EVENTFUL HEADACHE

Organising office events is fun. Yet it can also be the most headachy of all headaches. This is because, despite having formed a gung-ho committee in the beginning of things, you will ultimately be running the whole entire show by yourself in the end.

There are only two outcomes of an office event. Either a flying success earning you heaps of praise and the appledom of your boss's eye, or a total fiasco that, in some cases I know, can lead you to being sacked.

So organising events is risky business indeed.

Is is very common for companies to assign event management to the HR people. Of course when you sign up for the job your employment contract and/or JD never stated this. But remember that clause at the end of your contract and/or JD which states "any other tasks assigned by the Management" or something else to the same effect? Well, taking this risk is one of them. That is fine in itself, but then you may ask, why HR? or if there is a committee, why does HR need to spearhead it? Well, don't you know? Because other people are TOO BUSY. Only you, the HR practitioner, has so much free time because your functions are not as important as accounts or operations or all others for that matter. The fact that you are assigned the partying affairs have nothing to do with your talent in the field. It's merely because you are the expert in being the clown.

Hahaha.

I am just being sarcastic to some quarters who insist on trivialising my work. The fact is, I am proud to be an event organiser, am honoured to be assigned the task, and me and my team will do our very best to rock it like it's never been rocked before.

But the headache will still happen of course. But if everyone is working on the project as a team, it will fly.

So the biggest, and last event of the year, for us shall be the Annual Dinner (or in our case, the Half-Decade Dinner as the last Annual Dinner was held about 5 years ago). My HR team is prepared for a big headache. But we already have Plan B. If we have to this ourselves in the end, we are going to make a humongous deal out of it. We will stamp our mark everywhere including on all the mites in the hotel ballroom carpet with the words "THE FUN YOU ARE HAVING TONIGHT AND OF WHICH MEMORIES YOU WILL NEVER FORGET IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE BLOOD, TOIL AND SWEAT OF THE SUPERMEN AND WOMEN OF HR DEPT".

We look forward to being the HR Dream Team this side of the country has ever seen: we will fly AND rock.

HR PRACTITIONERS MAKE LOUSY ACTORS.

In any social circumstance, there is prejudice. I have heard that prejudice is nothing but an expression of opinion without getting the facts right. This could not be more true.

In an organisation where there exists a HR or Admin Department, both of which are usually fused, that fused Department would often be the Department most prejudiced against by the rest.

What gave them the right to do this, no one knows. No one cares. Other Departments seem to get a kick out of trivialising HR/Admin jobs and practitioners.

As if they are better.

The narrow perception of today's office world is that the ones who jab the laptop keypads noisily like there's no tommorow, bustling hither and tither proclaiming to each poor sod they bump into at the latrines how occupied they are as loud as their larynxes may allow over the sound of pee and farts, staying back as late as the last drone of the boss's car engine exiting the office gates, are the personifications of busy-ness. They seem, and so they be. And ergo merit higher pay and better benefits.

HR is seen as a relaxed Department with a lot of spare time and resources, just because we do not go about doing our jobs with theatrics.

You see, our job deals with people, so we need to earn respect.

To do that, firstly we need to be efficient at all times. No hustle, no bustle, just get the job done.

Secondly, we need to manifest trustworthiness. We listen to people, respond to them discreetly and keep their secrets. Mum's the word, no unnecessary gabbling.

Thirdly, when dealing with people's emotions, rice bowl and future, we need to think a lot. We also need to balance that against fulfilling the company's needs and wants. So we need to do lots of research and acquire knowledge of best practices. This requires, amongst other things, surfing the Net, social media networking, emailing, making phone calls, meeting up with people and doing lunch.

It all looks like "doing nothing", doesn't it. But of course, some people judge books by their covers.

And finally, pace. Hey, a problem can get solved in two ways. In a rush like they do it, and end up leaving a trail of mess which guess who has to clean up? Or, with proper planning like we do, with no loose ends, win-win. If you can tell me a real story about another Dept having to clean up HR Dept's mess, I'll buy you lunch.

 Let's all grow up and start giving each other respect.

ROCK MUSIC BOOSTS YOUR BRAIN POWER

I shared this article with my fellow members at Rock 'n' Roll HR. It was written by Camillo Fracassini and was published in http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ in 2006.

LONG suffering parents of adolescents might not agree, but scientists claim that listening to rock music can boost your brain power.

Researchers at a Scottish university believe that the sound of guitar-based rock such as Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC and the Red Hot Chili Peppers improves concentration and boosts memory. Contrary to received wisdom, children who listen to loud rock or pop music while swotting for exams are probably
improving their chances of success.

The finding follows claims that listening to classical music, particularly Mozart, can improve performance in cognitive tests. Recent studies suggested that The Mozart Effect can lead to permanent changes in brainpower among young children. The findings have spawned a multi-million-pound industry in classical music CDs designed to boost children’s intelligence.

In the new study, Dr Leigh Riby and George Caldwell, cognitive psychologists at Glasgow Caledonian University, set out to find out whether The Mozart Effect applies to other types of music. The researchers monitored the brain activity of a group of 16 volunteers who were asked to perform a simple memory test while listening to rock and classical music. They were asked to do the same while listening to the
sound of static and again in silence.

The volunteers were played Beethoven’s 2nd symphony and a piece by Steve Vai, the virtuoso rock guitarist. While the classical music improved the concentration and memory of both groups, rock music also had a significant effect on the cognitive performance of the rock fans.

Brain scans revealed that they required far less brainpower to complete the test successfully. “We wanted to investigate whether more contemporary music would have a similar effect and chose rock as an extreme example,” said Riby. “What we found was surprising. While classical music appears to have an effect on everybody, we also found that there is a significant effect on people exposed to their favourite type of
music.“

Those played rock music required less mental energy to carry out the task successfully. I would expect to see a similar effect with pop fans played pop music or anyone else exposed to their favourite type of music. The music primes the brain to perform certain tasks more efficiently.

“What we are examining now is whether certain passages or certain instruments have greater effect than others. We will be examining every millisecond of the brain scans to pinpoint what it is about classical and rock music that is having this effect.”

Vai, who has performed alongside Frank Zappa, Ozzy Osbourne and the former Van Halen singer Dave Lee Roth, said he was delighted by the findings, published in the current edition of Consciousness and Cognition, the science journal. “What this test shows is that it’s important not to exclude any music having an emotional impact or educational value,” he said. “What we hear has the potential to change the way we think because it changes our moods.”

While both classical and rock music have been shown to boost brainpower, they have also been used to discomforting effect. Earlier this year Luton council began playing classical music in the town centre to drive away problem youths.

In 1989 the American army played AC/DC at high volume to force the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega out of hiding.

Previous studies have shown that rock music improved the work rate of people collecting stock market statistics and can have a positive effect on the brain chemistry of depressed teenagers.

IT'S ALL ABOUT ROCK

 Photo copyright of Tahirah Manesah Abu Bakar, May 2009.

I have a Facebook group for HR practitioners, studnts and the curious called Roll 'n' Roll HR. Feel free to be part of us. I run the group with some friends and we share articles, thoughts, frustrations, and allsorts in there.

So why do I call it Rock 'n' Roll HR? Because I think in the profession one needs to have a rocker mindset. To be cool, tp be unorthodox. To have a sense of self-gratification, always be willing to take on any shit, be confident and go out into the corporate world not just to play the game but to entertain. You know how good you are but you need to do it for the passion, for the sake of it. Because no one does the job like a HR practitioner does. And not everyone can.

I come to work in leather boots. That speaks a lot, at least in JB it does.

NOMADIC TRANSIT

I've moved Retrosis HR from Wordpress to here because I got tired of Wordpress and I want to start something new somewhere new. The only constant thing with me and Retrosis HR is change, and the irony is that's probably never going to change.