I’m going to be upfront from the start, in that I have a huge issue with the phrase “work/life balance”. To me, its connotations are both incorrect and unhelpful. By differentiating “work” and “life”, we have a starting point which suggests that working is mutually exclusive to living, and that every moment we spend at work is a moment which prevents us from getting to all other elements of our life.
In the two years and four months I’ve worked at Benefex, I’ve received almost 3,000 emails from recruiters. That’s not counting the emails I’ve deleted, face to face approaches, and multiple phone calls every hour. Broken down, that works out as around 5 emails coming into my inbox from recruiters every single working day. And, on average, I would say that 80% of those are unsolicited and are therefore unwanted.
One of the things I’ve learnt over the course of my HR career to date is that it’s quite often the smallest things which make the biggest difference to employees. Consult on a change of terms and conditions of employment and the fall out can be minimal. Fail to provide sufficient milk supplies for the week and you face a positive mutiny!
Partings are a fact of life, and never more so than within the workplace, given on average, we change jobs ten to fifteen times over the course of our career.
While there are the odd occasions when employees will leave without notice, in the vast majority of instances there is a notice period to be worked out – typically anything from a single day up until six months, or even longer.
We’ve all met them, haven’t we? Those lucky b*stards who, when asked what they do, turn around and smugly announce “Oh, I’m a [job title]. I absolutely love my job.” And, for any of us who dread the Monday morning alarm call and spend every working hour wishing the week away, our reaction will be mixed with disbelief and envy. How can anyone love going to work?
What’s in a name, people ask? Well, plenty, it turns out, when you get onto the thorny topic of job titles.
For some reason, job titles (along with desk location and dress code) are one of the elements of working life which seem to elicit more of an emotive response in people than almost anything else. For many of us, our job title is a primary facet of our work identity, and therefore it is given increased weight when it comes to its significance and the value we place on it.
Yesterday I was privileged to attend the Benefex Winter Forum, in the jaw dropping surroundings of the Ham Yard Hotel. Over the course of the day we were treated to an array of expert speakers presenting to us on a wide range of topics. The day provided me with an opportunity not only to learn about a number of different HR trends happening in the industry right now, but also to really appreciate the very impressive presentation skills displayed right across the panel of presenters.
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