Okay, this is my first shot at an HR blog. I have talked about doing this for years- literally. Please don’t ask what stopped me because I don’t really know and am just glad to be here now- hoping to share some of what I have learned over a rather long and interesting HR career thus far and what I think when it comes to what we do in business in this regard. But first, I think I just need to explain the name, HonestlyHR.

Well, I picked HonestlyHR for several reasons. First, HR Bartender was already taken! I really am not kidding when I say this because I do hope that this blog can be a place (I am thinking “Cheers” here) where “everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came”. A place where we can all belly up to the bar and swap our stories, questions and best practices. The name HR Bartender embodies that philosophy.

Second, I feel like HR is always charged with being the moral and ethical compass of a company. I really wanted honest to be a featured part of the name. I grappled with HonestHR, HonestyHR and other combinations. Finally I settled with HonestlyHR because I want everyone including myself to approach the content I hope to share here honestly. Honestly is an adverb meaning in an honest manner.

This brings us to the final reason I chose HonestlyHR. If honestly is an adverb, that forces us to look at HR as a verb. Crazy sounding? Maybe a little but I have found in far too many companies I have worked with over the years that HR is a noun that is viewed as a trophy. ”We have HR in our company! Yippee!” But in actuality it was a person or a group of people with the title and little or no power to impact the people of the company- the H in HR. So if we think of HR as a verb- an action- it means that something wonderful could happen.

I know, especially in the beginning, my thoughts may be all over the place…let’s face it, HR is a huge collection of disciplines (Compensation & Benefits, Employee Relations, Training & Development, Talent Acquisition to just name a few), but I hope you bear with me and feel free to weigh in on anything I have said here. That ultimately is how we learn and grow after all-listening, sharing and evaluating what we find.