their password to log it in

So it's a bit mixed 😁I like the look of office manager or pa, so I'll look into those. I did like the sound of legal secretary but that might be something a bit more long term for when the kids are a bit older. Thanks all for your help, starting from scratch with a mortgage and kids is terrifying!

Is there actually a skills shortage? Reading into this it sounds more likely a funding shortage, curious to know

It is a made up job for failed prefects.

Be wary of weekend work if you sign up to be an Office Manager, they are usually the one there organising whatever needs to be changed while everyone is at home for the weekend.

Wowzers, I must be in the wrong HR team if you can get away with being a postcard collector in some places 😁

I’d agree it’s not a pastoral role, and I would not describe myself as a people person (and my family would howl with laughter at the idea). It’s busy and lively if the company hires a lot / is large. Otherwise it is no busier or quieter than any other department.

A well-functioning HR team “should”:

• coordinate recruitment, new starters and leavers


• plan for providing the people and skills that the business plan needs for the company


• be involved in conflict resolution, formally if necessary


• design job roles, and team structures, that fit what the business needs


• design and deliver training


• create and advise on workplace policies and legal compliance


• coordinate performance management - spotting and developing potential, addressing under-performance


• sometimes also do payroll and pensions (sometimes that’s Finance)

The wellbeing agenda often gets dumped at HR’s door but I’m not convinced it’s the ideal fit.

An HR admin assistant will most likely be doing a lot of scheduling interviews, checking references, setting up new starters / processing leavers, updating policies, adding docs to employee files etc. I would personally try similar temp roles to see if you like it before committing to a permanent jump.

Absolutely this! There's a post-grad diploma in careers asvising you can do in a year (whilst working if you have evenings and some weekends free) that would get you a decent level job using your skills.

I am a HR advisor. When I did HR admin work it was sending contracts to new starters and completing pre employment checks. Processing changes to terms and conditions on our HR system and issuing letters to employees to confirm the change. Processing leavers. Raising PO numbers and processing invoiced. Completing references for former employees. A lot of HR admin work you don't really need actual HR experience for imo

You’ve had a lot of good advice from @anotherneutralname and others.

As you can see from some of the other responses though, there are a lot of nasty misconceptions. People who mistakenly believe it is a pastoral role and people are not being as “nice” as they should.

Given it’s a role that has historically been filled by women, there is also a lot of “Karen” type misogyny flung at it too (tropes of filing nails rather than working, gossiping, collecting postcards etc).

At it’s heart, HR is about managing the people-assets of a company. Recruiting and retaining the best talent at the best price. Managing the supply and demand of labour and skills through the business. Part of the hatred of the role is that people don’t like the dispassionate nature of that.

How about Internal Comms? That way you get to use your writing skills, it’s very people centric, most of the subject matter will be quite light and in my company at least, it’s something you can put down and switch off at the end of the day.

'You forgot "deal with an overstretched and burnt out workforce by putting on webinars on mental health and wellbeing in their lunch hour"'

😂spot on!

In the NHS HR write lots of flexible working policies that managers can ignore and 'advise' managers who have to do all the actual people management.

HR are extremely unpopular, and I say that as an Accountant!

Is there actually a skills shortage? Reading into this it sounds more likely a funding shortage, curious to know

There is a huge skills shortage across all sectors that employ careers advisers. The shortage is exacerbated in schools and colleges because they don't pay particularly well (which is a funding issue) but we're seeing it in sectors that do pay well too, in particular universities.

Careers and Employability is a key strategic priority for universities and those teams get serious investment but they're struggle to recruit as there aren't enough qualified people.

If you enjoy working with people then I'd suggest enrolling in an MA in career development and I'd guarantee you'd have have a job before you'd even completed the course.

The function exists for many reasons and has many different sub functions:

HR business partnering
Reward
Data and Analytics
HR technology
Operations
Employee relations
Performance, Talent, L&D etc

It requires a wide range of skills sets - many of my colleagues have legal backgrounds but it can vary depending on the specialisation.

HR is not for you then as the hours are long and it's hard work. I suspect you need to look into this a little bit more.

Listen to @Flowertop845 who has actually done the job, vs some advice that is either out of date or very niche (guarantee that hardly any HR admins know Excel macros), or very bitter.

I'm not in HR but often work with them - like any job you get good and bad, and it is definitely fair to say that you do have to be conscious that if push comes to shove you're there for the business over the employees. However, good businesses know that having the right people is critical to doing well, so it's not all the type of supervisor stuff that public sector people describe here. I've worked with HR teams who have dealt with and fired bullying managers, hired in great new people, ensured that employees have access to funds for training and development, or more recently worked late for days to rework benefits so that US employees had coverage for terminations post the Roe v Wade overturning. Yes, more senior HR people (not admin or training people) do also have to deal with performance issues, tribunal cases and redundancies, but being able to handle these well and with respect for the individuals going through this can make a big difference for those involved.

Because there are (frankly) quite a lot of people in HR with limited idea of what the business is doing, if you do work moderately hard (less than you are now as a teacher!) and/or are more ambitious, you do also have a good chance of promotion, including part time. Senior HR leaders are incredibly important to a business and work closely with leaders.

As some of the replies show, you'll also have a v different time if you're working in a fast growing tech company or in an NHS post or a call centre.

However, I think it's a far better path than your other suggestions of office manager or general admin, in terms of long term potential. You can get professional qualifications, it's part time friendly, and there are many pathways, from talent/recruitment to benefits management, to learning & development. And dealing with small children will have given you the skills to take on even CEOs (maybe especially CEOs)... good luck!

Sorry but I disagree with this. As a HR admin and also as a coordinator I always finished on time each day and never took work home with me. Harder work and potentially longer hours come into play with the more senior roles

Training & managing personality clashes, bullying & failing at their role employees etc seemed to be the bulk of it from a friend in HR. She didn't enjoy it. I should also say I've had a lot of interaction with HR in huge corporates & very often their legal knowledge of employment law is out of date when it comes to maternity, disability & bullying. I've several times had to send links to current employment law info from the myriad of legal websites that exist, after being sent in writing, inaccurate info. They don't seem to train their own Dept ....

@Flowertop845 I've worked in HR for over 20 years. I know what I'm taking about 🙂

*talking