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Article from People Today, Hong Kong, June 2001
HIRING THE RIGHT HR MANAGER
As a CEO or business leader, what should you be looking for when recruiting a new human resources manager?
With the advent of the internet and e-commerce, much has been said and written about the changing business landscape. Almost, if not all aspects, of doing business has been impacted.
Not so long ago, the human resources (HR) function in an organization was merely a service provider. They react and provide services as and when they are required to. When a business leader needed to make a new hire, they complete a standard form and pass it along to HR for action. When an employee needs to find out more about leave benefits, they knock on the doors of HR to find out. These days, however, employees log on to a company website to find out all about service benefits and even apply for leave on-line.
HR has slowly but surely, moved away from the role of a service provider to one that is more centered on supporting strategic business issues. This shift is far from widespread. As a matter of fact, there are still lots of organizations where HR continues to provide administrative and support services. In an increasing number of organizations, most of the HR administrative functions have been outsourced - all in the name of productivity and cost effectiveness.
With all these changes, the qualities of an effective HR leader have also changed. As the CEO of your organization, you need to be hiring a different set of skills and if you expect more strategic inputs from your HR department, a new mindset should be sought.
Here are 10 qualities you should be looking for in your HR manager:-
1) Passion for working with people
The HR manager of the new century needs to demonstrate a passion for working with people. They must enjoy interacting with people to help each one embrace change – for this is a constant. They should also help to develop them to their maximum potential within the organization. This is a very basic requirement these days. They should not do their job for the sake of being paid - they have to be prepared to be engaged. Of all the qualities that I am sharing in this article, perhaps this is the most demanding and definitely the most challenging to fathom out during the course of several hours of interview conversation.
HR managers must also be prepared to quit if their bosses have a personal agenda or approach/style that runs against this core value. Recently, a senior HR professional that I know personally, decide to quit his job of seven years, as his new CEO boss does not subscribe to one of the organization's core values: "People is one of our greatest core assets". He felt so strongly that this was all wrong that he walked out of his job.
Therefore, as CEO, it is important that you are someone who strongly believes in working with people to achieve corporate objectives. Time and financial resources should be utilized in order to motivate, develop and work towards win-win situations.
Jack Welch, the famous GE leader is reported to spend up to 70 per cent of his management time in engaging with GE's human assets.
2) Embrace adversity
Most employees look upon the HR folks as the people to run to should there be unsettling ‘new changes’ in the organization. In some respects, they are perceived to be the ‘corporate doctors’ - to be able to dispense advice and provide support to cope with changes affecting them (the employees).
Therefore, it is important to find a HR manager who has demonstrated the ability to embrace diversity well. The business world will continue to throw out changes and challenges, and if your HR manager fights shy of changes, you will have a major headache trying to manage your employees’ feelings of uncertainty.
Granted that the immediate supervisors are supposed to be taking care of their own troops, and hence, they should be the ones helping to manage the change. The reality is that some of your business leaders are good at executing business objectives and that is why they are hired. However, when it comes to people management, they may not be fully equipped with the skills to do it, nor do some of them want to do it.
3) Embrace diversity
Do you hire talent with the same psychological profile or would you rather prefer leading a team that is somewhat diversified? Two schools of thought here.
The first school of thought swears that an effective team must have members who share the same philosophies and thinking. Hence, they will put potential candidates through pre-employment psychometric ‘tests’ to determine if there is a fit.
The other school advocates that for a team to thrive and add value, they should be some diversity in the background and make-up of its members. Which school of thought do you subscribe to?
I would recommend following the latter. In any case, you could have a team that is challenging to manage simply owing to the complexity of human nature.
An HR manager should embrace this diversity, and be able to introduce policies and processes that work towards developing and retaining a diversity of talent.
4) Being business-oriented
As the HR role evolves into a more strategic one, it is imperative that the incumbents have a good grounding of the business or businesses their organization is in and to have a business-oriented mind in general.
As the HR manager of a major property developer in my previous career, I recall with fondness the weekly ritual of boarding a company bus to visit the many building projects that are in various stages of development.
I nearly flipped when my CEO first suggested this, but I subsequently grew to appreciate the need for such an involvement. Ultimately, it allowed me to have a good grounding of the property development business and that empowered me to introduce more business-focused HR policies and processes within the organization. It also helped in making hiring decisions.
As CEO, do find a candidate that has a positive mindset towards the need to be engaged with the business, and plan for your new hire to be ‘engaged’ with the business. It may mean time taken away from the individual’s role, but at the end of the day, I can almost assure you that it will be worth it.
Introduce a new-approach employee induction program that requires your newly-hired HR manager to spend some time with the various strategic business units.
5) Effective communication skills
Effective communication skills involve both speaking and listening. The latter is, unfortunately, usually left out of the equation.
An effective HR leader needs to listen more than talk. Like the analogy I used earlier, the ‘in-house doctor’ needs to be able to use her stethoscope to zero in on the heartbeat of the ‘ground’. Patient listening and understanding of the employee issues at hand is critical to being effective in the HR role.
Not only is employee communication key, your HR manager should also have the clout and communication skills to command respect from your senior management team.
Selected appropriately, your HR manager can be a key strategic asset to your business efforts.
6) Able to function effectively as a champion/initiator of change
As mentioned earlier, the effective HR manager must be able to take change by the horns and even, embrace it. Not only is this necessary, it must be initiated, for change paves the way forward for the organization.
I know of a financial institution that is undergoing tremendous change, brought about by structural reforms in the country’s financial industry. The HR manager is having a challenging time trying to influence and change the mindset of the 50-odd members of the senior management team. Fortunately, her job is somewhat made easier by the regulatory requirements brought about by the restructuring – a case of ‘no choice but to change’.
Check out previous successes in effective change management during the interview process. Look not only for a successful track record of change management but more importantly, instances of change initiation. With HR departments getting leaner, it is a tough call for HR managers to ‘create work’ for themselves by initiating changes – however, this is not only a must for value-add performance, but a necessity for corporate survival.
7) Enjoy a little of the 'limelight’
Most HR people I know are comfortable being in the background. They do not mind doing the work but prefer to avoid corporate presentation opportunities. Not only do you need to find an effective communicator and presenter, your ideal candidate should also be someone who enjoys (a little, at least) getting under the spotlight once in a while.
HR needs to be seen, and heard. They need to demonstrate to the entire organization that they do have a part to play in the business and for this, they need to work hard to be accepted. Changing the mindset that HR is no longer the service delivery department it used to be, is hard work.
8) Keenness to stay knowledgeable and acquire knowledge
Any HR manager (or any professional for that matter) worth his or her salt needs to demonstrate the hunger to want to acquire a constant inflow of knowledge on their profession, and the business world. They need to read widely and be able to stay up-to-date on the latest changes in their areas of expertise and know what is going on around the world. This includes social, political, business and economic developments.
Check out candidates' resumes. Has the candidate demonstrated this hunger? How many seminars and courses has she attended in the past two years? Were they mainly related to the HR function or does time need to be spent learning about other related areas e.g. e-commerce developments or technological advances?
How does she keep herself informed? Use of the internet? Books, magazines – which titles? All this information will enable you to find out if the person is able to survive (and thrive!) in the knowledge-based economy (KBE) we are all in today.
9) Have a healthy work-and-life balance
This final point that I would like to share is something of a ‘flavor-of-the-year’ issue. It concerns how well a professional is able to manage a work and life balance. Gone are the days when your executives are prepared to slog it out for you – to work 12-hour days for much of the week. The workers of today are increasingly more demanding and they want a quality lifestyle. Sure, you can have that odd major/urgent project where people sleep in the office for days on-end. People in the tough world of corporate advertising and promotions are known for this routine.
Do it more than once in a month, and be ready to call your recruiting agent. You will have people who demonstrate their unhappiness with their legs.
Maintaining a work-and-life balance is essential, not only for sanity, but could also induce higher productivity at the workplace in the longer term.
Learn more about the after-work activities of the interviewee. Find out what time he or she finishes work, typically. What does she do with her leisure hours? Does she find time for self-renewal and self-development.
Many of us are guilty of not doing these things. Once we have a family, our routine revolves around work and the family. We overlook the fact that we still exist as an individual. We overlook the need to keep in touch with our social circle.
Having a HR manager with a healthy work-and-life balance is essential as this will ultimately influence the rest of the organization and encourage employees to have the same. And this approach should also come through in the HR policies that are initiated.
10) Utmost integrity
Last, but not least, your ideal HR candidate must possess utmost integrity. He or she should never make use of the knowledge gained through the job (and HR people do have access to plenty of confidential and sensitive information within an organization) to hurt others or to gain an unfair advantage.
They should demonstrate the ability to stay impartial, regardless of the stakes. Integrity earned over the years are easily shattered by just one mistake made.
Ask your interview candidates to cite recent examples of incidents where they display this important, key trait.
If you are prepared to spend time and efforts looking for the right combination of qualities in hiring the 'right' HR manager, the benefits to the organization (and to your career) can be enormous. There may not be an ideal candidate that satisfies all the 10 qualities listed here. However, you should know best what is more important in your organization.
Happy interviewing, and good luck!
Paul Heng
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