Self-Care Essentials for HR Professionals

As HR professionals, we play a very critical role in supporting the well-being and success of our employees and the organization as a whole. However, we often neglect our own self-care needs in the process. In this podcast, we'll explore the importance of prioritizing self-care as an HR practitioner and discuss practical strategies for managing stress, promoting well-being, and achieving work-life balance in this very demanding profession.

Susmita Sarma: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Vantage Influencers Podcast. Today we'll be talking about caring for yourself as an HR practitioner. I'm your host, Susmita, and I'm so excited and glad to be joined by our special guest today, Julie Develin. Julie is a Senior Partner, HCM Advisory, at Ultimate Kronos Group, and she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our discussion today on this very important topic. So whether you're an HR practitioner looking to improve your self-care practices, or just interested in learning about the topic, we hope you'll find today's discussion informative and engaging. So without any further delay, let's dive in. Welcome to our show, Julie.

Julie Develin: Thank you so much. How are you today?

Susmita Sarma: I'm doing fine, Julie. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

Julie Develin: I'm doing fantastic, looking forward to the conversation.

Susmita Sarma: Me too, Julie, thank you once again. So before we move into today's topic, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your corporate journey?

Julie Develin: Absolutely. I'm a Senior Partner in the HCM Advisory, on the Human Insights team, at UKG, which is an HR software and workforce management software company. In my role at UKG, I do a lot of speaking, a lot of writing, and a lot of consulting from an HR perspective. I do that because HR is pretty much my life — I spent over 17 years as an HR executive, and I'm currently also a graduate school professor in HR, which I've been doing for about 16 years.

Susmita Sarma: So how many years into HR total, Julie?

Julie Develin: Over 20 years now — many, many years.

Susmita Sarma: Since you've been in HR and worked with so many other HR professionals, I'm sure we have a lot to learn from you today. Moving forward, Julie, we've picked a very sensitive, very important topic that we somehow haven't covered in our HR podcast until now, but today we have the perfect opportunity to talk about caring for yourself as an HR professional. HR definitely plays a critical role in managing human resources, overseeing hiring and training, managing conflicts and employee relations, and handling the countless HR-related tasks in the workplace. In this demanding, high-pressure role, there's a real risk of burnout given the nature of the job. What would you say are the common signs of burnout in HR practitioners?

Julie Develin: The common signs shouldn't be too surprising, but what I see a lot of is lack of motivation — that's one we don't always think of as a sign of burnout. It's not just feeling depressed or tired, it's more a feeling of dread, not wanting to be productive, not wanting to engage with other people, not wanting to put your all into whatever task is in front of you. Signs of burnout vary by person, and a lot of times a sign of burnout is actually working too much — if the lines between home and work have blurred, that's a sign too. You can also be, quote-unquote, "working" without actually getting much done, which is worth paying attention to as well.

Susmita Sarma: So apart from the physical labor HR does, there's also a lot of emotional labor — the effort required to manage emotions and maintain a positive attitude in the workplace, isn't there, Julie?

Julie Develin: Yes, exactly — it's more emotional. It's people not always knowing how to cope with the stressors coming down on them. If you think about where we are in the world and all the stressors coming down on us as people, those things don't disappear when we walk through the door at work or log onto a Zoom call. So any stress we experience at work, HR professional or otherwise, sits on top of the stress we're already dealing with in everyday life.

Susmita Sarma: So it's definitely important to prioritize self-care to avoid burnout and maintain overall well-being for HR. What are some easy-to-maintain self-care practices HR professionals can incorporate into their daily routines?

Julie Develin: There are personal self-care aspects and professional ones — let me differentiate. On the personal side: step away from work when needed, and recognize the signs of your own burnout, of getting tired, of feeling different from a mental health perspective — walking away for however long that needs to be, whether it's five minutes, a whole day, or a week. It's important to recognize your own signs and symptoms, and if you're not sure what those are, ask people closest to you whether they've noticed changes in you that you might not see yourself. From a personal perspective, exercise, get fresh air, journal your thoughts and feelings whenever you feel the need. I have friends who do a gratitude journal every morning before work — they wake up and write down three things they're grateful for, and that starts the day off on a good note.

From a professional angle, in HR we always talk about "employee experience" as something we design for other employees — but I think what HR professionals don't always remember is that our experience matters too, because we're employees as well. When we talk about employee experience, it's a healthy thing to include ourselves as HR practitioners in that conversation.

Susmita Sarma: So the first point you mentioned — stepping away from work when you're feeling stressed — does that mean setting work boundaries and managing workload to avoid feeling overwhelmed?

Julie Develin: Yes, setting boundaries becomes increasingly important as priorities shift and workload increases. I think setting boundaries also means saying no — you don't always have to say yes to people, and I don't mean that in a negative way, you don't have to be mean about it. But recognizing when you're too overwhelmed or don't have the capacity for something you're being asked to do, and being able to say "I'll get to it on X day" or passing it to someone else. Asking for help isn't a strong suit of mine, and I think a lot of HR professionals I come across feel the same way — we assume just doing something ourselves will be easier than the effort of delegating it. But doing the thing yourself can also take too much effort and lead to additional burnout. So saying no and delegating wherever possible is a good self-care practice.

Susmita Sarma: Good point. And going back to what you said earlier — HR is very much part of the total workforce, and when we talk about employee experience and a culture of wellness, HR professionals should be included in that focus too, alongside other employees.

Julie Develin: Right, and it wasn't until I was out of the practitioner role — I'm now in a consulting role — that I realized how much stress I was carrying on a daily basis, and how much of it was actually other people's problems. In HR, we're so often turned to as internal counselors — people come to us about very personal things, and those things can weigh heavily on us too. When it comes to HR having a good employee experience themselves, it's important to remember that we need to ask for the tools we need to do our jobs — whether that's HR technology, more team members, whatever it is. Sometimes we sit back on autopilot and think, "well, this is the way it's always been, so this is the way it has to be." There are so many tools out there that can improve an HR person's work life — we just have to look for them, and make sure we ask for what we need when we need it.

Susmita Sarma: For that reason, HR professionals are role models for a lot of us — we look to them for how to work and how to deal with stress and anxiety. So the role of HR in communicating the importance of self-care to employees is a big one.

Julie Develin: Yes — we have to walk the talk. If we're telling employees to take care of themselves, we need to be taking care of ourselves too. It's the old adage of putting your own mask on before helping others. Communicating self-care to employees benefits the entire workforce, including HR, because employees who take care of themselves need less emotional support from HR down the line. HR can also provide best practices — "this is what's worked for other people" — because a lot of employees, and HR people alike, don't know where to start with self-care. But the thought is to just start and figure it out as you go, because doing nothing won't get you closer to preventing burnout, and it won't get you closer to self-care either.

Susmita Sarma: So maybe setting some self-care goals — measurable, focused goals — just to get started?

Julie Develin: Right, and the important thing about goals is that they need to be attainable — they don't have to be astronomically difficult. Sometimes it's as simple as, "I'm going to take an hour-long lunch and not check email today," or half an hour, whatever amount of time. Reaching those small goals becomes important because it helps us internally renew our sense that we can do this, no matter what "this" is. There's no right or wrong way to approach it — whatever works for you as an individual, do that, and if it stops working, find something else. It's a lot of trial and error.

Susmita Sarma: So easy goals, but they can have great results.

Julie Develin: Exactly. I think about the goals I set for myself each week, and here's the other thing about goals — if you don't attain them, don't beat yourself up over it, just recognize that other priorities got in the way. If you step back and think about what you did accomplish rather than what you didn't, it reframes things in your mind and helps you feel more productive. There are also times you just won't get to things for various reasons, and that's okay too — it's about intention, setting a goal or two, or ten, whatever works for you, over a day, week, month, or quarter, and working toward those goals to foster a sense of internal productivity.

Susmita Sarma: Apart from their own efforts, employers and bosses also play a crucial role at the organizational level in promoting self-care, not just for HR but for other employees too.

Julie Develin: Yes, and that's a cultural thing. I think HR can do a better job of explaining to the C-suite and to managers just how important it is for employees to embrace the idea of self-care. Managers and the C-suite often get caught up in day-to-day pressures and don't always think about empathetic leadership as much as they should — which is understandable, given the pressure coming down on them too. But HR can do a better job of informing managers that mental health is no longer taboo in the workplace, it's okay to talk about it, and it's not a sign of weakness for someone to say they need time away for a few hours or days — it's actually a strength, because that person recognizes they may not be doing their best work and need to reset. Culturally, this starts at the top — leaders need to understand this is what this newer generation of work looks like, because the way work "used to be" wasn't working for everyone. The newer generations entering the workforce expect to be able to talk about their mental health, and they will talk about it. So providing resources, and even making monetary investments in things like therapy access, is where managers and the C-suite can step in — for employees and for HR too.

Susmita Sarma: Definitely. Julie, thank you for sharing your expertise today. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap up?

Julie Develin: I have a podcast as well, called the People Purpose Podcast, through the Workforce Institute at UKG, if anyone's interested. And if folks want to connect with me, they can find me as Julie Develin on LinkedIn. Thank you so much.

Susmita Sarma: I'll add your profile link in the show notes for this episode. Thank you so much for your time today, Julie — it was wonderful talking to you, and I hope to have you back for another episode on another interesting topic. Thank you so much once again.

Julie Develin: Thank you. Have a great day.

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