Top 5 Behaviours of Successful HR Managers

Posted by Mathew French

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7 November 2017

If your business strives to be a great place for your employees to work, it is essential that you have a leadership team that Employees trust implicitly and are willing to follow. In some ways, the HR representative on your leadership team needs to walk the talk and role model behaviours, not just for your Employees, but also for the others on your leadership team. It would be fair to say that HR Managers are responsible not only for providing a model for the leadership team to emulate, but also for ensuring that the leadership team follows that lead and provides a cohesive example, in words and action, for the entire business.This should be HR best practice, but scan an HR publication and you will see examples of the exact opposite behaviour from leadership. Historically, the top behaviours that HR Managers need to succeed looked very different to the way they look today. In a world where trust is at an all time low, and technology disruption at an all time high, which behaviours are the ones HR Managers most need to model?

A review of the world wide web illustrates the lack of consensus around exactly which behaviours are most valued (and valuable) in HR Managers today. Historically, such behaviours tended towards being people-centric. Then there was a time when execution of more business oriented analytical competencies were the must haves for success. Now, as we stare into a future filled with unknowns, research from experts like Great Place to Work and Edelman make one thing abundantly clear - now more than ever, without a culture of trust in your organisation, nothing else matters.

Given that lens, and based on the experiences we have with the HR Managers of our customers, here's our take on the top 5 behaviours successful HR Managers of the future will need in their toolkit.

1. Transparency and trustworthiness

HR Managers are the leaders to whom Employees turn for an example of 'how we do things around here.' They also play the role of confidante when Employees are having issues with someone else at the organisation, (or in their personal lives). HR Professionals are expected to deal with highly sensitive issues; pay and benefits, violations of organisational policies, or personal challenges impacting work. They are expected to do so with both professionalism and a fair, but firm hand. As such, it’s important that Employees feel their HR Manager is someone they can speak to openly and honestly without fear of judgement. Whilst mainting confidence is key, somewhat paradoxically, transparency is just as (and given today's environment, perhaps even more) crucial. The capacity to manage the tension of opposites within any organisation, ensuring that Employees are informed about what is happening within the business, whilst feeling sure that their confidence is never betrayed, is essential to the success of any HR Manager. We all know that the heart of HR is about people and relationships. As such, having exceptional listening skills is a must to be able to walk the tightrope between transparency and confidentiality in a manner that results in trustworthiness.

2. Purpose oriented

As much as any other business leader, an HR Manager must fully understand the purpose of the business. However, understanding isn't enough. A successful HR Manager will live that purpose in words and actions. This goes beyond the mission statement or business strategy and is inspired by alignment on a higher, more personal level, by a deep alignment with the 'why' that drives the organisation. Successful HR Managers are the conduit that connects the 'why' of the business and the reason your organisation’s Employees choose to come to work every day. Great leaders inspire great action, and HR Managers who are able to align the purpose of the business with the purpose of all the individuals that make up the whole, are the secret sauce of individual and business wellbeing.

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3. Technology savvy

Whether it’s video interviews, instant messaging services, shared digital workspaces, virtual hubs, sourcing talent on social media or configuring and implementing the latest Cloud HR software, HR Managers must pay attention to how technology is shaping the 21st century workplace. They must also be able to use all of that technology with ease. The key to success is finding the right balance between emerging technologies and the human touch. Technology should only ever be an enabler of better human connections, not a replacement for them. HR Managers are also called on to walk the tightrope between tech and humanity. Having the intuition and tech savvy to understand how to strike a balance is crucial.

4. Versatility and adaptability

Gone are the days where you would get an entry level job within an organisation and work your way up through the ranks of that very same organisation throughout your career, to retire with a golden watch (so to speak). Gone too, is the certainty of familiar hierarchical organisational structures, the reliability of full-time work, and the way things have been done since the industrial revolution. In a world where the wool that used to hide from our eyes the fact that the only constant is change has most definitely been removed, HR Managers are being called on to be versatile and agile in order to succeed. Adaptability is the personality trait that helps determine how you respond to change. People with high adaptability are often described as 'flexible, team players,' or as someone who 'goes with the flow.' Dean Becker, president and CEO of Adaptiv Learning Systems, a company that creates programs to teach resiliency, believes adaptability is a trait that is a key determinant of success. He writes, 'More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That’s true in the cancer ward, it’s true in the Olympics, and it’s true in the boardroom.'

5. Solutions oriented

Successful HR Managers are excellent negotiators with a solutions-oriented attitude - they always seek a resolution that satisfies all parties. Adopting a solution-focused approach to managing problems requires a certain level of creativity, one that enables individuals and teams to surface solutions that break the boundaries of traditional thinking. This solution orientation evolved out of a design thinking mindset. HR Managers with a design mindset are not problem-focused, they're solution focused and action-oriented towards creating a human centred, collectively preferred future.

Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO says, 'Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.'

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of all the behaviours the HR Managers need to flourish. However, they do form a solid foundation from which to build both personal and organisational success. Ready to discover how HR software can transform your business and mitigate your HR risks? To find out more about the Team Dashboards solution, watch the self-paced discovery videos. There's a library of over 80 videos that illustrate the features and benefits of Subscribe-HR's Codeless Cloud HR Software.

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Image source: Great Place to Work's 2017 50 Best Places To Work.

Topics: HR Managers

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