A Day in the Life of… an OD Professional

Today’s post comes from Reanna Browne, who is an Adviser in Strategic Workforce Planning and Development for the Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment. I’ll leave her explain to you what that all means, but you can find her here on twitter.

Most people in the HR profession have a strong sense of traditional HR roles; recruitment and selection, payroll, industrial relations. But few would consciously cite workforce / organisational development as one of these. So what do I actually do? I find this question challenging – and often respond with a variety of responses. I guess this is reflective of that fact that the identity of these fields often overlap with other HR disciplines, like HRM or Org Behaviour. I won’t bore you with the details, but suggested you Google Workforce /Org Development.. I think it’s fascinating stuff..

Here’s to hoping that a montage of my day in the life of “the other sides of HR” might help answer some of those questions..

Morning

My day starts with a 6:30 am rise. Two dogs wait patiently at the front door to be fed, loved, and ultimately left to conjure up their own adventures for the day. Unlike my previous life in a major city, my commute is consistently 14 minutes – which is actually considered quite a journey when you live in the Top End. Although my day doesn’t technically start until 8am – I’m at work by 7:15am. Most introverts will understand that quiet time in the office is worth the early morning rise. The time between 7-9am is spent sifting through emails, flagging the immediate and filing the rest.

I’m in between calls with IT and HR – looking to get the process started for two new employees that will start in our unit next week! I’m also chasing up a few loose ends from last week. I finally get a chance to step away and start considering some of the projects I’m leading.

Women in Leadership
I’m still in the conceptual stage of this project. My challenge is to revisit a now outdated discussion paper and consider the where to from here? I’m a mind map enthusiast – so I plot out a couple of conceptual thoughts. By default I’ve inherited a design approach to the way I come up with solutions. What can I do that will add the most value to the clients/ users etc I ponder – a women in leadership seminar series, a written piece that focuses on the women who have successfully broken the glass ceiling – what can we learn from these women? How can their stories answer some of the strategic questions around women the proverbial glass ceiling?

I rely heavily on HR networks (both inside and outside my organisation) so I pose a question on this project to the online HR world– hopefully I’ll have a few responses by morning. No doubt tomorrow I will have some ideas that I need to sense test with senior colleagues – I love the conceptual stages of a project…

Innovation
I’m adding the finishing touches to a web portal I’ve just created on innovation. The idea is to share innovation stories, lessons and insights across traditional boundaries and silos. The site is looking ok – I’m updating a new podcast interview I’ve recently had with an amazing woman from Parks and Wildlife – I recorded last weeks conversation on my ipad and hope to have it showcased on the website when I finally get around to editing it..

Midday
I gasp in shock, as I realise lunch is upon me – where has the day gone? It’s a rare occasion, but – today I’ve opted against a sandwich on the run and sat down to enjoy delicious leftovers form last nights dinner. I have an unquenchable thirst to learn, so my lunch is often filled with a quick scan through my ‘read it later’ articles, or one of the 5-6 books that I generally have on the go. Today I’m intrigued with a fascinating article by Deloitte – Fed Cloud. Essentially, it proposes a cloud based Federal Workforce that comprises a pool of employees who undertake creative, problem focused work, where required, across traditional silo and boundaries. As a right brain thinker – I’m immediately sold on the idea… I contemplate how amazing it would be if we had a model like this in Australia… This one will be added to my mental ‘notes to self’…

The phone rings, and my ever decreasing lunch break comes to an end.

Afternoon
As a central Department – my role has a sector wide reach (spanning across all NTG Departments) so as I work through a draft guideline on recognising service, I’m contemplating creative ways to involve agencies in the development of this piece! I ultimately decide that I’ll house it on Sharepoint, and invite the relevant HR practitioners to comment.

I have just enough time to upload the draft and email a few HR contacts across agencies before heading off to a whole of government Gender Equity Panel meeting.. I spend the next two hours discussing a variety of gender issues and return just before 4:30pm.

Its officially knock off time but I’m hanging around to prepare for my first AHRI Council (NT) meeting tomorrow afternoon. I’m keen to progress the idea of a NT AHRI young professional group and start to jot a few ideas down to discuss with the Council.

True to my earlier statement, I’m home within 15 minutes – the Top End is blessed with long sunny afternoons, so I decide to grab the dogs and my mountain bike and head down to the local beachside track. This is one of the reasons why I love living in the Territory = work life balance.

Evening
I’m on a mission to cook the quickest possible dinner, using the least amount of utensils… A fresh grilled piece of barra and salad are on the menu tonight. Between feeding myself and the canines I slouch on the couch and flick ruthlessly through the TV channels – I’m uninspired until I remember that I recorded a documentary on hoarders…. I spend the next couple of hours flicking between Hoarders and X factor.. Audio Vixen are impressive – yet again.

I’m now ready to wind down …

I pick up the book that I didn’t get a chance to read earlier… It’s a Christian Bason book – “Leading public sector innovation’… It’s a fantastic read that I end up graffiting with a yellow high lighter… Plenty of “notes to self” in this one…

Another typical day has been and gone… I’m shattered and it’s only Monday..