Navigating the HR Landscape: A Journey from Firefighting to Prevention
The realm of Human Resources is undeniably fulfilling, yet it’s not without its challenges. Many HR professionals across various sectors can attest to the constant juggling act required in their roles. A Talent Director I once spoke with likened his experience in HR to “riding a bicycle down a staircase at full speed without brakes.“
As the Founder of The Mind Solution, my background in HR for renowned brands like Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Carnival UK, De Vere Hotels, and the NHS has shown me the highs and lows of the profession. Despite our best efforts, there were times when it felt like we were only making incremental improvements.
During my time as an HRBP for an NHS division catering to 2,000 employees, I was deeply entrenched in case management and employee relations issues. Striving to make a proactive, positive impact often seemed like a Herculean task.
Month after month, I reported to the board of directors on key performance indicators such as reducing absenteeism and its costs, and enhancing retention rates. Yet, despite our initiatives—conducting workshops on absence management for supervisors and managers, referring employees to occupational health promptly, and ensuring thorough return-to-work interviews—the absenteeism figures remained stubbornly high.
A decade later, the clarity of hindsight revealed a fundamental oversight in our approach within the HR field, including my own strategies—we were operating on a cure rather than prevention model.
Our efforts to address mental health and wellbeing were inadvertently reversed. While we frequently discussed stress and burnout among NHS staff, our strategies did not focus on preventing these issues before they escalated.
For those sceptical that stress prevention is possible in high-stress environments like the NHS, I invite you to consider the insights of Dr. Giles Croft on the notion that work-related stress is, in fact, a misnomer. This perspective challenges us to rethink our approaches to HR and the well-being of our workforce, highlighting the importance of a preventative strategy in creating healthier, more resilient organisations.
Ready to revolutionise your HR approach and shift from firefighting to prevention? Connect with us now to learn more about implementing effective stress prevention techniques in your HR practices. Let’s redefine HR together for a healthier tomorrow.
Sara Maude, a seasoned Solution Focused Psychotherapist, Transformational Coach, Hypnotherapist, and EFT Practitioner, brings over a decade of mental health expertise to global organisations. She specialises in workplace wellbeing training, employee health and wellbeing programs and mental health training for managers. Sara’s proficiency also extends to wellbeing consultancy and wellbeing strategy, contributing significantly to the enhancement of employee wellbeing in the workplace.