Top Shelf Take: 4 Ways to Feel Less Lonely in HR

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_01] Welcome to Top Shelf Take from SpeakEasy HR, presented by Payroll Partners. This is a quick take to cover one topic, share one perspective and give you one takeaway. And now, your host, David Noe.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_00] Hey there and cheers to you. Welcome to another Top Shelf Take from SpeakEasy HR, presented by Payroll Partners. I'm David Noe, an HR leader with 20 years of experience, small business owner, recruiter, content creator and host of SpeakEasy HR. This is a quick take where we cover one topic, one perspective and one takeaway. So let's get into it. Today, I'm going to get super real with you all. And I want to talk about something we don't talk enough about in HR.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00] And it's loneliness. Because HR can be a very lonely profession. Think about your situation and what you've dealt with in the past if you are in HR. You sit in an office surrounded by people all day and you still can feel completely alone in your role. Employees come to you with their problems. Managers need your advice. Leaders need answers. You're dealing with employee relations and hiring and performance issues and having difficult conversations.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00] And sometimes situations you've never dealt with before. You hear things that other people in the organization don't hear. You know things you can't always talk about. And through all of it, you're often expected to be the person who has all the answers. But here's the question. Who does the HR person go to? I've been in HR for 20 years and I've experienced a lot. I have felt the feels. I've had some amazing days and amazing experiences. And I've had some absolute horrific days.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00] I've lost sleep over it in situations I've had to be in. And I've wondered if anyone actually understood what I was dealing with. The one thing I've learned is that you can't spend your entire HR career taking care of everyone else without having people in your corner too. So I'm going to give you four ways to feel a little less lonely in HR. Number one, super simple. Talk to your manager. This can be difficult for HR professionals.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_00] We are often the ones telling managers that they need to communicate better, ask for help, have difficult conversations. But we need the same thing as well. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, feel disconnected, have a conversation with your manager. I've seen this firsthand and those strong relationships between the HR professional and their manager can go such a long way.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00] So if you are not feeling that right now and you feel like you can't have that genuine conversation with your manager, it might be time to reconsider your future with that organization. Number two, find a mentor or several. You don't need one person who knows everything. In fact, I think it can be even better for several people to be in your corner that you can lean on to for different situations. Find someone that's great at employee relations. Someone who understands leadership.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_00] Someone who can help you think strategically. Someone who has been through the career challenges you're facing currently. Build your own personal advisory team. There's actually a good friend of mine, Pete Schramman. He wrote a book called Pathfinders. I highly suggest you looking up that book and I'll put that book information in the podcast summary notes so you can check it out. Mentors are a very powerful example of how someone or many people can help impact you and your career, especially in HR.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00] Number three, find your community. This is where you start realizing just how many other people are experiencing some of the same things you are. Listen to a podcast. Go on LinkedIn. Look at different newsletters. Look at conferences to go to. HR groups. Online communities. There's so many ways to connect with other people in HR.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00] I love the work-defined podcast community that I'm a part of because there are so many great, amazing professionals in HR and payroll sharing experiences, their challenges, their ideas, sometimes just reminding each other that we're not alone in this. And you don't have to walk into an HR event knowing 50 people. Just start with one conversation. Introduce yourself. Ask someone what they do. Ask them what they're working on because you never know what that conversation might lead to.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_00] You might have a conversation with someone and they're experiencing something and you can think in your head, yep, that's me or I've been in that situation as well. Last, number four, build your HR tribe. This is one thing that I think is a little different from just finding a community and connecting because that is also important as well. But these are the people you can call, text, message, grab coffee with when you're having just one of those days. You can call them and you can say, you're not going to believe what happened today.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_00] I'm a big fan of HR events like Disrupt HR because you get to hear new perspectives and connect with people who have been where you are and hear ideas and perspectives in those five-minute conversations in those presentations. So build the relationships. Don't just find another one to collect the connection at an HR event. You're an HR department, might be just one person, but your HR network doesn't have to be. So here's my biggest takeaway. Give yourself some grace.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00] Look at these tips I've given. You're going to make mistakes in HR. You're going to have those difficult days. You're going to deal with situations where you don't know what to really do. You're not always going to have the answer in HR and that's okay. And sometimes you're going to question yourself, but that doesn't mean you're bad at HR. It means you're human because in HR, you can care about people. You want to help and you want to help make the workplace better. And that's why you're in HR.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_00] Until next time, keep it real, keep it human and keep people at the center of HR. Cheers to you.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks for tuning in to another top shelf take from SpeakEasy HR, presented by Payroll Partners. If you're still waiting on hold with your payroll provider, maybe it's time for a change. Let's talk. Cheers to you and we'll catch you on the next one. Cheers to you.