Are your dreams as an HR professional still alive and sparking curiosity, or have you become negative and cynical in your role?
People usually become HR professionals for a variety of reasons. The first one being you want to make a difference. You probably like people. Perhaps you wanted to attract or make an amazing culture. Part of that amazing culture is to create a workplace that people love working for so that your workforce and your leadership can be a calling card to attract and retain the best talent.
If your dreams have faded a little bit as an HR professional, use these tips to rekindle them and make sure that you do not completely abandon the ideas of why you wanted to be in HR in the first place:
1. Write down your vision.
This is an exercise we do in our Front Line Leadership course. We have people list some of their hassles and frustrations, some of the things that you spend time on, but you do not find particularly enriching.
Take that list and then think about what you would like to happen in your organization, what you would like leaders to get better at, or how you can help the company succeed by managing the human resources. Having clarity in your vision is important.
Have your HR dreams faded? Use these tips to rekindle them. Share on X2. Plant seeds and do not harvest them right away.
HR professionals do not always have complete authority to do some of the things they know the organization needs to do. The craftiest and most effective HR professionals I know are constantly dropping and planting seeds so that the operations leaders and others in the organization start to think about them.
Just like we talk about when we want to empower and engage people, if you drop seeds and let that person come back to you with an idea or an endorsement, it can make it even more powerful and increase the chances of success.
3. Focus your discretionary time on making gains.
It can be frustrating when you think of all the things on your to-do list, and you just say, “How am I going to find any time to advance one of these two dreams that I have?” Inevitably, you will find yourself with pockets of discretionary time.
Take this discretionary time and put even just 15 minutes into it to move forward. That way, you will not be giving up on your dreams, you will be working on them, almost like a side hustle amongst all the other things you must do in terms of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding people.
We are here for you because usually improving organizations involves improving the quality of your leaders. We do that through our Front Line Leadership Program.
