Believe in Yourself #GuestPost

At SHRM, Jon and I came up with a new segment for our podcast,
#HRSuperfriends, where we share new things that our friends are doing. So, as we start sharing there, I thought it would be fun to highlight some #HRSuperfriends here as well and I reached out to other HR pros on the interwebz & asked who would like to do a guest post. I’ve put together some writing prompts to give them a starting point, but also opened the door to other ideas.

Now I just need a super cool  logo … (any volunteers?)

The first guest post comes from my friend Nicole Roberts. Nicole is an HR professional in Ohio and was a guest on the HR Social Hour podcast. I haven’t had the chance to meet Nicole in person, yet, but I love connecting with her online and enjoy what she shares on her blog HR Without Ego. Check out her blog, find her on Twitter, and enjoy her post on what she would change in HR:

---

When a fellow HR Blogger invites you to be a guest on their blog, the answer is YES.  EVERY. TIME.  Wendy has thought this through, and she even provided writing prompts!  While there were plenty to pick from, one resonated with me:

“If you could change one thing about HR (as in you have a magic wand), what would you change? What steps can we take today to make that change happen?”

What would I change if I had a magic wand?  Well, I don’t think we need a magic wand.  We just need to believe in ourselves.  Somewhere along the way, there has been a belief perpetuated that we do not have the power to make REAL change in our organizations.  Do we not believe that we have power, or do we not believe that we can enact change – or both?

I was part of the tail end of a conversation at an HR roundtable discussion this morning, and a non-HR person said to two other HR people:

“I guess I never realized that you don’t actually have the power to change things in your organization.”

I was a tad dumbfounded and waited for them to respond first since I had just joined the conversation.  One of the HR professionals nodded in agreement.  The other didn’t really confirm nor deny this statement.

Having waited an appropriate length of time for others to chime in, I said “HR has a great deal of opportunity to influence and impact change in our organizations – whether we are the ones in the position of authority or not.”

In my opinion and experience, the opportunity to influence and impact change is more powerful than to simply be the person making the decisions to put the change in motion.  We must be prepared and come with data, explaining the reason for the change based on our research, observation, consultation, etc., and how the proposed change is going to address a pain point existing in the organization, an opportunity, or an external threat.

Most importantly, we must believe that we are strong enough, experienced enough, smart enough, [fill in the blank] enough to recommend and influence the change that is needed in our organizations.  We were put into these positions of incredible influence, consultation, and support for a reason.  Our position was designed to be a trusted advisor.  We owe it to our organizations to step up and make an impact.

Advertisement