Since my last glowing review of HR for an information professional, I have been promoted to HR Coordinator. I have been doing this new role for 8 months now and let me tell you, it has been interesting, challenging, motivating, hectic and FUN! I have really enjoyed growing into this role and taking on additional responsibilities and improving as an information and HR professional and getting to work alongside an amazing team.
It was quite difficult for the first month or so as I straddled my old and new jobs. There was a seriously high volume of work coming through from my old job with no one to take it on and I was struggling to learn my new responsibilities. However, I persevered and worked on my time management and delegation skills and was able to process a bulk load of information into our payroll data base in order to meet our deadlines. As an information professional this has really enhanced by database knowledge and my information management skills as I had to sort through a lot of information and select the appropriate information in an efficient way.
Not all of it has been hard times. In my new role, as I have a bit more seniority and experience I am able to communicate a lot more with a range of different people including higher up managers such as the General Managers of Madame Tussauds and the London Dungeon as well as directors of the Merlin London Cluster. Being confident and knowledgeable enough to advise with a variety of people throughout the business is important as an information professional as it allows me to communicate information effectively and efficiently.
Other additional responsibilities I have taken on as a HR Coordinator include being much more active in Recruitment and Training. I can now run assessment centers and conduct interviews with candidates and have also run several training courses, including company inductions. These are great experiences and have really aided in my development as a HR and information professional. Both training and recruitment require me to impart information to a group of individuals. For training it is for the employees development and growth that I must effectively teach them new knowledge and skills. This is a vital skill as an information professional, as people learn in different ways so I have had to use different learning techniques, such as presentations, videos, group activities and individual activities, throughout the training courses in order for all employees to gain from the experience. I have had to share and communicate information in different mediums such as oral, written and visual in order for each employee to grasp the information. Again, this is a VITAL tool for any information professional.
Running assessment centres and conducting interviews has also helped my information skills. Again, I must impart a lot of important information to sometimes a large group of candidates. I must manage the information given to them so they aren’t overwhelmed and can understand what tasks they must undertake. This is really important in order to get the most out of the candidate and recruit well. Assessments and interviews are also about gathering, finding and deducing the information we need from the candidates in order to make informed decisions. As an information and HR professional this is key and can also be tricky thus different mediums are engaged such as forms, presentations, group tasks and questions. This information must be processed accurately and fairly on a scoring matrix in order for the correct decision to be made for the business. Therefore the gathering of this information is crucial to successful recruitment which directly relates to the success of the business. HUZZAH for information!
My new role has also allowed me to take on a few more projects. One that I worked really hard on was coordinating not one but two (!!) benefits fairs for our employees at Madame Tussauds London and the London Dungeon. These events for all our teams had to be planned well in advance and included me further developing the following skills –
- Liaising with outside companies
- Liaising with internal employees
- Engaging with employees to find out what they wanted to see
- Arranging and sticking to an assigned budget
- Coordinating food, drinks, raffles, goody bags, rooms and with management
- Advertising
By running and completing this project I was able to present information to our employees in an engaging and exciting way. I also had to organise information proficiently in order to deal with multiple vendors with requests and get them all on site for the fairs. Overall the fairs were very successful with over 250 attending the fairs and taking in the information I presented them, whoa!
Madame Tussauds Benefits Fair 2015
Another project I undertook, at my own initiative, was in regards to employee engagement. At Madame Tussauds London we have an annual employee of the year award whereby employees nominate an outstanding employee. All the nominating is anonymous to our employees and they only find out the winners, not who is nominated. In order to inspire and engage our team I wanted to let them know who else had been nominated. I had to think carefully about what information to give our employees and how best to present it so that the employees were able to get the most out of it. This project was turning out to be all about the information! In the end I presented certain quotes and snippets of all the nominated employees on a large board in a busy thorough fare of the office. I jazzed the board up and took pictures of all the nominated employees, to make it fun! This project was wildly successful because of the way I presented the information. Everyone saw the board and were thrilled if they saw themselves or their colleagues up on it. It definitely helped with employee engagement and even the General Manager praised it, a very rare thing! Overall this project showed me how crucial it is to show information in an accessible way to suit your audience.
I have learnt loads more over the last 8 months however I don’t want to ramble on too long. Some other key skills I have picked up include –
- Problem solving – being heavily involved in payroll I have had to solve many complex queries. I have come to really enjoy this side of my work, flexing my brain and being able to sift through information, find the cause of the issue and implement a solution.
- Time management & prioritising – taking on more responsibility and helping support a new attraction opening (Shrek’s Adventure! London plug!) I have had an increase in my workload. I have had to utilise lists and prioritising more than ever before.
- Employee Relations – I have been able to understand and advise more frequently on our company’s disciplinary policy, sickness and absence policy and other company policies. Senior managers feel comfortable discussing confidential matters with me and are confident with the advice I give them.
- Training – not only have I run training courses but I have also been training my own colleagues in processes I am confident in such as payroll & recruitment administration. I have had to understand my colleagues’ needs and how they best learn in order to share the information accurately with them.
I am still utilising a lot of the knowledge I spoke about in my previous blog, The Wonderful Land of Human Resources :). However I am now really fleshing these out and expanding my skill sets and knowledge.
HR is still a passion of mine, especially now that I am interacting with more and more employees, such as in training and recruitment. These further skills have enabled me to implement knowledge I have gained during my masters and improve my information skills. Plus it is loads of fun! HR and information go hand in hand and I cannot wait to bring all my new skills and knowledge back to Brisbane and start the next stage in my information career, be that in HR or in the Library industry!
Go back to Part D – Professional at Work
Maddy Medlycott as a Professional 