Your HR Job – 3 C’s For Succeeding in Any Human Resources Job

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I used to deliver training sessions for our managers who were new to their HR job. This was a two-day training session we did at Quaker Oats and it included our best up-and coming HR leaders. There were 56 things that we’d tell them they needed to do in order to be successful. It included how you interview job candidates, coach and counsel, hold career discussions and do performance reviews.

As I would get up to conclude the training, I knew from past experience that it wasn’t possible for these people to remember everything. So I would wrap up by saying that there are three things that matter in any HR job.

The first is competence. Focus on being the best in your HR job — whether you’re a generalist or in compensation or labor relations. Reach for the higher standard. This means focusing on the job you have, not on the job you want, and committing to grow your skills to become great at what you do.

The second is confidence. While it’s great to ask questions to gather data in an employee investigation, your clients want to know what you think. Leadership is about having a point a view and sharing it. So you have to have enough confidence in yourself to regularly and unabashedly put your own perspectives and ideas on the table in tough situations.

The third is caring. No one individual can accomplish great things in large, complex organizations. Success requires collaboration. And at the end of the day, it’s giving a darn and partnering with your clients and your colleagues and recognizing that it’s the people around you are the ones who make you look good in your HR job.

I’ve tried to adhere to these three simple rules in every HR job I’ve held. And, I’ve found over the years that they are as true for those new in their HR job as it is for the senior vice president in HR.

Staying Safe on a 125cc Scooter Or 50cc Moped

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If you are looking for a cheap way to commute and get into work or school then it is hard to beat a small motorbike or scooter. Small bikes such as a 125cc scooter or 50cc moped do not cost very much to buy. They are cheap to insure and they use very little gasoline. Even better is that they are easy to park because they do not take up very much space. Often you can just squeeze them in to a small spot near home or in the city.

There are, however, a couple of things that you should keep in mind when considering using a scooter for your daily travelling.

The first thing you have to keep in mind is that motorcycles and mopeds do not provide nearly the same level of safety as cars do. This is for several obvious reasons. One is that you are only riding on two wheels instead of four. While it is very difficult to get a car to roll over, falling off a motorcycle is unfortunately rather easy to do if you hit a slippery patch of road while taking a corner.

The second reason is that you are not enclosed in a protective cage with airbags and safety belts. As a result, if you do have a collision you are far more likely to get badly hurt. Although motorbikes only make up a small proportion of traffic on the roads in most countries, they generally account for a disproportionate share of fatalities in accidents.

A third reason is that you are much smaller on the road so cars may not see you. In the vast majority of accidents in which motorcycles and cars collided, the driver of the car said that he did not see the bike coming.

There are steps you can take to mitigate these risks. The first is that you should be properly trained. Get some lessons and then take up an advanced course. This will help teach you essential skills for avoiding accidents.

The second step you should take is to make sure you are visible. White helmets and luminous vests or brightly coloured bikes may not look cool, but they can play a huge role in keeping you safe. Official studies have found there is a significant reduction in the risk of accident and injury in instances where bikers make themselves clearly visible to other traffic.

The third safety step you should take is to wear proper protective gear. A full face helmet, gloves and leather jacket can really provide a lot of protection in the event that you do come off your motorbike or scooter. Be sure these are all double stitched and from reputable companies. Normal stylish clothing or ski gloves will not be adequate. Many people simply wear some denim jeans, but these will not provide very much protection against abrasion to your legs from a rough road surface. Protective boots are also important as feet, legs and hands are the body parts that are most frequently injured in motorcycle accidents.

Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips – A Review

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When a circus came to our suburb, it reminded me of a book I’d read the year before. Being set in a circus is a fairly unique setting for a romance novel, so it had stuck in my head. I’d borrowed heaps of books from the library the previous year and try as I might, I could not bring to mind the name of the author or the name of the book. So in the books section in Amazon, I typed in the search words ‘circus Alex icon Russian’ and to my delight, Kiss an Angel came up in the results. I didn’t think I really needed to read the book again, but something about it kept bugging me, so I borrowed it a second time, and regardless of a few issues I had with the story and some of the characters, it still had enough of something to get me in sufficiently to read it all again.

Daisy hasn’t had an easy life. She’s the illegitimate daughter of an exhibitionist, promiscuous socialite mother, whom she’s accompanied around Europe, acquiring a hit and miss unusual education in the process and trying to stay unnoticed in the background. When her mother dies, Daisy finds herself with a heap of debts and no formal training or skills to support herself.

Her father, a Romanov historian, offers to help her out financially, but’s there’s a catch. She must marry Alex Markov and live with him for six months, or the deal offering his monetary assistance will be withdrawn.

With no other options in view, Daisy reluctantly lets herself be dragged through the proceedings.

The only reason Alex has allowed himself to be involved in Daisy’s father’s plan, is because he’s hugely indebted to him from an event many years earlier. Otherwise, there is no way or no one else who could have coerced Alex into marriage full stop.

So a marriage begins between two unwilling strangers who can appreciate each other’s physical attributes but otherwise have absolutely nothing in common.

Alex is determined to be out of the arrangement at the end of the six months, or preferably much earlier than that, if he can make the living conditions so abhorrent to the pampered, indulged, self-absorbed Daisy that she’ll leave him. Alex manages and performs in a travelling family circus. Daisy is scared of even small dogs, so encounters many personal challenges when she’s required to assist with the care of the circus animals.

Alex expects Daisy to balk at any hard work but she surprises him by flourishing in her new surroundings. It’s the first time she’s taking responsibility for living for herself without trailing in her mother’s shadow and she’s learning to love having a sense of personal achievement and job satisfaction.

Daisy’s presence in the circus community sparks some jealousy from Alex’s former lover as well as from a teenager with a serious crush on Alex, and they both set out to hurt Daisy and her developing relationship with Alex.

Alex expresses to Daisy that he’ll never love her and he never wants children. Therefore, things get interesting as the circus travels around its performance circuit.

Daisy’s character is endearing as she truly has a heart of gold. It just takes a long time for anyone to realize that. She’s always been very pure and over the course of the book, she discovers she has strengths. At the start of the book, she is terrified of animals, but towards the end, she’s got the whole menagerie of the circus eating out of her hand.

Alex’s inability to see Daisy’s true qualities is frustrating at times. He has so many secrets and issues from his past, combined with his attitude towards his forced marriage situation that he often appears to be an uncaring, unfeeling, brooding, volatile, heartless, cold block of ice. It takes time for his exposure to Daisy to thaw him. Initially, Alex is definitely not the most romantic hero, but his transformation does happen and the reader sees more and more glimpses of it as it develops.

Kiss an Angel brings together some unusual elements in a romance novel. There’s a contemporary arranged marriage, a telepathic animal and a circus, but when a story stays with you for a long time after you finish the book, one can say that the story has worked well.