Tag Archives: Day in the Life

A Day in the Life of a Human Resources Director (HRD)

This is another installment in our “Day in the Life” series, this time focusing on the HR directors out there. In case you missed one of the previous pieces, here is the full list:

Read on below to learn about what those HRD’s do all day, including some funny comments, in-depth descriptions, and other helpful details.

day in the life hr professional

The Life of an HR Director

Taheti

  • Company/industry: Non profit mental health and autism service provider
  • Years with current company: 4
  • Years in HR: 10
  • Degree/Certification: Masters in Workforce Development and SPHR
  • Average day: Assisting mangers with coaching their employees with disciplinary issues developing leadership training for front line supervisor currently working on employment engagement survey
  • HR wit/wisdom: They call me HR ninja :-)
    Happy cows make better milk meaning happy employees perform better!

Tici

  • Company/industry: Non-Profit Residential Treatment Center for at-risk children and youth
  • Years with current company: 6 months
  • Years in HR: 6.5 years plus pastor of 6 churches
  • Degree/Certification: BS in PSY, Master of Divinity, Doctor of Ministry
  • Average day: I spend half my day trying to attract and retain great employees at non-profit pay. I do the full range of HR from orientation to termination, compensation and benefits, and everything between. Bench-marking, crisis response planning, organizational development, training, statistical reports, disciplinary procedures, workers comp., evaluation, labor legislation, agency licensing and accreditation, developing and updating policies and procedures, day-to-day HR stuff like paying insurance bills, and educating myself, I do a bit of everything HR. My assistant is also the receptionist which is a challenge!

Crystal

  • Company/industry: RLB LLP
  • Years with current company: 8
  • Years in HR: 12
  • Degree/Certification: CHRP, CHRL
  • Average day: “I am laughing at “”average”” :) I meet with staff, work on implementing new and innovative people programs, meet with the executive, recruit, consult for clients, train and motivate my team, learn, and any thing else that needs to be done in a day. plunge a toilet? sure!”
  • HR wit/wisdom: Take risks, be authentic and have fun!

David

  • Company/industry: Higher Education
  • Years with current company: Four
  • Years in HR: Over 18
  • Degree/Certification: SPHR
  • Average day: I will spend my day interviewing exempt level employees, attending budget meetings, working out tow or three employee relations opportunities (these include an employee about to be terminated because they don’t show up to work, employee who believes they are under paid, and another who is having a difficult time adjusting to out culture and doesn’t know it). If I have any non-transactional time, I will work out the latest policy on “Pets in the workplace” and send it to our attorney, then complete the four performance reviews I have to complete before next week. But, I don’t have an average day…
  • HR wit/wisdom: As Steve Forbes used to say “in life, to get ahead, it’s not who you know, it’s whom you know that matters.”

Sherry

  • Company/industry: Solid Waste Management and Recycling
  • Years with current company: 2
  • Years in HR: 15
  • Degree/Certification: Bachelor’s Degree in HR Administration
  • Average day: I spend 2 hours a day recruiting (placing ads, calls, interviews). Every other HR function except payroll falls to me (benefits, culture and recognition, workers comp, DOT compliance, OSHA, time sheets, research, W2s, data entry, reports, newsletter, Chamber of Commerce, etc.). I spend 3-5 hours a day with random visits of former employees, current employees and managers and issues that come up. There are 150 employees and turnover is high so I’m working with about 400 people in a year if you include the applicants/candidates, new hires and terms.Culture and recognition is my forte.

Jen

  • Company/industry: K-12 private school plus Day Care
  • Years with current company: 10
  • Years in HR: 14
  • Degree/Certification: BS
  • Average day: There is no average day! I’m an HR/Payroll department of one with about 140 employees, so my daily agenda is to stay flexible, keep smiling, and stay organized. Some days I’m at my desk for 8 hours, other days, I’m running to “put out fires”.
  • HR wit/wisdom: Be kind to everyone, even when they aren’t being kind to you (but don’t be a push over either.) Make friends with the maintenance and kitchen crews. There’s nothing like a great spreadsheet! You never know what a day is going to bring!

Coming up soon we'll have other HR roles and responsibilities, but I appreciate the participants for sharing! Let me know in the comments below what you think about the series.

A Day in the Life of a Recruiter

This is the second in a series of posts on a day in the life of an HR pro. Today we’re turning our sights to the recruiters out there. Below I have profiled several readers who recruit for a variety of industries and companies. If you missed it, the first edition focused on the work of a human resources manager. Read on below to learn about what recruiters do all day, including some funny comments, in-depth descriptions, and other helpful details.

a day in the life of an hr professional
The Life of a Recruiter

Kyle

  • Company/Industry: Telecommunications
  • Years with Current Company: 7 months
  • Years in HR: 10
  • Degree/Cert: N/A
  • Average Day: I’ve always been one of many hats and my role continues to be that with my current employer. I love working for a company that places the customer front-and-center of everything we do! The ability to find the right person for the right position is priceless.

Alicia

  • Company/Industry: Staffing Agency
  • Years with Current Company: 4 months
  • Years in HR: 4 months
  • Degree/Cert: Certificate in HR Management
  • Average Day: I spend most of my day recruiting on active positions that my clients have an urgent need to fill and plan for 2 hours out of my day to proactively recruit great candidates. My day consists of phone screening, interviewing face to face, prepping candidates for their interviews. Its competitive, fast paced and a ton of fun. The other side of my job is building relationships with my candidates and hiring managers, for example, taking them out to lunch or breakfast. I love that every day is never the same.

Sharon

  • Company/Industry: Healthcare
  • Years with Current Company: 15
  • Years in HR: 17
  • Degree/Cert: Certificate
  • Average Day: A typical day in the life as a Professional Recruiter typical begins with a checklist of priorities. Filtering through emails and notifications of hiring requests. Almost on a daily basis I review the status of new hires and where they fall in the on boarding process, i.e. pre-employment physical clearances, background checks, references and education/employment verifications via our database linked to the vendor we contract with for this service, Tabb Inc.Many days I may find myself working through lunch or eating at my desk depending on the activities I am juggling with, providing wrap around services to our hiring managers and potential candidates. phone screens phone interviews, scheduling in person interviews seeking potential candidates. Our applicant tracking system is our primary resource in our selection process as well as Monster’s resume database. On average I can recruit for up to 75 requisitions across the board from professional, technical, clerical and support services.Finally, my days generally end with checks and balances noting where I left off and what I will plan for in the coming days. I usually set aside 1 to 2 hours towards the end of the business day to manage applicants in our ATS/Monster. Email follow up and other correspondence as needed.

    I work in a fast paced, high volume organization where each day can bring the unexpected. You adapt and rise to the occasion with confidence and poise. It can be a very rewarding and self fulfilling having the ability to change and impact lives for the better. The ability to offer employment opportunities is what makes me want to report to work every day.

Alison

  • Company/Industry: Healthcare
  • Years with Current Company: 7
  • Years in HR: 10
  • Degree/Cert: SHRM-CP
  • Average Day: Our tool is disfunctional so I spend 50% of my day doing transactional items. We are working towards a consultative recruiting model. 1/4 of the day I do phone prescreens with the top applicants. The other 1/4 of my time I spend with managers. Any left over time I am digging out of my overflowing email box.I really like finding a good fit for an applicant and manager. I dislike all the hoops we have to jump through to make it happen.
  • HR wit/wisdom: Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.Be careful who you trust, if someone will discuss others with you, they will certainly discuss you with others.If it’s really funny, it’s probably harassment.

    It’s the moments together that change us forever.

    HR Dept: will work for doughnuts. :-)

Carly

  • Company/Industry: Financial Services
  • Years with Current Company: 3.5
  • Years in HR: 2
  • Degree/Cert: N/A
  • Average Day: I spend a lot of my morning sorting through resumes as I sip on my breakfast protein shake. Since we are currently recruiting an average of 10 positions with no ATS, needless to say, my inbox is a nightmare!Much of my afternoon is spent on initial phone interviews with qualified candidates. I schedule blocks of time each day for these meetings, pack them in back to back and and cross my fingers that everything sticks to schedule. I don’t know why I am still surprised by how many candidates are late or stand me up completely – but thats another story for another interview.What’s left of my day is spent going back and forth with hiring managers to get more clarity on what the h-e-double hockey sticks they are looking for in a candidate (changes daily) or talking them off the ledge of a potential bad hire.

    And that’s just the Recruiter side of me as I wear a lot of hats in HR.

Coming up soon we'll have other HR roles and responsibilities, but I appreciate the participants for sharing! Let me know in the comments below what you think about this series or what specific roles you’d like to see highlighted. 

The HR Analyst Job Description: A Day in the Life

the life of an HR analystI’ve been working as an HR analyst for about a year now. Several of my friends, both in HR and out, have asked me lately what my days look like. I wanted to take a moment to highlight what it is and what it is not. I’ll also say that this is my experience. It’s certainly different for different people at different organizations. Did I mention it’s different? :-)

Even my coworkers that do very similar work as talent management analysts, learning analysts, and workforce management analysts have different schedules, projects, etc. I know there aren’t a significant number of HR analyst jobs out there, but for those that might be interested, this is a good peek behind the curtain.

A sample HR analyst job description

First of all, the things I spend most of my time on are briefings, research, writing, and editing. I publish all of the blogs and case studies, which is fun to get to see the full spectrum of what we do. Each day is different, of course, and I break down some of those aspects below.

Little man is still not sleeping through the night consistently yet, so when he wakes up at 4:30 I just get to work after feeding him.

  • Up between 4:30 and 5:30, work to 6:15 on email and any high priority work. This is the time to plan my day.
  • 6:15-7:30 Kids! Family! Craziness! I help get Melanie and the kids out the door, then I drop off little man at the sitter’s before heading back home to jump into the workday full speed.
  • 7:30-10:00 Typically catch up on email, work on case studies, editing briefing reports, or writing. Most of our internal company meetings are in the morning as well.
  • 10:00-10:30 Break! I’ll usually do something to break up my day, whether it’s calling a friend, squeezing in a quick workout, or going for a run to clear my head. I can’t work in long blocks without losing focus. Also, while I’m working out I often have some of my best ideas for writing or solving problems I’m working on, so this is critical to me being productive long term.
  • 11:00-11:30 Eat lunch. While I eat I’ll do some reading and research to catch up on what’s going on in the industry. I sometimes use this space to reply to emails and plan my calendar for the next few days to be prepared for any big meetings, etc.
  • 11:30-2:00 Back to work. I like to use my time after lunch when I’m typically at my “low” for creativity and focus to do things like making contact with HR pros to set up briefings and trying to work on any outstanding emails.
  • 2:00-4:30 By this time I’m past the midday “slump” and am in prime gear to do some writing. This is when I typically create marketing copy, write my Brandon Hall Group blog posts, and do any “major” editing work that requires significant brainpower.
  • Melanie usually gets home with the kids between 4:00 and 5:00 and that signals the end of the workday for me. There are some nights where I pick back up again around 8:30-9:30 if I have something pressing, my wife has to grade papers or do lesson plans, and all the kids are in bed.

Now, I know that’s just an average, so here is a breakdown of some of the actual work I get to do. As you might expect, necessary skills for an HR analyst are heavily weighted toward writing, editing, research, and data analysis.

  • Meetings: internal meetings average about 30-60 minutes per day, spanning topics like research, marketing, and technology.
  • Briefings: I spend time talking with HR leaders to learn what’s going on in their world and to stay plugged in. This is one of my favorite parts of my role. And talking shop with HR pros and calling it work just seems unfair. :-) I also host all of our vendor briefings. And while sometimes it’s a chore to fit them in, I have always been a bit of a technology nerd, so finding out what is the latest and greatest in learning, recruiting, or HR is a lot of fun.
  • Case studies: Ever wonder how Hilton runs its learning program or how multimillion dollar security firms hire their staff? I did, too. And now I know, because I get to publish case studies from those companies that describe exactly how they approached the problems and solved them. Here’s a recent blog post on the Brandon Hall Group blog where I talk about them.
  • Blogging: I get to blog! It’s a blast. As you can tell I love the blogging format, so this is just one more opportunity to share my thoughts. More importantly, I love the conversations it opens up to talk about what others are interested in–I certainly don’t have all of the answers. I have about 20 drafts in varying stages right now (some of which I’ll probably never actually write, funny enough) on a variety of topics, from recruitment marketing to technology selection to metrics and more.
  • Research webinars: this year I picked up a new role and am hosting our research webinars with various analysts on the team. It’s a chance to share the latest and greatest research, and I like the opportunity to get in front of our great audience over there. (info on those webinars, if you’re interested)
  • Attending events: a minority of my time is spent traveling and attending events. With a 5 month old at home this is something I’m thankful for. I do love getting to go to great events like the HR Technology Conference and other vendor-focused ones, but I don’t get out very much. I have a total of about 4-5 trips this year at my last count. As the kids get a bit older I expect to do more of this but not a crazy amount.
  • Speaking: I speak occasionally and these are honestly the best types of events for me. I like getting to wear multiple hats. I’ll actually be presenting at SHRM this summer in Las Vegas (anyone else going? I’d love to meet you!) and the Alabama SHRM conference as well. Again, I don’t put in many applications for speaking because I don’t travel a significant amount, but I always enjoy the opportunity. When I speak I usually spend anywhere from 5-10 hours gathering information, developing slides, etc.
  • Informal research: I am a Feedly fiend. I have it open any time I have 5-10 minutes to spare, because I’m always reading other blogs to gather insights and information. It’s amazing how often this inspires me to write something myself, even if the blog I’m reading is focused on design, marketing, or travel. At least half of those drafts I mentioned above started when I read a blog post or news article somewhere else.

5 surprising things about working from home as an HR analyst

This whole “working from home” thing is a bit of what I expected, but it’s also different in other ways. Here are five things I didn’t expect:

  1. Nobody seems to understand that in some ways working from home is harder than working in an office. None of your friends asks to “swing by” or if you can do an errand for them when you work in an office setting. Thankfully that was short-lived, but it happens.
  2. It can be hard to “turn off.” When I worked in an office I had the drive home to decouple from work and shift gears. Now if the family gets home and I’m in the middle of writing or editing I have to suddenly shut everything off mentally and it can be tough to do that.
  3. I have more time. I’m not spending 2+ hours driving daily, and that means I can get more accomplished instead of commuting, getting to work after spending almost an hour in traffic, trying to dodge “that” talkative coworker, etc.
  4. I have less time. :-) I feel like with the additional time I can do more things and take on more tasks, even when it’s not really possible. That can be tough to deal with at times because I like to run in a hundred directions at once.
  5. Some people warned me that I would be “bored” or that I would miss working with people. While I do miss some face to face interactions with friends, I am actually well-suited to working remotely and solo. I can spend all day without turning on the radio, TV, or anything else. The days when I don’t have calls scheduled I can go for up to 9 hours without saying or hearing a single word, which is pretty peaceful. This certainly isn’t for everyone, but it’s something I think is very interesting to know. I’m a natural introvert and talking a lot and interacting with people can be draining for me at times.

HR analyst salary information

Information about a human resources analyst salary is all over the map. I think that’s due in part to the fact that some companies are loose in defining what an analyst is/does, so that means the job duties can range (and pay naturally follows). Here are a few resources for details on what an HR analyst makes. As you’ll see, it can vary wildly.

Human resource analyst job openings

As I said above, the type of analyst work I’m doing is reserved typically for very large companies, vendors, or research/consulting firms. Other names for this type of role (if you’re searching for an HR analyst position) that could be helpful:

  • human resources analyst
  • talent management analyst
  • talent acquisition analyst
  • learning analyst
  • workforce management analyst
  • principal analyst
  • senior analyst
  • associate analyst
  • business analyst
  • HCM analyst
  • human resource analyst

So, what else do you want to know, whether it’s about this whole “working from home” or the HR analyst role? I’d love to answer questions if you have any!

A Day in the Life of a Human Resources Manager

I have been thinking a lot lately as I cross the six year threshold of blogging about human resources management. I started this as a tool for the entry level HR pros, but now I also teach about some fairly advanced concepts. One of the things I don’t do enough of is sharing about the community. There are more than 20,000 monthly readers on this site and about 5,000 email subscribers (the numbers still boggle my mind!). Who are these people? What do they do?

Let’s find out.

Today will start off a series where I talk with some of the HR pros in the audience to find out what they do and what they enjoy about HR. I hope you like the series, and as always, I’d appreciate your feedback. Want to be profiled yourself? Click here.

a day in the life of an hr professional

A Day in the Life of a Human Resources Manager

Anne

  • Company/Industry: Holding Company
  • Years with Current Company: 4
  • Years in HR: 10
  • Degree/Cert: MBA-HR, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
  • Average Day: My average day is a standard Director role. I spend time counseling my team of 26 on how to interact with their companies. I also manage our benefits program.
  • HR wit/wisdom: Expect each day to be different. I've seen too many young, promising, talented professionals burn out too quickly because they couldn't adapt to the constant changing chaos that is Human Resources.

Juanita

  • Company/Industry: Banking (Credit Union)
  • Years with Current Company: 5
  • Years in HR: 10
  • Degree/Cert: Master’s in HR and Organizational Management
  • Average Day: A typical day in the life of … well me, would be one that involves A LOT of talking and interacting with my peers. I feel that when you build a bond with employees, they will come to you with anything and also help you connect with the person your looking. A quarter of my day is spent in meetings brainstorming the next best thing and finally, the rest of my day is spent finding new ways to energize our organization through our new amazing wellness program (that I control … mwahahaha).
  • HR wit/wisdom: I have two!  “I don't fire you, you fire you.” and “Yes. Doing your job is part of your job.”

Bobbi

  • Company/Industry: Government Contractor
  • Years with Current Company: 5
  • Years in HR: 7
  • Degree/Cert: BS in HR, SPHR and SHRM-SCP
  • Average Day: No two days are the same. I spend part of each day working in benefits, compliance, HRIS implementation and employee management.
  • HR wit/wisdom: Network often, so when the auditor knocks on the door, the manager wants across the board terminations, or the employee decides to tell everyone about his weekend exorcism you have a group of people on speed dial to ask questions to and to share with – we can't do it alone!

Ryan

  • Company/Industry: WebLinc
  • Years with Current Company: ~2
  • Years in HR: 5
  • Degree/Cert: B.S. Industrial/Organizational Psychology, PHR
  • Average Day: I largely spend my time recruiting, or actives related to our recruiting efforts. Next would be employee relations, internal resourcing, and org management. Beyond that it gets chopped up quite a bit day to day, I am a one man army in HR here :)
  • HR wit/wisdom: As an HR professional, my advice to anyone is to never forget how much rules suck.

Leeanne

  • Company/Industry: Freight Forwarding
  • Years with Current Company: 2
  • Years in HR: 6
  • Degree/Cert: Graduate Diploma in HR
  • Average Day: I am the only person in HR in my organisation, which has 370 staff, therefore a majority of what I do is reactive simply due to the volume of work. I recruit without agencies whenever possible so can end up spending a lot of time reading CV’s when I have multiple roles to fill. I interact with our company directors and managers on a daily basis, although it’s usually the same 4-5 managers due to the size and nature of their teams. I am involved in all performance and disciplinary meetings along with the manager. At least once a week I am told by someone that they don’t envy me in my role, but I honestly love it, and can’t see myself doing anything else for a long time to come yet!
  • HR wit/wisdom: Be the reason people want to get into HR, not the reason they hate it.

Coming up soon we’ll have other HR roles and responsibilities, but I appreciate the participants for sharing! Let me know in the comments below what you think about this.