HR 101.
If there is one thing I could give a new HR Pro it would be this simple advice. No matter how prepared you think you are, you really only need to prepare yourself, for one thing.
What’s that ‘one’ thing?
You’re going to be surprised in your career with some stuff!
You don’t really get judged on your daily stuff. Let’s face it, 99.9% of the time that goes off without a hitch. You get judged on how you handle surprises.
Surprises make and break great HR Pro careers.
There’s really only one way to prepare for surprises. You need to expect that a surprise will always happen. That one employee you can’t lose or the entire project will blow up, be prepared to lose them. Talk about it, plan for it, and basically come to grips that it will happen. Then it will happen, and you’ll be the only one not surprised by it.
The best HR Pros I’ve worked with had this one common trait, they were unshakeable when surprised. Almost like they expected it.
“We’re paid to be paranoid…” Be honest – is it likely your company is going to have an i9 audit, or have a huge data breach, an employee rights scandal that is going to be a story in the local news? No, but we have to act like it might just happen and prepare for it.