By the HR Profession
In HR teams across Australia, we have welcomed many new faces. For the HR Profession we have new graduates, school leavers and experienced HR professionals that are settling in and by now are even (probably) getting the hang of all the acronyms!
There are so many reasons to get excited about having new staff in your team; it’s not just that they’re another set of hands bringing with them the latest industry knowledge and best-practice approaches. And it’s not just that they bring a new burst of energy that can energise the whole team.
One benefit that’s often overlooked is actually the propensity to ask questions – including the dreaded ‘Why?’ that can trigger a shudder in any long-term employee. But if we can wrestle that impulse to provide the obvious answer to the ground and sit on it, and instead try to be thoughtful in our responses, we may just uncover little nuggets of wisdom. Why? Because their questions can be the catalyst for seeing something in a new and different light.
Working closely with the same systems and processes day after day, it can become difficult to recognise where there’s room for improvement. Because of this, welcoming teammates with little-to-no background knowledge of the public service, fresh perspectives and curiosity can be a fantastic opportunity to identify unnecessary irritations and take action on these areas.
Take the APS HR Graduate program – questions and feedback from the 2020 cohort drastically changed how program training was delivered. It prompted testing to find the right balance between theory and practice, and guest speakers and graduate discussions, to keep energy and engagement levels high. It also resulted in the training evolving over the course of the year from a full-day online session to two three-hour segments broken up over two days. Not bad, right?
So why not make the most of these valuable new additions to our teams as we warmly welcome all our new staff including our 2022 Graduates and school leavers who are halfway through their program and our new staff who have joined us throughout the year across the profession. Welcome and we look forward to hearing about how you all inspire improvements across the profession.