🧑 Party of one

How do you manage constant interruptions during the work day?

Context: I’m a one-person HR/Payroll Dept for 150 employees. I work for a non-profit and we have an open door policy to serve our employees well. I’m serving them well, but not serving myself well! I’m having a difficult time getting “the big stuff” done. I feel like everything is last minute and rushed. I’ve spoken to my supervisor and they have given me permission to close my door or work in a different office, but our staff always seek me out. We use Slack and I ask people to use it instead of popping in. For instance, today, I’m 2 hours into my workday and have had a steady stream of EEs stopping in. Their fire is not always my fire! Help!

Bethany Reed, Senior HR Business Partner at ARETUM:

An open door policy doesn’t mean you’re available all the time. At my last job, we had door hangers we used to let staff know when they could come in/if we were on the phone/out of office/etc. (think like the “do not disturb” door hangers at a hotel), and it really helped with the drive-by interruptions. I think it’s also fair to block time in your calendar and shut your door when you need to focus so you can get work done. Or, on the reverse, set up time daily that are HR office hours where you are available for staff and they don’t need to schedule anything.

Jessica Lorello, Chief People Officer at 1440 Media:

Are you able to set up a “mailbox” outside of your office so if your door is shut employees can still feel like they are important by leaving you a note? You can create the note structure to include name, subject, urgency…etc. Then you can say you will be back to them by end of day to schedule a time to meet or you can respond via email. That way it allows you to get uninterrupted work done and people still have a way to communicate with you in a way that makes them feel like they took action.

Lauren Batcheck, People Strategist + Fractional Head of People:

Feeling your struggle here. First, as a one person team for a 150 person company, you are doing an amazing job! With that ratio alone it is completely understandable that you’re having this experience.

It’s important to balance the big picture stuff and the short term needs of the team. As a human, it’s even more important to have boundaries so that you can ensure you use your oxygen mask first in order to be able to support others.

I suggest taking some time to reflect on how your energy flows throughout the day to identify when your big picture thinking happens best, when your tactical brain starts firing, when your energy is best for meeting with others, etc. Then use your calendar as your best friend – place recurring blocks on the calendar that indicate these various activities (e.g “[DNS] Deep Thinking Time,” “[Available] Schedule with Me!”, etc.). Once you have this, share it with the team via email, post it on your door “Looking for me? Great, here are the best times I’m available,” etc.

Another suggestion is to add a recurring weekly Open Office Hours or Open Cafe Hours so that people know exactly when they can pop in to ask you questions. I’ve experienced this working well and over time being able to decrease the frequency.

What are your best tips on thriving as an HR Department of one?

Context: My company size is 70 but we are in the process of acquiring other businesses and growing our staff. The company is an MSP (IT Industry).

Marcie Chavez, Senior HR Manager at Amy Porterfield, Inc.:

Excellent question! A few things that I find to be very helpful for thriving as an HR Department of One:

Find Your Community – Join an HR group (like Safe Space) so you have support, resources, and other HR professionals to gather advice from. Safe Space has been a true life saver for me in HR! There’s so many resources available that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time something comes up.

Develop Interdepartmental Relationships – Just because you are the only one in HR doesn’t mean you need to operate in isolation. I find that developing good rapport and relationships with folks in other functions will help make your job easier and more enjoyable. Functions like Finance/Accounting, Marketing, etc. can be great places for HR to start to develop good cross functional relationships. You can try having regular 1:1’s with the leaders of each area of the company to develop those and keep a pulse on what they are working on, their challenges, needs, etc.

Work to automate as much as possible – To avoid being overwhelmed and burned out, it’s important to maximize the tools and technology you have (or work to acquire more tools) to automate as many tasks as possible, especially the redundant and more clerical stuff that you can’t pass on to anyone else if you are the only HR person. Doing some good research and due diligence to select tools and tech that will do the work for you will help take busy work off your plate so you have the bandwidth to focus on strategic and creative work as the solo HR person. (Things like HRIS systems, learning management systems, applicant tracking systems, productivity / task management tools, insurance brokers, and PEOs are a great place to look for automation and support).