Stress Management 101: How to Keep Your HR or Employee Relations Role from Draining You

I spent three years running layoffs for a Fortune 100 company. There’s simply no easy way to do this job. No matter how fair you are, how closely you follow best practices, and how great the severance package is, it’s emotionally tricky to help terminate people.

Hiring, while often seen as the cheerier side of this equation, can be just as emotionally draining. Yes, you can get a high from getting the right person on board, but you still have to tell numerous other candidates that they didn’t get the job (which I suspect is one of the reasons so many recruiters ghost candidates–it’s emotionally challenging to tell person after person “thanks, but no thanks”). With tasks like these, HR stress management can be a heavy burden for professionals.

Employee relations? Welcome to sob-story city. The challenges faced by HR professionals are nearly endless. There are internal problems like bullying, sexual harassment, and unfair assignments, as well as external matters, such as health, financial, and marital issues. Technically, the latter two aren’t under the purview of HR, but they land in our offices anyway. (Health issues are our business as far as FMLA and ADA compliance is applicable.)

What can we do to keep ourselves from being completely emotionally drained and suffering from HR burnout? Here are a few ideas.

To keep reading, click here: Stress Management 101: How to Keep Your HR or Employee Relations Role from Draining You

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