Does anyone work in HR?

[MagicJigsaw]

I’m currently a (trainee) solicitor but I’m not enjoying my job at all. My hours are really long and the working environment just very intense. I loved the old 9 to 5 office jobs I did before this but in my current role I find myself dreading Monday.

I’ve really enjoyed doing employment law so I’m wondering whether to go into HR. I was wondering if anyone who worked in HR could give me some info on what it’s like? Are the hours typically 9 to 5? Is the working environment intense or slower paced? (In my old jobs I could sometimes power through all my work and have a bit of downtime.) Is the work generally difficult / repetitive / administrative? (Sounds odd but I much prefer repetitive, administrative work - I feel exhausted by all the mental energy I sometimes have to use pouring over some of the more complicated points of tax law…!) Given that I have experience in employment law, could I realistically go in at around £50k or would I need to start again from the bottom?

Would be extremely grateful for any and all experiences. Thank you!

Hi, there's quite a few threads about career changing to HR on here if you do an advanced search. But I'll give it a go answering your questions:

-Hours: varies a lot depending on role and sector, I'm middle/senior HR in public sector and find it totally fine, I don't do a strict 9-5, there are times when I have to or choose to work late or start early and there is some travel involved (much, much less than pre-Covid though) but my hours probably average out as not more than 40-45 per week and I have a lot of flexibility within that to work how, when and where I choose (mix of WFH and in the office). My junior team members work much more of a fixed working pattern in that they aren't expected to go over their 37.5 at all and we're respectful of working hours but they too have a lot of flexibility as I trust them to get on with the job and if they need to make a couple of hours for an appointment or a child-related thing or whatever they just work around that. Of course not saying all HR is the same, there are roles (e.g. answering helplines) where you are much more tied to a desk and you encounter nightmare micro-managing control freak managers in HR like you do in any other profession but on the whole the flexibility is one of the best things about an HR career.

-Pace/type of work/environment: Again depends a huge amount on organisation/industry, role and seniority. Entry level and junior roles tend to be pretty administrative and predictable, and some types of job/parts of the profession stay that way, for instance Reward or Workforce Planning jobs are very statistical and reporting based, and in-house recruitment is largely administrative/compliance focussed (nb this is very different to working as a recruiter for an agency which is essentially a sales job). It's one of the major misconceptions about HR that you need to be a 'people person' and it's all fluffy and cuddly and about engaging with people - there are some roles where that's closer to the truth but actually a lot of HR is more concerned with the workforce as a whole than individuals and/or is very compliance and policy based, and we don't very often dispense tea and sympathy either . There's plenty of room for introverts, data nerds and process oriented people in the profession. However in any HR role where you want to progress to more senior management levels, and certainly in Employee Relations which is where your legal skills will best fit there is a lot of variation and unpredictability, you need to be a strategic thinker and able to deal with all the issues that come from conflict and unhappy people of various kinds (just like in law) and you need a lot of diplomacy, persuasion, 'people skills' for want of a better word (of the harder edged kind than the soft and cuddly sort although it does generally help to not be a total arsehole ), plus once you progress from junior grades you will probably need to line manage a team of your own which comes with all the usual headaches!

-Brings me on to salary - I'm afraid £50k starting is potentially a little ambitious without CIPD qualifications or any direct HR experience (your legal skills and knowledge definitely relevant but HR management is a different thing). You might perhaps find an organisation that will take you on as a sort of in-house lawyer to manage ET claims and other ER issues at a lawyer's salary, but TBH I'm guessing you want to move away from that kind of thing plus any organisation that has that many ET claims or grievances/disciplinaries is probably not a happy place to work. If you want to move into HR proper it's more a case of starting over, graduate entry roles or training schemes would be more like £30-£35k and are quite competitive - you could probably progress back up to £50k within 5 -10 years or so though with your existing experience and some hard work.

Other career changes you could consider if you are prepared to start over and would probably come with a higher starting salary - finance, compliance/governance, IT/software development? Happy to answer any more questions about HR though. Good luck!

Don't go into HR if you at all idealistic and think that it's about doing the right thing. It's about protecting the organisation and outrageous, illegal behaviour from managers at the expense of (often) low paid powerless staff, using every dodgy and stalling tactic in the book, knowing full well that staff cannot afford (financially and in terms of their health) to pursue justice. This is my experience in several organisations. It used to be a noble profession, now it's just ruthless and cut-throat.

That said, if you go into policy and strategy, if that's your thing, you are a bit protected from all that.

Thank you so much for the informative response, this is really helpful.