Meet the HRC – AEGEE’s Human Resources Powerhouse

The Human Resources Committee (HRC) supports the whole network and AEGEE-Europe with anything related to Human Resources – ranging from personal development of individual members to knowledge management of all of AEGEE. Three months ago, the HRC got a new Speaker Team. The Golden Times asked them about their activities and future plans.

Golden Times: Who is in the current Speaker Team, what are your tasks and from which antennae are you?
HRC Board: In the current Speaker Team we have Vanessa Kunze from AEGEE Bamberg as Speaker, Shehide Gashi from AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca as HR, Iuliana Paun from AEGEE-Bucuresti and Wouter Boerjan from AEGEE-Eindhoven. Unfortunately we don’t have a Secretary elected this time, but we are dividing those tasks between us, and also the other members are helping a bit with it.

GT: Have all of you been active in the HRC before?
HRC Board: Yes, ranging from our newest Speaker Team member Wouter, who joined in April, to our most experienced one Vanessa, who is already a member for almost two years.

GT: Can you tell the readers in three sentences what the HRC is doing?
HRC Board: We are supporting the whole network and AEGEE-Europe with anything related to Human Resources – ranging from personal development of individual members to knowledge management of all of AEGEE. Therefore we strive to squeeze that potential out of every member.

GT: Also the Academy aims at improving the members’ individual abilities. Where is the line between Academy and HRC?
HRC Board: Both of our bodies have a strong focus on internal education. This is also one reason why we collaborate with each other. We can’t really define a clear line as both are opportunity-giving, squeezing potential and education are all intertwined. Generally though the HRC is concentrating on HR related issues only, which is different for the Academy.

GT: Talking about Human resources, Corona made the life of antennae very hard. How do you see the HR situation of the locals in times of Corona and how do you as HRC respond to these challenges?
HRC Board: As a committee most of our work is online, therefore we are sharing our way of working with locals and the whole network since the beginning of pandemic time. By implementing online escape rooms where until now we had more than 150 of participants, chit chats and different online games for several weeks. Together with CD and other bodies we did an Online Fair, sharing best practices of online recruitment events and other things. In the future more work will be done in this area, as the new project on local support will take off and fully focus on how to improve the HR situation in locals, with a focus now also on the times of Covid-19.

GT: In general, which projects, events and initiatives are you focusing on in this term?
HRC Board: We made quite some restructuring in the committee, with new people starting and some people leaving. Also a change in the projects we are working on happened, so since October we are focusing on the following projects:

• Branding: focusing on the Human side of PR, who are we, what do we do.
• European Body support: giving support in every way possible to AEGEE-Europe.
• Knowledge Management: Managing the knowledge of AEGEE, part of the strategic plan.
• Local Support: Giving the locals support where they need in regards to human resources.
• Personal Development: Developing each individual in AEGEE to squeeze their potential.

GT: Your Agora Mentorship System is very popular. How can you do it in times of Corona?
HRC Board: We already had an Agora Mentorship during the spring online Agora and again now at the autumn online Agora with improvements that we made after the evaluation of last Agora participants. This time we had an even ​closer cooperation with JC and Chair, whilst initiating the project’s transition from the current permanent form to a mean and lean project – meaning it is carried out by the whole committee when there is a need for it instead of by only one project.

GT: The HRC is working on the AEGEE Wiki. What’s its status? How has it been developing this year and how do you further want to develop it?
HRC Board: Yes, the HRC is one of the bodies involved in Wiki, in the past year some updates have been made. Nowadays there is a group of enthusiasts also working on Wiki outside of HRC, so it is both worked on within and outside. It will be included in the Strategic Plan under the “Organisational improvement of knowledge management”, which the project in HRC is working on. So from now on more is to be expected from Wiki, so keep your eyes and ears open.

GT: You revived the “Member of the month” together with the AEGEEan Magazine. How many nominations do you get per month and how do you select the winner?
HRC Board: It depends on the month. Some months we have many applications and sometimes just two. We are happy to say that we get nominations every time, and we would like to thank each member for their contributions. For selecting the winner we are a team of representatives of Netcom, The AEGEEan and HRC. We cast our votes and select who we think is contributing the most.

GT: You created materials related to Human Resources and Knowledge Management. Where can people find them?
HRC Board: Those documents can be found in the following links. These documents have been made together with Netcom: KT 101 booklet and Advanced KT booklet. And the HR Cycle booklet was created by our previous project on HR cycle.

GT: Anything else you want to add?
HRC Board: You can always contact us via mail, hrc@aegee.eu, about anything HR related.