“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

You take the blue pill, the story ends.

You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – Morpheus to Neo, in the movie The Matrix

The Journey Started with Leap Down the HR Rabbit Hole.

Yes, I took the red pill.

It was Friday 13th – unlucky for some. But I was feeling elated and lucky.

If I were feeling superstitious about the number 13, my money would be on the lucky variety. Lucky 13 – a baker’s dozen.

I was finally going to do it.  And I did!

This year, on Friday 13th February, I leapt, flew, soared and tumbled down my very own rabbit hole – THE HR RABBIT HOLE.

Starting my blog The HR Rabbit Hole has been a thrilling, mind expanding hold-on-to-your-knickers roller-coaster of a ride.

Your comments, thumbs-ups and hard questions encouraged me to push on deeper into the wilds of cross-discipline adventuring. Thank you.

42 posts later here we are today.

From that 42, here are the top picks of popular and uncommonly creative posts from The HR Rabbit Hole this year…

Let’s get started with this tall tale (cut short) of cross-discipline adventuring.  Here we go!

We stole treasure from the copywriters and marketers.  Read Me.

We got our Swagger on and partied with the HR Rule Breakers as we explored the concept of HR as Art through Creative HR.

We helped entrepreneurs and HR leaders dodge the traps of the HR Horrors as they build wildly successful businesses. Whether you are a Pyjama-clad solopreneur or Niche Freelancer or Start-up Entrepreneur, this 5 part series was made for you.

How to Avoid the HR Horrors and Skyrocket Your Business Growth. Part 1 of 5: Purpose Power

You Are Not Alone: Most People (in Business) Worry About Financial Horrors. Part 2 of 5: Pesky HR Costs.

Discover When You Need to Exit a Deadwood Employee Pronto. Part 3 of 5: End that Toxic Relationship.

Untrained Zombie Employees May be Leaving Your Valuable Customers Cold. Part 4 of 5: The Cure.

Stop Stinky Communication Today to Leap from Ordinary to Extraordinary Results. Part 5 of 5: Communication Bloopers.

We tarried a little here and there. At one rest stop we were compelled to throw some seasoning and pep into pot of Lackluster Training.  Flavour and pizzazz restored, we moved on.

Oh yes, we discovered that HR is Art.

Along the way we met with storytellers and marveled at the magical way they hooked, engaged and made their audience the lead characters in their story.

We contemplated, “Why do stories matter – particularly in business?”

“… there is always a story being told – especially in the mind of your audience [..] You don’t necessarily control it but if you don’t shape it – that narrative – in the way you want it to be; the story goes on in their heads. You may not like the story they are telling themselves about you.”

Brian Clark, founder, CEO of Copyblogger Media  – interview podcast with Ryan Hanley. Listen more here.

We vowed that we would find authentic ways to craft our story and honour our audience (candidates and employee community) through the art of storytelling too.

You practise HR Art when:

• You tell your business’ story in your recruitment marketing.
• You design candidate selection exercises and write the script for your candidate interviews.
• You collect candidate and employee stories, connecting them with the story of your business – building the plot with heroes and villains.
• You use copywriting skills to create job descriptions, policies & procedures, newsletters and employee communications to inject meaning and purpose into work and the contributions made by your employee community.

Make no mistake savvy Recruiter and HR; you are a content marketer, designer, author – an Artist.

And now I have come to the end. No! Not that; but this…

“When you come to the end of yourself it is where all the interesting stuff starts.” Elizabeth Gilbert.

There is more to come. Much more.

But first, I’m pressing the pause to reflect on an amazing year.

To ponder and percolate ideas for continuing our journey down The HR Rabbit Hole, plan new projects and find new ways to serve clients better and more creatively.

Looking Forward to the New Year

So here we stand on the cusp of a New Year. Tis' the season to seek out answers in readiness to rock your professional HR-mojo next year. The community you serve sure will appreciate it.

ASK!

• How can we create value through people via HR in 2016?
• Is HR finally pulling back from the brink of relegation to a bottom of the division business discipline?
• What HR challenges are niggling or keeping you or your business leaders up at night?
• Where are you HR-wise in your business now and where do you want to go?

Tell me, I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

 Drop a comment in box below.

If you enjoyed this post, please hit the share buttons below so other readers can enjoy it too.  The more the merrier – Cheers!

 Until we meet again in the New Year on 4th January 2016 down The HR Rabbit Hole…

 Have a wonderful Holiday Season.

This post was originally posted in full in the blog The HR Rabbit Hole on 13th December 2015. It has been condensed, reworked and now freshly served for the Recruiting Blogs community.

Nicole is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Aquarius Human Resources Consulting Ltd. Passionate about HR as Art, she is an advocate of Creative HR and transforming HR. Connect via Twitter @AquariusHRLtd.