ISCHR Journey
Welcome to the ISCHR blog
For our first post I thought people would be interested to know about the origin of ISCHR, where the idea came from and how it all started.
From 2011 to 2016, Rowan and I worked together at GEMS, in Dubai. Rowan started by supporting the Education Solutions team with all things HR and I was overseeing all school HR and recruitment in the schools. Through the 5 years we worked together we saw most things in school HR, in most areas of the world.
Rowan then left GEMS and moved to Taaleem Education, still based in Dubai.
At this point there was a small number of us who would meet up for lunch, one Thursday every 2 months, to catch up. We mainly talked about our lives and what was happening but invariably we would end up talking about HR challenges in the various schools and school groups that we worked for. We would discuss the good, the bad and the new as it happened and supported each other with ideas and solutions.
Soon we called these lunches our quarterly HR conference. It was the excuse we gave ourselves when lunches might over run. We were learning about different challenges, different schools and finding solutions to shared problems.
Fast forward to today and Rowan and I have been discussing starting ISCHR. Rowan is now based in China and has been at the forefront of the COVID 19 challenges faced initially in China. From this many people have contacted her for guidance and advice. I am now based in Calgary, Canada and support various schools/school groups with HR solutions and strategy.
The need to create an International School Human Resources Association is about creating a community who, like our regular lunches, can share the problems of the day/week/month, get advice and implement solutions.
As our membership grows our medium and long-term aim is to employ a range of HR professionals with (and possibly without) school experience to build the bespoke support that schools need. The range of services and support will grow, become more comprehensive, and when the opportunity arises, localized. The aim is for ISCHR to provide a focal point for school HR professionals to learn the basics, to meet others who work in the same environments and then to become experts and add exceptional value to all people who work in schools.
So as we start ISCHR, we look forward to supporting and talking directly to members, and possibly, in the future, there might be the opportunity to meet people at a formal conference, and have lunch with lots of likeminded, school HR professionals.