Over a coffee in my favourite Melbourne café last week, a young HR graduate asked me what it’s been like watching our profession evolve over the past 50 years. I had to smile – where do you even start?

I remember my first day in ‘Personnel’ back in 1974. Armed with a freshly minted degree and wearing my smartest suit, I walked into an office full of filing cabinets and manual typewriters. My first task? Confirming teacher appointments by hand. The most sophisticated technology on my desk was a calculator.

Fast forward through the decades, and what a ride it’s been! I’ve seen us move from personnel officers who mainly shuffled papers to strategic business partners who shape organisational futures. I’ve witnessed the transition from those handwritten ledgers to sophisticated HRIS systems, from rigid award structures to enterprise bargaining, and from annual performance reviews to continuous feedback cycles.

Perhaps my proudest moments came in the mining sector, where I helped transform traditionally adversarial industrial relations into collaborative partnerships. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a hardened union delegate and a sceptical site manager find common ground over a shared cup of tea.

Now, as I mentor the next generation of HR leaders, I sometimes laugh at their wide-eyed reactions when I tell them about the ‘old days’. But you know what hasn’t changed? The fundamental truth that our profession is about people – their hopes, their challenges, their potential.

Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat. The view from here has been extraordinary