It has been way too long since I last posted. Life at work has been (and continues to be, with no signs of changing anytime soon) incredibly hectic. And anything outside of my normal workweek pretty much didn't happen the entire month of December because I managed to pick up whatever this godawful flu going around is, and was sick as a dog for pretty much the whole month. Unfortunately, that meant that my poor blog got very badly neglected.
So, the last time I blogged about anything, I was about two weeks into the new job. I'm now just about three months in, and so far I have overseen the termination of nearly a dozen people and the hiring of about that many again, which is fairly impressive considering we have 81 people on payroll. That number should be about 100 if we want to reach full staffing, but as this province is currently leading the way in Canada with a 4.1 unemployment rate, that is proving very challenging. I've been overseeing a recruitment campaign that covers 2/3 of the continent, have worked with the CFO to oversee a wage review, new bonus program, new benefits provider and health spending accounts, and implemented new employment contracts for everyone. Not to mention a new performance management system, metrics and individual performance plans. All of which, as you might imagine, has left me extremely busy, but which should get us into a better position to attract staff going forwards. I hope anyway, because sometime in the next six months or so, I need to find enough tradespeople to staff our new facility, which should be up and running by July, and which will increase the size of the organization by about 1/3. And since we compete with the oil and gas industry for our people, that's going to be very complicated indeed, because, as a small organization, we absolutely cannot match pay or benefits, so it's mostly going to have to be by focusing on the lifestyle benefits and some of the cool things (like our company wellness program) that larger organizations don't necessarily have the flexibility to offer.
And I love it. I love all of it. It's been incredibly satisfying to be digging into the guts of things and then changing and rebuilding it all. It has been more work than I thought it would be, and more work than the CFO thought there would be, as I have discovered that there were significant issues in the HR department that no one had noticed that need rectifying, but I can't wait to see where we end up in a year! It's looking increasingly like we may head abroad to try and source some international talent for our new facility, which should be incredibly interesting and a new challenge for me, as I have no prior experience in international recruitment.
I will try to keep you all posted just a wee bit more regularly than I have been. It's a rollercoaster, but I am so far enjoying the ride!
Of course, if there's anyone out there dealing with similar challenges or experienced in these kinds of issues, hit me up! I'd love to hear from you.
