Up at 6am for my Monday morning call with New Zealand. My client, based in Auckland, is a software developer who wants to start up an office in Sydney. I’m helping them recruit a country manager and a sales person to get things rolling. I’m struggling to find some good candidates and the NZ CEO is coming over next week to start interviewing. I tell them they’re going to have to offer more money. Client not happy to budge and tells me to keep looking. Bit of a gloomy start to what looks like being a long week.

Breakfast meeting in the city with a potential new client. I’ve had a lot of these over the past 5 years when I decided to start my own outsourced HR consulting business after 20 years in corporate. Naively, I thought I’d be spending nearly all of my time solving HR issues for a variety of really interesting clients. Reality is I spend about 50% of my time on marketing, 20% on admin and the rest actually doing what I love. A one-man show does have its good and bad points. Anyway, this meeting goes particularly well and I dash back to the office to email out a proposal.

Hang around the office (also my home, close to the CBD) for a few hours answering emails, taking calls and writing my next article for the website. My SEO guy says I need new content every week so I post an HR advice piece about adverse action. Send off the proposal from this morning’s meeting. They’re looking for phone/email support plus an on-site presence every month. I’m expecting a favourable reply but you just never know. Sometimes, you don’t hear back and are left totally in the dark as to why.

This afternoon I’m presenting a paper at an HR conference in the city. They want me to discuss the future of the performance appraisal and present a few alternatives to what we do now. A pet love of mine so I’m really looking forward to being out there in the limelight. They’ve asked me to stay on for drinks and dinner. I’ve said yes even though it’s a bit early in the week for my liking. Still, a great networking opportunity which I’d be crazy to pass up.

Presentation goes really well and I meet some interesting people. Home to bed around 11.30pm. Another early start tomorrow – I urgently need some good candidates for my NZ client and I have to spend most of the day on-site at another client’s in west Sydney.

 

 

 

1. Write a 30 second spiel about yourself. Pretend you’re in a lift with Donald Trump, going to the 70^th floor. You have this time to sell yourself to him. Practice this out loud in front of a mirror. Write it in terms of what you‘ve done for a customer.

2. Write 2 or 3 sentences about each job you have shown on your resume. Include things that are measurable e.g. deadlines you met, numbers of words you had to write, people you had to coordinate to complete a particular project etc.

3. Write a generic sentence or 2 about why you’ve applied for a particular job.

4. Have a short story prepared about each of the following 5 incidents that have happened to you at work using the following STAR model:

Situation which arose requiring you to do something

Tasks that needed doing

Action you took

Result

* Where you had to deal with a difficult co-worker

* A situation where you had to deal with a difficult customer

* Where you had to prioritise a number of different projects

* Where you devised a new process to improve the way certain things were done at your work

* A mistake you made and how you fixed it

5. I hate this question but it’s often asked: “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” You need to have something prepared. The best way to answer this question is to be extremely honest. Demonstrate to the panel that you have good self-awareness.

6. Prepare a short (no more than 2-3 minutes) closing statement. You will use this when you sense the interview is about to close and they ask: “Do you have any questions for the panel”? You ignore that question and go into your prepared spiel on why they should choose you. This leaves them with the lasting impression of your voice in their head rather than one of the panel members droning on trying to answer one of your “cleverly” crafted questions.

7. Remember that they want to have you on board. Your sole concern at the interview should be to make them feel good about choosing you. Take control of the interview without being arrogant. Make it clear that you’re considering working with them just as much as they are deciding about you.

8. Above all, be honest in your answers – it will make you look and sound so much more appealing than if you try to hide behind a wall of lies.

It was early 2002. I’d just been retrenched for the 2nd time in my life and was obviously keen to secure my next project. An HR Director role with a security company based in Sydney’s western suburbs took my eye. I was particularly drawn to the role because they were hiring direct – no recruitment company to deal with. So, after a lot of research, a carefully crafted cover letter and tailored resume I got the interview.

The initial meeting was to be conducted on-site and would be with the current HR Director who was leaving the Company to take up an overseas posting in the USA. I arrived early and waited for about 10 minutes in the reception area, conscious of the fact that, being a security business, I had probably been under surveillance from the moment I had driven into the car-park. The whole place was spookily quiet.

About 10 minutes after the scheduled interview time the HR Director, John, welcomed me into his office. “You must know Jill Smart”, he chirped as his opening remark. My heart sank – how was this possible? I had reported to Jill very briefly a few years previously when I was working for a global telco. Needless to say we hadn’t got on and I was lucky to find a different role elsewhere in the same organisation which had me reporting into the UK instead. Apparently, this guy and Jill had done their MBA together and he recognised the Company name on my CV. Not a great start.

The interview soon got underway. I summarised my HR career to date, provided solid reasons why I had moved from one job to another and was able to demonstrate pretty well how I was a good fit for the role we were discussing. I thought things were going great until the conversation turned to performance appraisals. I’ve never been a fan of the typical corporate performance appraisal process – invariably a tedious combination of box ticking and painful feedback, serving very little purpose for either the employee or their manager. I’m yet to see an employee emerge from a performance appraisal meeting with a smile on their face. My view is that managers should have on-going and regular discussions with their staff rather than wait until HR tells them to have a formal meeting. Often and open are my two favourite words when describing the ideal performance discussion. Focus on people’s strengths and what they’ve done well.

Anyway, John had written his own performance appraisal document and couldn’t wait to show it to me. It was a 10-pager – a beast of a thing which John insisted we read together page by torturous page. It was entirely dreadful throughout – full of meaningless questions, the silliest of all being one which asked you what your hobbies were. How could someone’s hobbies ever be relevant to a valid performance appraisal process?

That was it for me. I told John exactly what I thought of performance appraisals. I also left him in no doubt that I didn’t think much of his “masterpiece”. He was gobsmacked as much as I was shocked at my own candour. I don’t think either of us had ever been in a similar situation. The interview was over. “Pity”, John said as we parted, “you were really hitting the mark there for awhile.”

I wonder if he ever told Jill about the interview – she would have been delighted (as I was) that I had missed out on my “dream job”.

 

 

 

Also called telecommuting  the concept of working from home has been around since the early 70s. Nevertheless, it’s an area of HR which is still encumbered with a myriad of potential flaws.

For me there are 3 main problems with having employees working from home on a regular basis:

1. Managing the work health and safety issues of an area outside of the normal workplace is problematic. Many cases have hit the courts over the years where injured workers have been able to successfully claim workers’ compensation for accidents occurring in the home . It’s very hard (and expensive) for employers to control a space they don’t own.

2. Most job roles are not designed to be performed away from the office. The exception to this are roles with no direct reports, demand little collaboration with others and do not require much face to face customer interaction.

3. Most employees are not suited to telecommuting, despite what they may think! Working from home requires an incredible amount of self-discipline, determination and the ability to spend long hours alone.

I recommend you think very seriously about requests from your employees to work from home. In my view it should definitely be the exception and not the rule. Carefully consider the role your employee performs, their personality and whether you can afford to spend the money on setting up their home office.

 

Day 1 – “Sorry, what was your name again?”

My boss, based in Hong Kong, has made a special trip for my first day.  After five interviews (including a conference call with three Vice-Presidents (VPs) in Boston at two am in the morning) I’m to be the first Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) HR manager for this funky US telecommunications company.  Current staff of 60 which I know is to grow to 180 in the first year.  After 12 years in Telstra I’m excited. I must start a diary – think I’ll call it Diary of an HR Manager.

Everyone is so young but apparently, at 39, I’m an excellent fit.  I have a desk – “We get you office later,” my Chinese boss assures me.  There is a laptop already opened on my desk.

The office tour is next – three floors and 40 employees.  Several people make appointments to see me as soon as we meet.  Seems as if there could be some meaty HR issues in this place.  The company’s been in Australia for three years and my boss has been the only HR presence in all of Asia Pacific (APAC) since the start.  Managers and employees seem genuinely excited that I’m here.

Fortunately, my temporary “office” is next to a small conference room so I have a place to take clients for confidential consultations.  The first day, though, I spend there with my boss as she explains the structure of the company globally and, more specifically, APAC. Sales terminology, quotas, commissions and a bewildering array of products jump out from every page of an enormous folder she has prepared for me earlier.  We work hard – three hours straight with no smoke break.

I have lunch with the Finance group – a good move as HR and Finance invariably work closely together (or at least attempt to).  We go Asian and I meet the team – all women, their manager being a west coast blonde who towers above the rest of them.  No booze – this is getting serious!

After lunch it’s back to the conference room for more induction.  My boss sets the agenda for my first three months: new employee induction process, recruitment and performance management.  Network with corporate HR in Boston and San Jose and work closely with the Sales Director ANZ and the VP Customer Service APAC.  Luckily, both these guys are in the Sydney office although the Sales Director isn’t due to start for three weeks.

 

Day 2 – On my own

My boss has flown out overnight so I’m left to fight my own battles.  My email is already working so I send out a message introducing myself.  Emails flood in from the US, welcoming me to the global HR team from people with exotic titles such as Director Human Capital and VP People Strategy and Compliance.  I don’t know what they do but they sound important so I humbly thank them for their welcome and say I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.  I never do nor do I hear from them ever again!

A phone rings.  It takes me a few seconds to realize it’s mine.  It’s the training manager who wants me to talk to one of his staff who has a personal problem.  I’m thrilled – this is my big opportunity.  Turns out it’s not as involved as I was hoping.  I spend 15 minutes making up advice on the run.  She seems satisfied and soon stops crying.  I’m making some headway. These first meetings are vital for future credibility.  I hope she spreads the word!

My boss calls from Hong Kong – she’s only just touched down and is keen to see how I’m coping without her. She wants me to call the new Sales Director to sort out a few issues with his package.

I manage to get my hands on a salary spreadsheet.  I soon realize I’m one of the lowest paid in the management team, although my package is more than I was getting at Telstra. The money these guys earn – it takes my breath away.  Meanwhile, a steady stream of people come to see me.  Our discussions invariably cover the following three topics: their horrible boss, how poorly they are paid and their lazy colleagues who are paid more than they are.

I’m exhausted by the end of it all but I’ve got more of the same tomorrow.

 

Day 3 – Quoting Sir Humphrey

Speak to the Sales Director.  He wants to know if we’ll salary-sacrifice his road tolls. “My previous company used to do it”, he says. The number of times we’ve all heard that! I, of course, have no idea whether we do that sort of thing so I put him off with a placatory “let me see what I can do and get back to you”.  I am to use this expression often over the next few months.

I have 37 emails to read.  At Telstra a big day meant five new emails.  Everybody seems to want information from me, catching up on three years of silence.  My boss warns me (by email) that I can expect to receive at least 50 emails a day. She’s happy because they’re no longer going to her.  Her prediction turns out to be spot on.  She also wants me to “cc” her on all the emails I send, at least for the first few weeks.  I ignore this request – the last thing I want is to have her breathing down my neck every second of the day.  One of the attractions of the job was that she was located in Hong Kong.

I call the Sales Director back.  “Sorry, we can’t do the toll thing.  We have no provision for it”, I say, quoting the Finance Manager.  He’s unimpressed, as though his financial planning strategy has been damaged beyond repair.  I sympathise by giving him a glimmer of hope that maybe, sometime soon, “in the fullness of time”, our financial systems will be able to cope with his request.  As usual, HR takes the rap for what is a financially controlled function.  I’ve always thought payroll should be managed by HR so I make a note to discuss this with Madame Finance.  I think I know what she’s going to say.

 

Day 4 – Introducing “corporate disobedience”

Thursday and I’m exhausted.  Have just come off a two hour conference call from home which started at five am.  First opportunity to speak to the Global HR team.  Apparently, we’re rolling out a new performance appraisal system called “Priorities”.   My priority right now is to get some sleep but I have a morning meeting with the Customer Service Management team.  I’ve met most of them before but this will be my first real opportunity to impress. Trouble is, I can’t think of anything interesting to say.  I fall back on the “Oh, it’s great to be here I’m very excited about the challenges ahead” spiel I rehearsed for my first day but didn’t use.  I mention Priorities and sense a collective groan from the group.  I know how they feel – corporate performance management systems are usually disastrous for managers and employees.  I’m yet to see someone emerge smiling from a performance appraisal meeting.  I tell them not to worry – by the time I’ve tailored the process to suit our local requirements… The VP gives me a quizzical look. Mmm…I may need to do some work here to bring him round to my way of thinking.  I’m a proponent of what I term “corporate disobedience” – if a corporate initiative isn’t right for my part of the business I say so and lobby to change it.  I was told the company liked risk-takers!

I now have 64 unread emails and 30 others needing my attention.  I ask the IT guy to set me up to dial in from home.  I can see many hours of extra work ahead but I’m too busy with people to attend to these administrative tasks during the day.

 

Day 5 – Drinks and pizza

Meet with the previous Sales Director who has moved into an APAC marketing role.  I find out that he and the VP Customer Service didn’t get on, to the extent that one of them had to go.  I sense non-work related issues at play here.  My instincts prove correct in the months ahead.

My boss doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’m not “ccing” her on my emails, or maybe she thinks I’m not sending any.  Have first teleconference with APAC HR team – Singapore, China and my boss in Hong Kong.  We’re all new to the company so everyone is excited.  The talk soon turns to changing the world (or at least some of the HR practices in the company!).

Drinks are on in the boardroom after work.  I make a mental note to spend some time schmoozing the Finance Manager.  Meanwhile, a sales rep has failed to meet his quota for three consecutive quarters.  He has to go and I have to move quickly to get the paperwork done and tee up the meeting.  Needless to say, there is no record of any previous meetings with this employee so it could get messy.  I’ve never done this before – in Telstra I almost sacked somebody but they escaped with a redundancy package instead. This meeting goes well – the employee already has another job with our major competitor so we accept his resignation and that ends the matter.

Five o’clock comes around. Armed with a decent red I work the room. They’re a great bunch of people – young, eager and overpaid. Someone suggests dinner so we kick on to the local pizza place.  Luckily for me, the Finance Manager joins us.  It’s midnight by the time I get her to agree to my master plan for payroll.

 

The changes to bullying legislation have prompted me to revisit my one and only personal experience of corporate bullying.

30 years ago I joined one of the big 4 banks as a graduate trainee. As part of our supposed fast-track development into a head office job each member of the graduate intake was allocated a branch where we were to spend the next 2 years honing our skills counting money, serving customers and ordering Bankcards.

I was lucky enough to score Kings Cross as my branch. I say lucky because it was close to home and had as its clientele the most eclectic bunch of people you could imagine. Travellers, corporate big-shots, shady nightclub owners, some very attractive women, down-and-outs and the odd famous person would regularly queue up together to do their banking (ATMs had only just been introduced into the country).

My first contact with Erica was immediate and full of foreboding.  As with most bullies, she assumed her position of superiority using the oldest trick in the book – the surprise attack. No sooner had I been allocated to her by my manager with a reassuring “don’t worry, Erica will show you how things work around here” than she had me totally cowered and subdued. To this day I’m not sure how she did it. It was a mixture of physical presence, confidence that she was right about everything, the aforementioned ability to strike immediately while most normal people are still in the “checking each other out” stage and an office environment which allowed this type of behaviour to flourish unchecked.

I wonder how I might have handled the situation better. Could I have been more assertive, should I have said something to my manager (surely he could see what was going on I used to say to myself – Erica’s bullying occurred in full view of everyone) or was ignoring it, as I did, the best approach?

I was not alone in being bullied either; every new employee at the branch was treated similarly yet those of us who had been and were still subject to Erica’s bullying said nothing.

As an aside, I have to say I quite enjoyed my time at the bank. My other co-workers were delightful. I left 15 months later not because of Erica but because I realised my future lay elsewhere. Sadly, this is not a common outcome of workplace bullying.  As we know, people do often quit a job or take extended stress leave (or even worse) because of workplace bullying. I was one of the lucky ones.

 

 

 

It’s 7pm Wednesday night and you’re still at the office. You haven’t seen the kids since Sunday. Your wife’s had to cook dinner again and we all know you’re a better cook than her. Here’s why you need HR.

Still, one of your new overseas clients has just called and wants to know how they can kick off their product launch before their official start date in Sydney. They need you to find someone to look after their HR and marketing and you need to find it tonight.  After all, it’s 9 in the morning over there. While you’re at it, they also want you to source an IT specialist to start scoping out their data comms.

And you’re an accountant! What do you know about HR, marketing or IT? If only you had a person you could call who could handle this sort of stuff.

That’s where we come in. Wurth HR has the HR expertise and experience to perfectly manage this type of situation for you. Whether it’s HR, marketing, IT or any other service we’re the ones who can help. All it takes is one phone call and we’ll do the rest.

Why would you trust your clients to us? Wurth HR is one of the leading outsourced HR companies in Australia and can demonstrate an impeccable track record of superb service to our clients over many years. We also have a network of outstanding professionals who can assist your clients in all their start-up requirements. As a team, we combine all this expertise into a seamless provision of the help your clients will need.

Wurth HR – helping your kids get the dinner they deserve.

You’ve thought about it, you’ve seen it in your mind’s eye, you can even taste it. Yes! You’re taking your company halfway around the world because you know it’s the right thing to do.

Australia calls you and you’ve answered that call. Sydney and the great land down under await.

But you’re rightfully a bit concerned – so many things to think about. You imagine 12 months from now – how will it all look? How will you ensure that what you’ve got now will seamlessly transpose to a foreign country?

That’s where we can help. Wurth HR takes your vision and neatly and without fuss ensures that you have everything to make your business as successful in Australia as it is where you are right now.

Apart from being HR specialists ourselves, we also have access to a team of experts – legal, accounting, marketing, telecommunications, IT, immigration, real estate and anything else you may need to get yourself set up and doing business fast.

The really good news is that Wurth HR is your one-stop shop – contact us and you instantly have all these services at your disposal. You don’t need to go anywhere else.

How do you know we’re any good? We are experts in our field and can demonstrate an impeccable track record of superb service to our clients over many years. As a team, we combine all this expertise into a seamless provision of the help you need.

Wurth HR – the only call you need to make when setting up your business in Australia.

Outsourcing your HR isn’t for everyone but it can be a cost-effective way to introduce some structure into your business without having to hire a full-time person to do it.

You probably need HR regardless of the size of your business, even though it’s sometimes hard to imagine the return on investment. HR professionals, like myself, will tell you that attracting and retaining good people is the only way to grow your business. You know this already – it seems logical. How does HR help you do this?

• being part of your recruitment process to help you find the best people
• ensuring the experience of coming on board with you is a professional and pleasant one
• having checks and measures to help keep that person in your business. Remember, if you lose someone you’ve had for 6 months it will cost you 150% of that person’s salary package to replace them. If they’ve been with you for 18 months and they leave the cost is 250% of their salary package
• helping you deal with performance issues
• helping you legally dismiss someone if required
• training your managers and staff in workplace harassment awareness, particularly now that anti-bullying legislation has recently changed.

Outsourcing your HR means that you can have an HR presence only when you need it. HR on call or an HR hotline is what you should be looking for in an outsourced HR company.

Once you’ve grown to around 80 employees it may be time to think about having a full-time HR person. Before that, outsourcing is your most cost-effective solution.