I am currently wanting to go into the field of HR but worry about being on call after hours. What’s your experience and how many hours do you work a week? I do not want to work more than 45-50 hrs a week or even 40 tbh.

Hey everyone! Today I just started working as a Junior HR Operations Specialist. Well I am very introverted, shy and socially anxious and I’ve been finding it hard to integrate myself with the team. I asked for advice related to my social anxiety and people were telling me “how did you even slip into HR being this introverted” , “this job isn’t for you” , “did you fake your personality during the interview “….like….

During the interview I was never asked If I’m an extrovert, if I’m bubbly, a social butterfly or whatever. So no I didn’t lie about any of that.

I just feel kinda weird now, cuz I feel out of place and I am overthinking my choices… :/

I don’t want to disappoint my managers, or to give off that “awkward shy girl” vibe. I hate that!

SHRM or PHR? Here’s my background:

• I have my Bachelor’s and Master’s in HR Development

• I completed an HR rotational program at a Fortune500 straight out of school then promoted to HR generalist, did that for a little over a year

• became the Regional Recruiter for that Fortune500 company in the SE USA for 2.5 years

• was dumb and moved into sales

• left that company and went back into TA for another Fortune500

I’m once again to the point where I’m bored in TA because it’s the same conversations day-in and day-out. My partner and I are moving within the next two years so I’m using now to prep my resume. I understand the Master’s helps but I feel like I’m lacking and I know a cert is a great way to 1. Refresh my memory and 2. Challenge myself.

SHRM is money grabby but somehow feels more known. PHR feels more technically and can help me get back into a general HR role and maybe venture into risk/compliance (something I’m itching to try) but doesn’t feel as known. I would love to hear your thoughts on the certs, good and bad, and if you regret getting one.

Hi friends, HR admin here. I'm using a throwaway just to add a layer of privacy.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with the Checkr background service. My company is thinking of using them, but I hear mixed opinions.

How does it work on the backend when it comes to verifying employment dates? Do we get a report telling us what jobs and dates the candidate entered which then allows us to manually match up to the resume?

If a candidate just wants to "pass" the background check and puts dates that are real but are different to whats on the resume, will we find that out? Or will we just see green check marks?

Thanks for any help!

Hi everyone,

I am looking for some perspective or advice from fellow HR and Benefits professionals. I recently was laid off after 6 wonderful years with a major PEO. Since then, the job hunt has been a bit of an eye-opener, and honestly, a struggle.

I have 6 years of total PEO experience. I started handling employee benefits and platform inquiries, then moved to the client side for 5 years. I focused heavily on benefits funding, annual renewals, and complex escalations involving Health, LOA, and COBRA. My most recent role was handling senior leadership-level escalations—basically acting as the fixer for the most complex issues.

It has been a month of daily applications, and I am hitting two major challenges:

1. Most HR roles I see right now want one person to do it all for example payroll, benefits, tax compliance, and more. Coming from a PEO, my experience is very deep but in specific lanes. I feel like I am being overlooked because I haven’t touched every single HR pillar simultaneously.
2. The PEO I worked for used a proprietary platform. Every job posting now seems to require Workday, Rippling, or ADP as a hard barrier. It feels like companies are no longer willing to train on software even if you have the underlying subject matter expertise.

I’ve worked with the outplacement company provided by my former employer, but aside from a better-looking resume template, it hasn’t been helpful. I’m starting to feel like my PEO background is actually a disadvantage in the broader market because it is so specialized.

Since other PEOs are not local to my city and remote options are feeling more limited by the day, I am seriously questioning if I need to pivot careers entirely.

My questions for the group:

• Has anyone successfully transitioned from a PEO to an in-house HR or Benefits role? How did you bridge the generalist gap?

• How are you handling the software requirements like Workday when you have the knowledge but not the specific UI experience?

• Are there specific industries or roles that value the high-level escalation skill set more than others?

I appreciate any suggestions or even just a bit of encouragement. Apologies for the long post, it has been a long month.

I'm not a negative person and I really don't do this but I need to put this somewhere.

in December one of our contractors in Spain filed a labour complaint with the Inspección de Trabajo and that's how I found out we had a six-figure problem nobody knew about.

she'd been working 40 hours a week on a fixed schedule for over a year, using our tools, reporting to our engineering lead, basically an employee in every way that matters under Spanish law except we were paying her through a services invoice.

I got the notification on a Tuesday morning and I already knew before I even opened the files that she wasn't going to be the only one.

I spent the next couple of weeks auditing every international contractor we had. 14 people across Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany, and when I mapped each one against local employment indicators like exclusivity, schedule control, integration into the org, tool provision, 11 of the 14 would likely be reclassified as employees if anyone else filed or if we got audited.

the exposure in Germany alone was ugly because of retroactive social security contributions, and in Spain we were looking at fines on top of back payments. our external counsel ballparked the combined worst-case somewhere around €180-220k.

spent the next 2-3 months building the infrastructure to fix it without blowing everything up.

worked with outside counsel on the reclassification analysis country by country, set up employment contracts in HiBob, ran the EU conversions through Workmotion since they had own entities in all 3 countries so we didn't need to incorporate anywhere, and for the contractors who were independent I rewrote the SOWs to strip out the exclusivity and schedule control language so the relationships would actually survive scrutiny.

the whole thing was a quiet fire drill that nobody outside my team and legal even knew was happening.

then last week my CEO pulls me into a 1:1 and asks why people ops tooling costs went up 40% quarter over quarter. I walked him through the exposure numbers, showed the before-and-after risk map, explained what would have happened if the Spanish complaint had triggered a cross-border audit, and he kind of nodded and said okay but can we revisit this line item next quarter.

not hostile exactly, but completely unmoved by the fact that I'd spent a quarter preventing something that would've cost 10x what I spent to fix it.

I left that meeting feeling like I'd been speaking a language he doesn't have any reason to learn until the fine actually lands on his desk.

I keep going back and forth on whether there's a way to make this kind of work visible to leadership or whether preventive compliance is just permanently invisible by nature, like the only version of this story that would've gotten his attention is the one where I didn't catch it in time and we got hit with the full penalty.

idk, maybe I should've let one of the smaller fines land first so there was something concrete to point to.

anyway that's where my head is tonight, what did i do wrong guys?

Calling all Talent Professionals in my network, I’d genuinely value your perspective on this.

Our day-to-day is a mix of everything, 

sourcing, screening, interviews, coordination, documentation, reference checks, onboarding… and the list goes on.

But if you had the opportunity to change just one thing: 

👉 What would you automate?

👉 Which part of your process feels repetitive, time-consuming, or simply inefficient?

Sometimes, the smallest bottlenecks end up consuming the most energy.

I’m keen to understand where the real pain points lie across different teams and organizations and, more importantly, how we can rethink or automate these areas to work smarter, not harder.

Let’s exchange ideas. Your insight might just spark a solution for someone else.

Hi!

I currently work as an HR administrator and was invited by my COO to start working towards my CEBS destination.

I haven't been to school in almost 10 years and I am feeling a bit lost.

I have the GBA 1/2 textbook and the GBA 1 study guide.

My question is, what is the recommended flow for studying? I keep opening the textbook be it all feels a bit overwhelming so I keep putting it off so any tips are greatly appreciated!

TIA!!

Hi everybody.

I am currently a HR intern. I’ve been called out by other members of the department for being too shy and introverted. I have zero issues interacting with candidates or hiring managers but I absolutely do not enjoy small talk with other employees and this seems to overshadow all the work I do. I have been told I should interact with everyone in our office but I simply can’t I’m just not that kind of person. I cannot engage unless it’s work related. This has got me wondering if I’m heading down the wrong path. I just need a final honest verdict. Is being introverted going to hamper my career in this field?

Hi all, I am a HR associate and I am about to take my aPHR exam tomorrow. What I really want to know, is I know they are multiple choice answers, but are any answers “select all that apply”/aka multiple answers? Those are the ones that kick my butt the most in the practice quizzes and exams!!!

Any other pointers I’d really appreciate

Hi! Just wondering if anyone here will be attending this year's conference next week! Would love to network while there.

Recently a marketing manager (who's often sarcastic about HRs in general) in his absolute boastful confidence shared a job description that contained the words- "would you like me to make the suggested changes"- in the MIDDLE of the job description.

I just don't know how to tell him that may be he should leave something to the pros

My company claims they do annual performance management and I think it's the lamest set up. This month marks my one year and I haven't been told officially if I should expect a performance review. I looked in our HR drive at the 2025 questions and some are meaningless.

First, there is no purpose statement on the "self evaluation" forms. Am I the only one who believes this is necessary? Employees should know what comes of this feedback.. a raise, promotion, a pip, or nothing? How are we evaluated on these open ended questions? Mind you this company does not do regular 1:1s with management, so the questions about goal setting make me laugh because that's never discussed on a regular basis. At least not within my own HR Team.

Then there's the questions they asked. Out of 11, there are 4 questions related to the job itself, 3 questions about goal setting/development, 2 questions about management, and 2 that I don't understand the point of asking. "Do you have any concerns about your work environment," and "Do you have any questions or concerns about the future of the company or your place within it?"

What kind of responses is HR expecting our employees to answer? "No, the work environment is perfect and I have no concerns as they would be looked at as complaints."

Lastly, I'm disappointed nothing in our HR drives mentions pay raises. Is my company the only one that doesn't offer merit or annual pay raises? Which brings me back to the purpose statement or lack there of.

Anyway, I'm just saying this HR operation feels incomplete and irrelevant.

Anthropic CEO is spending 40% of his time on culture.What do we make of this?

I work in HR obviously. I am an assistant who is doing administrative work. I also help with events and wellness and just keeping people happy. No policy change, no conflict management, etc. It’s a super small company. My boss is a Vice President and mainly deals with upper leadership, me and her areon the same team but we aren’t… I’m bored and I really feel like I have no team or anyone to talk to. I have no idea what goes on with the business and I feel so alone. Everyone else here has a friend or relative working here, or they hang out after work. I feel as though I don’t fit in. I have so many other things that factor into why I am staying (pay, location) but I am unhappy and not learning. Do I leave??

Does anyone have any recommendations on software they use for selection of candidates that can also be used for post hire training?

Studying for the aphr and plan on taking it next month. Have been only doing pocket prep quizzes and the hrci practice exam 50 questions to study. Which do you think is more accurate when it comes to what is actually on the test?

Hello my multi-state HR friends! I work for a business consulting company with employees all over the country. We have around 1,200 in about 45 states. How do you all manage company-paid and state-paid family leaves? Currently, we run them together and deduct what the employee receives from state from company pay. We didn't used to do that, but our broker said it's most common and best practice for businesses to do it this way to prevent emplpyees from "stacking" leaves.

How do you manage? If you run state and company together, when do you start deducting for the state benefits? We estimate the state amount and start deducting once employee goes on leave, and ask employee to provide verification of the amount they are getting once state approves. If the amount is different, we make it up in next check.

Hi, I am scheduled to take the PHRca test in June. I am taking it through HRCI website and have their study material. As the date gets closer I am getting more nervous and a little overwhelmed with how I want to structure my studying. I have watched TrainMeToday on Youtube for some material and tons of notes. plan to make flash cards. I have the study book but keep reading different responses on the overall test format here on Reddit. I was even thinking of getting the CalChambers book of law for help but that thing is 1000 pages. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!