I started this blog just over a year ago. When I started writing it was because I saw there was a need, a yawning gap in the HR space for an HR practitioner to blog regularly about the profession in this part of the world. As far as I could see, there were no other regular, pure HR bloggers in either New Zealand or Australia.

I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned over the years, encourage others and invite discussion. I think I’ve achieved that with varying degrees of success. In my very first post I talked about wanting to influence from within, being part of the discussion, sharing with and putting back into the profession. It has started to happen but there is a long way still to go.

It’s been exciting though, and I feel fortunate that my journey coincided with the launch and amazing success of the #NZLead HR chat on Twitter which has been a consistently high quality weekly chat about all things HR, and a chance for like-minded professionals to realise they aren’t alone in their thinking while having their thoughts considerably broadened.

I’m proud of the fact that the blog has gone from strength to strength, found an audience and helped inspire a little bit of positive change along the way. More importantly, I’ve posted regularly and haven’t yet run out of ideas or things to say! You never quite know how these things will turn out when you start but I was determined to stick with it.

One of my original aims was to encourage others to do the same, to find their voice and be part of the discussion. So to celebrate the one year milestone I’ve decided to challenge 12 people in New Zealand and Australia I know mainly through social media, and whose opinions I think are worth a wider audience, to write a guest blog. Some of these people I’ve never actually met face to face.

These are not regular bloggers and most have never done anything like this before so be gentle with them. Some are HR practitioners, some aren’t. But these are all people whose opinions I respect and whose blogs I would subscribe to if they had one, so hopefully one or two may be inspired to start the new year by setting one up. You never know.

They do say it is better to give than to receive, so during December I will be posting a new guest blog every other day starting from 1 December. They are an eclectic bunch and hopefully there will be something for everyone in the lead up to Christmas. I hope you find them interesting. Enjoy!

P.S. In response to all the HR cat people out there who inflict their pet photos on us, here is a festive snap of my dog to get the season started!