As a disgruntled junior HR professional, I am at a loss to understand why HR departments haven’t realised why so many of us leave our jobs due to lack of opportunity (Personnel Today, 21 March).
I have worked in HR for five years. I started out as a recruitment administrator at the age of 18, then became an HR administrator, and now I specialise in SAP systems. However, it has taken a huge amount of time and effort to get this far, with zero help from any of the companies I have worked for (that’s three different organisations in three different sectors).
No assistance was offered for my qualifications – none of these companies have a reimbursement plan for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) qualification. They do, however, have reimburse-ment schemes for what they call ‘professional development’ (strange, isn’t gaining the CIPD qualification professional development?). On closer inspection of the rules, this applies mainly to MBA studies and other qualifications that companies want their future leaders to have. If you are bottom-level administration, you are not worth the time, money
or effort.
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It’s the same story with work experience: there’s no possibility of job-shadowing, major project participation or additional mentoring, due to lack of time and money. Yet all these companies are major global players with billion-pound turnovers.
If this is the standard the major players are setting, then what hope has anyone got of any support or succession planning? God help us all, or we will have to quit and move into sales to pay the bills.
