Let's give credit where credit is due!
I took the title for today's blog post from this Ted talk because what Julie Turney has to say in it really resonated with me. She calls HR professionals "hidden first responders." I sincerely believe that many of our hardworking HR folks out there haven't fully recovered from the early days of the pandemic. And that is perfectly reasonable! Those days were tough. When the you-know-what hit the fan, people all over their organizations turned to their HR teams and asked "now what?" They had questions about sick leave, work from home policies, potential layoffs (which, those hurt), mental health resources, and new legislation (that seemed to change every day) surrounding the pandemic that HR had to answer.
The tricky part is that it was all new to us, too.
Spoiler alert (which isn't really a spoiler since it's now two and a half years later and you already know what happened): those HR teams figured it out, transitions were made, questions were answered. It wasn't always smooth and it certainly wasn't easy, but we made it happen.
We made it happen.
And we're still so, so tired.
So I'm taking this moment to cheer for our HR responders: they felt pressure to be the cool, collected professional with the clear path forward in times of great social stress, and often they had limited knowledge or resources.
They figured out that path forward, despite carrying with them their own stress and fear and uncertainty because, yes, they were living through the pandemic too.
And through all that they maintained the compassion for people that they need in order to dedicate their lives to People Services.
None of that was easy. In fact, it was really, really hard. And they did it. You did it. We did it.
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