Day 3 It's hump day! A day in the life of a HR Director

Wednesday 3 September
Ah hump day. The middle of the week. By lunch time you are on the down hill run to the weekend!

In celebration I do three things.

1. I decide to wear sequins because they scream glamour. Or streetwalker. Something like that. I wore a cute Sass & Bide black and white and gold sequin t-shirt. I matched it up with my recently procured short suit. Yes you heard it hear folks. I wore matching shorts and jacket today. Corporate like. I thought I looked pretty good until someone asked if my shorts are culottes. Maybe they are shorts on other people. Taller people. They may need to be taken up.

2. I eat out for lunch. Craazy! I ate at my desk on Monday and Tuesday but not today folks. Check out the spread. Crispy Thai chicken, rice and an egg. Mango juice and some weird soup which I didn't eat.

3. I decide to leave even earlier to beat the traffic. I left home at 6.50, picked up my work colleague and a coffee at 7 and arrived at work just before 8am. Still. Not Good.

Anyway, as it's well and truly into hump day now (7.18pm to be exact) we are heading out for drink for friends.

Lisa x

Day 2. The glamour continues. A day in the life of a HR Director.

Tuesday 2 September
5am - Arran's alarm goes off. Can't get back to sleep. Eventually get up at 5.45am, get dressed into my Country Road "glamour" outfit (seems to be free of food debris), and decide to work on an important legal document. Sit in the dark on the balcony with my laptop. Loser.

6.30am - Marife (our fabulous helper) offers to make me tea and toast. Score!
 
7am - leave the house in a new battle to beat the traffic and get to work at a reasonable time. Pick up a work college from Australia who is staying close by. Arrive at work after 8.30am. Ugh!



Traffic! Isn't it glam? How nice are the trees?

Morning - work on important legal document, work on bonus plan for one country, do some calculations in spread sheet (over the past few years I have improved my skills in excel but I still suck so this is NO fun), answer emails, send emails, speak to team members on phone.

Afternoon - Like the morning but with less human interaction. I like human interaction.

4.30 pm - decide to leave for home at 4.45pm to beat the traffic

5.05pm -leave for home. Drop off work colleague and head home for dinner with my boys.

8.30pm - Global HR Directors teleconference. I sit on our balcony enjoying the view of the pool and the high rise buildings around us.

9.00pm - Teleconference with 2 colleagues in the US to sort out an expat pay issue.

9.35pm - eyes falling out. Close down laptop and go to bed! That's enough glamour for one day, don't you think?

Lisa x

Non. Stop. Glamour. A day in the life of a HR Director

This is glamour....

I like to read fashion magazines. I do. I like the feel of them in my hand, the glossy adds with unattainable glamour and the sheer escapism of them. I like it when they include "a day in the life" stories. Often these stories depict the life of glamorous fashion designers, PR people and magazine editors in their designer shoes and clothes looking glamorous and perfect as they go about their day. It's all so glamorous.

I know what you are thinking. Being a HR Director is also glamorous right? In celebration of glamour I bring you the "week in a life of a HR Director" series.


Monday 1 September
5am - woken by Arran's alarm. He turns it off and goes back to sleep. I lie awake until the alarm goes off at 6.15am. This is how divorce happens. I snooze once because I like me a snooze and then get up at 6.25am. I put my hair in a bun because I can't be bothered doing anything else with my hair, slap some make-up on and put on my glamorous Sass & Bide outfit, which has some sort of white food related crap on both sleeves. Clean white crap off sleeves with soggy washer used to clean small boy faces last night. Are you feeling the glamour? Say goodbye to small boys and leave house with Arran and no breakfast.

7am - meeting at Aiden's school with Aiden's teacher to talk about his current behaviour, which is not great. He is hitting and shoving other kids and won't do as he is told. This conversation happens at a table the same height as my knees. Feel frazzled.

7.30am - meeting at Aiden's school with school nurse. Explain why glasses won't correct Aiden's vision impairment. Nurse promptly asks "why won't glasses help?". Feel a bit more frazzled and am now wondering about the nurse's qualifications. On the way back from Aiden's school spot Aiden and Charlie walking to school with our Helper Marife. Aiden doesn't have his school uniform on. Marife says he refused (thereby proving the behaviour his teacher just spoke about). Aiden is sent home to put his uniform on. Arran confesses that he forgot last Friday was plain clothes day and sent Aiden to school in his uniform. Mood has shifted to stabby.

8am - Breakfast with Arran to do post mortem on meetings at Aiden's school. Bad Singaporean service and coffee not helping with feeling stabby. Realise I have a meeting at work at 9.30am and that I'm not going to make it. Beyond stabby.

8.20am - Kiss husband goodbye without stabbing him. Drive to work. Traffic is even more hideous than a regular drive to the left hand end of the island.

9.35am - Arrive at work. Want to go home.

9.40am - 1pm: check emails, do teleconference with country MD who can't use teleconference numbers. Try to understand whether a management recharge for an expat is correct. It is and it's not really my job. Speak to an expat about his pay. Speak to a leader about a performance issue. Check and approve the weekly payroll for Australia.

1pm - drive up the road to get some lunch and bring back to eat at my desk

1.45 pm to 5.30pm Send overtime data to 2 leaders. Approve team leave request. Post mortem a performance issue. Speak to a manager about how and in what currency we are going to pay someone in Indonesia. I don't know. Catch up with my office buddy and fellow expat to Singapore. Document an expat employee's summary information. Agree to pick up a leader visiting Singapore tomorrow morning from his hotel. Get reminded of all the items on my to do list that haven't been started. Talk to my sister about Aiden's teacher meeting. Attempt to get on a call at 5.30 to discuss an employee performance issue. Call doesn't happen. Pack up.

5.45pm - drive home

6.50pm - arrive home. Aiden and Charlie are SO excited to see me that can't stop talking at me and over each other. Best part of the day. Eat dinner. Talk to Aiden about his behaviour. Write to teacher about Aiden's behaviour. Read stories and complete reading logs for Aiden and Charlie. Organise 3 cheques (for those who don't know a cheque is a piece of paper you fill out promising to let your bank give them money), extract $10 from Arran's wallet for "Little Scientists". Organise Arran to buy Melbourne Cup event tickets for 7 people. Fill out Aiden's school schedule so everyone knows what he needs to wear each day, which ECA (extra curricular activities) he has on, what time he needs to be picked up, what day is show and tell and what day he needs to return his library book.

8.30pm - sit down with WINE to read emails and prepare for teleconference with US on fixing an expat's pay, which I scheduled today. Realise no one has accepted my meeting invite. Check US public holidays. It's a public holiday. Reschedule meeting to tomorrow night. Pour another glass of wine.

10am - finish blog post. Contemplate going to bed OR watching the stupid big TV Arran bought on the weekend while I was out of the country. Might just drink more wine.

The war for talent. The battleground has moved.

Much has been written about the war for talent, the term and book made popular by McKinsey & Company and Steven Hankin back in the 90's. The premise is that the competition for attracting and retaining talented employees will intensify due to greater need for talented people (as our organisations and the environment they operate within become more complex) as well as changes to demographics (our ageing population) which will decrease the supply.

I think in part this war for talent still exists but the war is being waged on different battlegrounds

Since the war for talent was written there are potentially other factors at work. Many markets and organisations haven't recovered since the 2009 GFC, there is a decreasing supply of talent to the traditional organisation as well as the potential decrease in organisations as we know them. The one job for life notion is certainly dead and while sitting in Brisbane airport Saturday night (yes my social life is awesome) I read this article called "Kiss the corporation goodbye". It really rang true for me working in big organisations. It talks about everything being cut back, outsourced or temp workers being used to fill a short term need. I certainly feel that a large chunk of my role over the past few years has been spent helping to downsize and cost cut. No one likes to see me at their site.

Some of this is about business models that don't work any more, particularly in Australia and similar developed countries. With high cost of living and high wages, labour intensive manufacturing businesses are just about gone and unions who could have played a role in partnering with organisations to address the issue of low-skill, high-wage jobs, have failed in ensuring their members have ongoing employment. High wages is not the only force at work but they have been a contributing factor in these jobs disappearing from the lucky country.

I think other factors are also at work. Women returning from maternity leave find that either their job has gone (despite the myriad of legislation that supposedly protects it) or they either don't have the skills to negotiate an arrangement that also allows them to support their family requirements, or the traditional corporate environment can't/won't accommodate something different from the 9 to 5 dream (or nightmare) or their partner doesn't contribute equally in the home or childcare is too expensive or the waiting list too long. Or all of the above. I had a little rant about this issue here.

What do these women do? They either decide to look after their children full time, giving up their income, or they do something else like start their own business. I have just been on the Gold Coast with around 500 bloggers, mostly women, many who are making an income from their blogs. Not all have kids and are blogging as a way to have flexible work that allows them to look after their family, but many are. And you know what? These women have attributes that organisations are wanting to go to war over:

• They are smart. Super smart.
• They are organised
• They work bloody hard. Some 80 hours per week.
• They know what is important to them and what they want.
• They are passionate and engaged.
• They are usually working for a higher purpose. They want a different life to what is offered by large organisations. They have built a community of readers that they fiercely protect when brands and advertisers come offering the bucks to market to their readers. 
• They are self starters. They have initiative and are curious and courageous.
• They are inspiring. 

While corporations are struggling and downsizing and losing sight of values that mean something to their customers this particular group of women have moved off the battleground of the offices and towers of big cities and into the homes of (mainly) women. And the women are not at war. They are not competing. They are doing their own thing in their own way. They are collaborating and sharing and connecting and as a result changing traditionally held business models, and making money while they do it. I can't help but think that the traditional organisation has lost the war for this group of talent. Completely. 

Do what you love. Love what you do.....

I'm here at the Gold Coast attending the Problogger conference. I have been looking forward to this conference for months. I came last year for the first time and it was awesome. I wrote about networking while I was here. Anyway, I haven't been looking forward to this conference because it's nice to be across the road from the beach, although that is nice.

And it's not because I'm staying at the QT Hotel which I love. I get to stay in lots of hotels and this one is a fav because it has character. It's fun and cheeky. Check it out!

And it's not because I finally put my sneakers on my feet and actually went for a walk this afternoon so that their trip from Singapore to Perth to Brisbane to the Gold Coast, wasn't for nothing.

No. The reason I have been looking forward to this conference is because bloggers are passionate about what they do. They live their passion and they love talking about it. There is so much energy and excitement here. This is in contrast to some conferences I have been to. In particular people at HR type conferences like to whinge during the conference breaks. They like to talk about how they don't have big enough budgets and about how no one takes them seriously and stuff like that. I hate it. Doesn't happen at a blogging conference. Nope.

In my experience blogging conferences are about connecting and sharing and learning and passion. It's about sharing where you are from and what you blog about. It's about sharing where you are at on the blogging journey. Are you new at it? Have you been doing it for a few years?  Or are you pro? And it's ok wherever you are at. Sometimes blogging can be a lonely pursuit despite connecting with people through social media so I suspect bloggers also just like to get out and socialise! The welcome drinks at the bar tonight was packed!

The other excitement here is getting to see and meet some amazing people. I have already spied the very striking and talented Clare Bowditch heading to the lift (she was on Offspring, apart from being a great musician) and met Chantelle Ellem from FatMumSlim in the lift and she is gorgeous! I would say she thinks I'm an idiot at this point. Chantelle does the photo a day challenge on Instagram.

The conference starts tomorrow so I better get my hair washed and my outfit sorted.

Lisa xx

Exit Interviews

Ever been through an exit interview? You know, you have resigned your job and someone from HR, like me, gets in contact to ask you about your experience working at XYZ Company. Then someone from HR, like me, collates exit interview information and presents it to your Manager or group of Managers with the idea that they will take the information and use it to make XYZ Company a better place to work for all. That's the theory. It's one of those theories that HR people, like me, hold dear to their hearts.

Unfortunately the reality is somewhat different.

This week one of my lovely Sydney friends who has been working for a pretty crappy ordinary organisation secured a new role in a much less crappy ordinary organisation and you guessed it, has been asked to complete an exit interview. She wanted some advice. I wanted blog post inspiration. Here we are.

It would be fair to say that I feel a little, well a lot jaded about what happens with exit interview information. You see, HR people, like me, take the activity of understanding the experience of an employee and why they have chosen to leave an organisation quite seriously. HR people, like me, like to do things that make organisations good places to work. Feeding back exit interview information is one way to do this.

The trouble is that most managers and leaders tend to stay a while at organisations and some, not all don't realise that XYZ Company may not be the best most satisfying place to work. Some, not all don't realise or have forgotten that there may be other places employees want to work because, well...it's less shit!* So what happens is HR people, like me, present summarised exit interview information such as reasons for leaving, and  some managers and leaders, not all, reject the information. In these situations, HR people, like me, feel sad that the exiting employees have been honest and spent time helping to make an organisation a better place, but to no avail.

In one particularly memorable organisation, a senior leader actually lied about why another senior leader left. He said she left because she wanted to spend more time with her children and was spending too much time travelling and on teleconferences at all hours of the night. She was going to take some time out. She had actually found a much better organisation to work for, but the other leader couldn't comprehend that.

So what's my advice about participating in exit interviews?

1. You are under no obligation to participate in one. HR people, like me, appreciate when you do though, and you really have nothing to lose.
2. Be constructive. Doing a complete dump about how awful XYZ Company is doesn't really help anyone. Well it might help you a little. HR people, like me, are usually trying to do a good job for you and the company.
3. Burning your bridges is never a good idea so don't do the group email rant. The CEO and your work mates will just think you are a clown, even if they agree with what you have written!
4. Don't expect anything to change and you are leaving anyway

What is your experience with exit interviews?

*less shit is an important HR term

Change is as good as a holiday.

Well that's bullshit crap rubbish! I mean really. Lie on a beach drinking cocktails, or sell your house in 4 weeks? Sightsee in a new city, or pack up your life in 2 days? Go skiing for a week or move to another country with a 2 year old and 5 year old?

I mean what is more stressful in your opinion?

When I moved to Sydney 13 years ago, I got to do a little work with Expatriates. I helped organise cultural training for employees and their families moving to countries in Asia and also assisted with medical insurance claims. My experience left me with 2 indelible thoughts.

1. Expat employees are difficult, and
2. How amazing would it be to move to another country to live and work?

My first experience with Expat families was when the company I worked for, sent two employees to the Philippines, one as the head of the business and the other in a finance role. I helped organise the cultural training for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) and a couple. I was able to sit in on the training so I understood what it was all about, and subsequently desperately wanted to move to Manila with them! 

I have visited Manila since then and perhaps it wouldn't be my first choice for an Expat assignment but the idea that I could live and work in another country seemed exciting none the less.

Now I realise that perhaps those Expats were not so much difficult, they were just stressed! Actually, some of them were probably difficult but overall I just didn't understand the head exploding stress of packing up your whole life and moving to a different country where everything is slightly or very different, you don't understand the culture and you are still expected to do a good job. 

Over the past 4 weeks Arran and I have been in Singapore I have been reflecting on how we approached this change and how this approach has helped us through a difficult period. We approached the move with excitement and possibilities. We knew that we couldn't have the same style of housing that we had in Sydney so we decided to embrace condominium living. We knew we would be living in a much smaller place so we got rid of a lot of our furniture (not enough as it turns out) but we have the motivation of people visiting us soon will get us organized quickly in our smallish apartment!

Moving in day. Rainy and humid. View from our balcony

 

We have a view of the pool just 4 floors down, which someone else maintains as well as a kids playground and beautiful gardens. We have apartments all around us and instead of feeling overlooked we feel part of a big busy city. Sitting on our large-by-Singaporean-standards balcony drinking wine and blogging in the humid air is bliss!

View from our balcony as the sun sets

We have both started to make contact with people with know here. Me with a lovely colleague I met when working at Coca-Cola Amatil, who took me to just the kind of place I needed for coffee, and Arran a friend (and his wife) from high school, who invited us to their "condo" for drinks nibbles and dinner (just when we were getting sick of each others company). I also have other friends who are ready to catch up when we are. Both of us enjoyed a dinner with some of my new work mates in Singapore. Networks and contacts are important and in the 4 weeks we have,been here we have missed our social life and are looking forward to seriously ramping it up.

I'm sure if you approached an opportunity like this negatively you are never going to have fun or learn from it. If you expect things to be like home, they won't be. If you expect the same kind of housing with the same amount of room, you will be disappointed and if you expect people to be the same, well you are kidding yourself. And if you expect the weather to be the same and the ability to buy the same food and clothes well I guess you should give up*

How does this to relate to your career? Well I think it relates very well. Sometimes we end up in a place where we are not happy, and we don't really know how we got there and we don't know how to get out and move forward. This is a miserable existence and when I have been there myself my health suffered and so did those around me.  In these circumstances it's hard to get positive. The ability to make a deal with yourself about what you can learn for the experience and how long you are going to put with where you are can make a massive difference. It can get you focused with purpose in the short term.

I'm not feeling this way about my career. I'm generally happy. How could I not be? I have reached a  career goal and I still have so much to learn including the best way to work with a new business leader. Everything I touch at the moment seems hard and I don't know the answer, but I guess I will get there, as I have done before. I have never set up a payroll in South Korea, but I'm learning. I have never supported employees in the Middle East or Kazakhstan but I'm learning. Actually I'm still learning to even spell Kazakhstan! What did we do before spell check?

So tell me about when your career has been hard for you. How did you get through it?

Lisa xx

*I have already felt like giving up trying to buy swimmers. I'm only human.