I’ve always wondered from where it came the typical 8 hours working time. Today I find it not relevant any more – it’s not about how much time you spend working but the quality and success of your work. And more, for me, it’s about the balance between work and life after leaving the office.

8 hours as a working time started in the industry revolution era when people were working all day long and then someone thought about a balance to make things more efficient: 8 hours work, 8 hours rest and another 8 for recreation.
No science behind it, just a norm.

Now about my 8 hours. I’m currently education and training leader with additional responsibilities on community projects for a production site.
Life in a production site office is very different than a  job in an office.

First off, for the support departments like human resources, finance, planning, we have an open space – no single or shared rooms, no cubicles. Everyone sits at their table seeing one another while around are the others working on computers, taking calls, talking over the tables, welcoming visits, etc.

This way I learned to be very focused on what I’m doing and at the same time connected with my other colleagues.

Being in my role you don’t get a real typical day and you don’t get bored with what you do.
The mornings look pretty much the same:
– daily meeting with my department colleagues to share info on what we have scheduled for the day and if there is help needed
– checking our online learning system for different reports on qualifications, skills, trainings that need to be done and reporting further to the management all the updates
– enrolling people into trainings, forming classes, sending invites
– talking with my coordinators and design the training calendar in advance based on what needs to be deployed – site level and department level
After lunch there can be:
– team building event preparation or team event facilitation
– organizational meetings for different types of surveys
– visits to the local school or high school for checking the progress of our programs in the community
– check on the progress of our internal courses (English) or follow up on different workshops
– preparing trainings or presentations for different type of events (weekly meetings), writing or translating articles for our communication program
– meetings with the work groups I’m a member of
– planning and supervising our practice students together with dedicated subject matter experts
– e-mails, visits, new employees onboarding, internal processes that I own and are related to the well-being of employees (seniority, benefits, safety and employees electee)
– regional calls or benchmarking for education and training
– back-up and consultant for employee assistant (my previous role)

In human resources you get variety and  is very fun to work – even in the rough days.