A career in Human Resources (HR) can be exciting, with so many different elements to the job.
From being in charge of screening and recruiting new employees, to facilitating training, Human Resource specialists play a very important role in handling all the personnel issues within an organisation.
Former Chisholm student Fiona says she “fell” into HR at her legal firm, which has just under 70 employees. When an opportunity arose to move into HR, Fiona jumped on it and completed the Diploma of Human Resources Management at Chisholm. She has never looked back.
“I’d been with the company I’m at for just over seven years and moved through all different departments, and eventually wound up in HR and operations,” she says. “I enjoy getting that balance of looking after the employer’s interests, but also those of the employee. There are always challenges, especially with COVID, but there’s also a lot of growth for me.”
Here’s what a typical day on the job looks like for Fiona.
8.30am
Fiona usually starts her working day at 8.30am.
The first thing she does is check her schedule to see what meetings she has throughout the day. Often, she will have meetings with various departments.
“I’m probably a little bit different from other people in HR who may just stick within their own department,” Fiona says. “Because I’ve had experience across so many areas, as well as doing my HR duties I’m also jumping in to assist when there are higher workloads in a particular area or I’ll jump in and help the accounts department. For me, it’s HR along with everything else.”
9am
Between 9am and 11am, Fiona may conduct several interviews with prospective new staff members. It’s her job to vet candidates to find the right person for the role.
11am
Recruitment is a big part of Fiona’s role, so once she wraps up the interviews, she may spend additional time looking to see if there are any further candidates to interview.
1pm
Anywhere from 1pm to 3pm, Fiona has her lunch.
2pm
Checking on the wellbeing of staff, whether they are in the office or working from home, is part of Fiona’s job description.
“For those who are in the office, I’ll go around and say ‘Hi’ and have a quick chat,” says Fiona. “Sometimes you pick up if someone is quieter and you can see how they’re going.”
“With the staff who are at home, it could be that their manager comes to me or we might see them on a Teams meeting and you get a signal that they’re struggling,” she says. “In this case, I’d give them a quick call for a chat to see how they are going with workload and in general, whether there’s anything we can do to support them.”
3pm
In the afternoons, Fiona may conduct more interviews or jump into some policy updates.
“We’re currently updating a lot of our policies and we have a project to update our induction policy program,” says Fiona. “That’s quite a big project that a few of the managers are working on.”
4pm
Later in the afternoon, Fiona may consult with the other managers or supervisors for a general check-in to see how things are running across the firm.
“We also look at our staffing levels on an ongoing basis and the workloads coming in,” she says. “If we have increased workloads, we may move someone internally to assist with those areas or look for external staff.”
