I’m doing the traditional Thanksgiving post…with a twist.  Because while I am always thankful for my friends and family.  I know I can count on them.  I have long standing relationships with all of them and they have had my back my whole life.  They are a given. And I hope they already know and understand how thankful I am to them (and I’ll be able to tell most of them in person this weekend).  But this has not always been the case with past employers.

Today I wanted to make a point to say how thankful I am to my employer.  After all I am not your typical employee.  I won’t fill a chair, I do not ask for but expect flexibility from them (as they do from me), I take far too long to analyze and decide when a good thing is offered to me, and as past bosses will tell you I like to learn and grow in my role, constantly.  So I am no cake walk as an employee.

But I have landed in the right place.  When hired I learned one of the reasons they thought I was the right fit was their hope to really build a company that can be successful but also allows employees to lead a more stress-free, balanced life and with my work in the work/life field, they hoped I would keep them true to that.  Second, this recent article on their blog about the human experience tells me they get it and want to spread it around. And even more recently they walked the talk when a colleague had a family conflict during the work day.  They know they hired conscience workers, they know we take our responsibilities seriously and they do not flinch if something comes up during the traditional work day.  No counting hours, no face time.

So thank you for:

• Work that is engaging and interesting
• Allowing my life to be without work related stress (except that which I self-impose)
• Being human and understanding how important that is to being successful in business

And here’s wishing everyone as happy a Thanksgiving as I am having this year.

Are you also thankful for your employer?  Or are they less-human oriented?  I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve got to say it’s a good day!  Yes, the sunshine and spring-like temperatures are adding a bounce to my step but really it’s that two of my worlds are colliding today.  The HR world that I have marketed in, gotten to know well, have made great friends from and will always consider a large part of my life and the work/life folks that I have had great conversations with, made friends with and fought hard with for this day.

Yes there have been other conferences, but I feel they were either very academic or focused on HR departments that had people specifically assigned to work/life.  Now I’ve never worked for a company that big and the majority of workers in the US don’t either. This one is for everyone.  Small, medium, large.  And it is co-run by the Society for Human Resources Management who know HR folks and how to speak their language.

The fact that this conference exists means the last 3 years of my life have been a success.  I was but one voice, but one voice of many who felt life was crazy and needed to change.  Who felt too much control in life had shifted to the corporations people worked for and tried to wrestle some of that back.  Who felt overworked, overtired and under appreciated.

I have taken steps to gain that control over my life.  It comes with some tough choices, like knowing that as my two worlds collide I am needed and wanted somewhere else.  So I am not there for this momentous event.  But I have many friends who are.  And they will tell me all about it and I will follow along virtually.  And that seems just right.