Balancing the Grind with Jacu Amansec, Global Human Resources Manager at Blue Wireless

Jacu Amansec is the Global Human Resources Manager at Blue Wireless, the first global service provider for wireless connectivity.

1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

My career background has been a melting pot of different industries and disciplines. I dabbled in oil and gas doing sales and marketing, service and hospitality doing HR and training, design consultancy doing office management, co-working space as a community associate, and communications and events mainly as a project manager, then finally going back to HR with Blue Wireless.

The common thread that ties these experiences together is that all of them are human-centric: making new relationships and building on existing ones.

As the Global HR Manager of Blue Wireless, the simplest way to explain my role is that I am responsible for the overall life-cycle of every employee – from recruitment, onboarding, welfare, engagement, career progression, to the inevitable exit from the company.

Think of all the necessary standardization of processes within the full life-cycle of an employee and you’ll find me co-creating them with the whole management team of Blue Wireless.

2) What does a day in your life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

I wake up at around 5:30 in the morning and skim through my calendar and inbox, just to get a sense of what to prioritise that day. Then head out to the gym and do some exercises for about an hour or so while visualizing how my day would look like.

Once that is done, I head down to the office and reach around quarter to 9, fix myself a cup of tea, and plough through the things that need to get done. I usually take my first meal of the day at half past 11 to avoid the slow-moving lunch crowd, have my lunch, then back to my desk by 12:45.

From that time until about 6:15 in the evening, it’s back-to-back interviews, paperwork, presentations, and whatever that needs to get done. Head home, have some dinner, play some video games, and if I have to liaise with the office in the Netherlands or the US, I would take one hour from 9 in the evening onwards. Pretty busy I would say, but very fulfilling.

3) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

Work-life balance for me is when the work that I do is satisfying enough that it blurs the line between work and life outside of it. I don’t suggest being a workaholic, what I am suggesting is that finding work that is very fulfilling or learning to love it – so much so that it encourages and motivates us to do more and be better at it. If work becomes a hobby – that’s the sweet spot.

4) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?

Since starting this role and finding myself engaged 100% of the time, I find myself using my weekends as my me-time: recharge, deal with just myself, and (re)connect with friends and family that I neglect during the busy weekdays.

I’ve gotten back to reading – but this time on HR books that I can execute for the benefit of Blue Wireless employees. I haven’t had the time to do dragon boating for the past few weeks unfortunately, but I know when things slow down at work, I’ll definitely go back to paddling.

5) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?

A favourite book is Creative Confidence by David M Kelley and Tom Kelley from my Ideo days – which I will cherish forever. I learned so much from that company. And if you are an HR practitioner, you may want to pick up Hire With Your Head by Lou Adler; People Operations by Jay Fulcher, Kevin Marasco, Tracy Cote; Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans; and 1501 Ways to Reward Employees by Bob Nelson.

6) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?

Barack Obama and Jacinda Ardern.

7) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

If you are able to find work that doesn’t feel like work – hold on to it and relish it. Life at work should be fulfilling and life outside of work shouldn’t be spent recovering because of work. 

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