Why did you decide to become a Human Resources Manager?

For many of us “I’m a people’s person and I like helping others” was the motivational

drive. But let’s face it: the fact that the median salary for HR Managers is over

$100K also made a difference.

These are good reasons to start. Being good with people and wanting to help them

find the jobs they deserve will push you forward. The financial motivator will do the

same thing.

Will these factors make you a brilliant HR manager? Not necessarily.

It takes something more to be a true professional in HR management. Here are 10

things to consider:

1. F OCUS O N T HE BI G P IC T UR E
This is a common flaw of HR managers: they get so focused on hiring the best new

people that they forget about the ones they already have.

The engagement of the current employees is part of the big picture. It’s just as

important as getting the best workers on board. Are your recognition, review, and

growth policies on a par with your recruiting efforts? They should be.

2. M AI NTAI N T HE P A S S IO N
HR managers represent the rules and needs of the organization. That’s why they

appear as dry, cold, and distant most of the time. When you rediscover your passion,
you’ll overcome that flaw. Your own drive will inspire the people you’re trying to

recruit, as well the current workers in the organization.

3. T AK E A PO SIT IVE A PP R OA C H T O
CO M M UNI CATI O N
Each change and transition the company goes through affects the employees. It

affects the connection between them. A professional HR manager must keep the

communication lines within the entire organization functional at all times.

Communicate with the employees not only when they are facing transitions, but on a

day-to-day basis, too. When you know what issues they are facing, you’ll be able to

manage them well.

4. SH OW UP W HE RE TH E Y WO R K
Do you know how most workers perceive a call to show up in the HR office? Scary.

That happens when the HR manager acts like a principal, who talks to people only to

warn them about something. You want to change this attitude.

The employees will appreciate a more human contact. Get out of your office and

show up where they work. Ask questions and let them suggest ideas. Show some

support and you’ll create a better working environment. That’s what HR management

is all about.

5. SH OW A GE NUI NE I N TE R ES T I N
E ACH E MP LO YE E
Personalization is the key to effective human resources management. When you’re

communicating with someone from the staff, it’s important to take their preferences,

personality, age, and goals into consideration.

As a HR manager, you have to keep tabs on everyone. You can’t inspire them to do

a better job with generalized motivational talks. If you push them towards their

personal goals, however, you’ll be on the right track.

6. COL LAB O RATE W IT H ALL

DE PARTME NT S
You have a responsibility to choose and support the right workers for each

department. For that purpose, you have to learn what the individual needs of each

department are. Work close together with the managers to develop appropriate HR

ideas and practices.

7. DE VELO P A ME NT O R S H IP
P RO GRAM
Through the process of mentoring, a newly acquired worker gets proper guidance for

personal and professional development. They learn how to do their job well. When

they get effective supervision and support, they are less afraid to be creative.

Mentoring should not be improvised. It should be a clear program based on plans,

goals, and monitoring of results. The HR manager is responsible for appointing

department training managers and line supervisors.

8 . ST AY F L E X I B L E
A research study in multinational firms in Hong Kong showed that flexible HR

practices and employee behavior flexibility had a positive effect on the adaptability

culture. Another study showed that organizations with strong culture adaptability had

higher organizational commitment. Thus, your flexibility as a HR manager has a lot to

do with the overall commitment in the organization.

How do you develop such flexibility? Be on top of all new trends. Analyze the events

and culture within the organization. Consider their ideas and try new methods to

support the workers’ development. Your profession involves learning and influencing

change. Remember that!

9. USE T HE RI GHT TE C H N OLO G I E S

Human resource information and applicant tracking systems are constantly being

upgraded. You have to stay on top of new technologies, so you’ll keep improving

your effectiveness as a HR manager

10. K NOW YO UR VIS I O N

You can’t wait for your organization to define what your role is. You know what

human resource management is all about. You need to do everything you can to

become your own expert. This is an important role within the organization. The

leadership team will expect you to grow and suggest new ideas.
Find your vision, which involves not only your growth as a HR manager, but the

growth of the entire organization as a result to your work. Keep suggesting your

ideas, developing new skills, and trying new practices.

It’s not easy to become an extraordinary HR manager. It takes a lot of work,

experience, and consistent experimenting with new techniques. The tips above will

help you start your journey towards greatness in this profession.

Master Checklist for Your First 6

Months as Head of HR
The first few weeks of working any new role is overwhelming — but when that
role is the head of HR, the to-do list can make your head spin.

Whether you’ll be the solo employee running HR for a 100-employee company or

heading the human resources department for an organization of 10,000, there are a
few standard steps to take during the first several months in any HR leadership role.

Below is a helpful checklist to get you started.

Learn the Business

Do you know the organization’s primary goals, both short- and long-term? Do you
understand the essence of its mission statement (beyond buzzwords)? Do you have
a grasp on the structure and hierarchy of each team, and how they interact with one
another?

Perhaps most importantly, do you understand how the company makes money?

Invest some time learning the organization’s financial metrics to get a sense for its foundation.

Invest some time learning the organization’s financial metrics to get a sense for its
foundation — as well as for projections for growth over the next three, five, and ten
years. You may consider creating a cash-flow map that visualizes the business’
formula for generating revenue. Alternatively, you may ask to see the latest
presentations for investors, and/or meet with the company’s strategy and finance
teams to talk numbers. If the company is publicly traded, you may also want to
speak with analysts and investors to determine what they factor into the
organization’s valuation-driving intangibles.

As part of an initial housekeeping sweep, it’s also crucial to review the benefits
administration handbook, current hiring practices, and FLSA classifications.

Lastly, familiarize yourself with the business’s product or services. If it’s a retail
company, spend some time quite literally walking in the company’s shoes; if it’s a
software company, ask the product team to walk you through the software’s
intricacies.

Assess Engagement and Culture

As part of an initial evaluation of company culture, spend a couple of months

developing an understanding of what every role, from the interns to the CEO, is
responsible for. Through a culture audit, you’ll also begin to glean levels of
employee engagement.

It is important to meet with all levels in the organization to understand the current culture,
start measuring engagement within the organization, and promote the building of
relationships.

“One of the first steps in the process is to conduct a listening tour,” says Dawn M.
Cacciotti, a human resources consultant at EngageHRnow, LLC. “It is important
to meet with all levels in the organization to understand the current culture, start
measuring engagement within the organization, promote the building of
relationships, ask probing questions that will enlighten you to the history, current
strengths, and areas that may not be working very well.”

Cacciotti also suggests that, as you gain insight, ask each team and manager how
they believe HR can help them achieve their goals and long-term, strategic plan.
Ask questions such as: Do employees feel as if they have open lines of
communication with their managers, and do they feel as if the current performance
review system is adequate? Pay particular attention to managers and the
management tactics they employ; good management often goes hand in hand with
employee engagement.

Determine Areas of Improvement and Stability

“My first priority when going into a new organization is to understand what’s in
place and what’s missing,” says Amanda Haddaway, managing director of HR
Answerbox. “It’s really important to identify if there are any gaps, especially in the
compliance arena.”
Haddaway suggests taking a holistic look at all facets of the existing HR function.
“It’s not easy to know everything that’s required of employers, because [the
requirements are] constantly changing,” she explains, adding that this may be
particularly true in the case of small businesses.

“Small business owners want to do the right thing by their employees, but they
don’t always know everything that needs to happen under that big and ever-
growing HR umbrella,” she says.

Earn a Seat at the C-Suite’s Table

The first formative months of your role also present an opportunity to earn the trust
and respect of the C-Suite.

An HR leader can have an immense impact on creating and weaving the bonds amongst the
leadership team

“An HR leader can have an immense impact on creating and weaving the bonds
amongst the leadership team, which is essential if the company hopes to become a
‘great’ organization,” Cacciotti explains.

The first part of earning a seat at the table is to figure out why you were hired in the
first place. Know exactly why you were brought into the organization: To change
its direction? To help the company scale? Having a clear understanding of the
company’s motivation for hiring you will help you begin to designate top priorities,
and begin implementing your own set of goals — ones that align with the
company’s long-term vision.

Congratulations – you’ve got the top job you’ve always wanted. But
now’s the hard part: being a success. HR experts offer their tips for
navigating that tricky honeymoon period

Every new starter wants to make the right impression and get their tenure
with their new organisation off to the best possible start. But when you’re
moving into a new HR director role – especially if it’s your first time in top-
tier HR – the stakes are even higher. The expectations of your chief
executive, your new HR team and employees themselves will be high, and
you’ll naturally want to perform to the best of your ability.

This pressure, coupled with the complexity of HR itself, makes it tricky to

get the transition right. How much prep work should (and can) you do
before your first day? What’s the best way to build relationships with the
people that matter – and swerve the people who might want to monopolise
your time? How can you get to grips with the organisation’s business
model? And what can you realistically expect to achieve in the often-
measured ‘first 90 days’?

“I didn’t have a 90-day plan in place when I arrived,” says Antonia

Katsambis, who joined Madano and Axon Communications in her first HR
director role in October 2017. “And I’m kind of glad that I didn’t, because
there’s no way that I would have understood the business at the level I got
to in the first three months just by being here. You might have a fairly good
gauge of what the challenges may be, of the culture, or what the priorities
are from the board’s perspective, but when you arrive you discover your
own things.”

Steph Barnett, managing director of consultancy firm Pure HR and a former

in-house HR director, is also wary of granular planning before joining an
organisation. “Because, as an HR director, you are reporting to a non-
functional specialist, [your line manager] might not have been able to give
you a complete view of the state of the HR department. I’ve been brought in
on interim contracts to do really strategic projects – and then discovered I
can’t do those because the basics weren’t in place.”

Katsambis says she did find it useful to set herself some broad goals.
“These were around getting to know the business and its stakeholders, and
figuring out who I needed to influence and get advice from – as well as
understanding how the business makes money, and what the challenges
were against their business plan. I needed to ask those stupid questions so
I could make sure the HR strategy was aligned to the business strategy.”

The importance of asking questions and listening carefully to answers is a

recurring theme among seasoned HR directors. “You need to have a
battery of questions that you’ll probably get bored of asking,” says Tony
Jackson, founder of Chelsham Coaching and Consulting and a former in-
house HR director. “What do I need to know? What needs to change? What
shouldn’t change? Come up with that list and ask them of the right people.”

“You don’t need an engagement survey to know how people are feeling –
you’ll pick it up from them directly”
Your first three months as an HR director is “the only opportunity you have
to understand what it means to be an employee in this organisation,” says
Barnett. “I like to do the basics, like go out for a day with a field sales rep, or
spend a day on the production line – so I can understand what it’s like to do
that job and what people think are working well, what they like about the
organisation and what they don’t like. It gives you valuable insight.”

Getting your ear to the proverbial ground is essential, agrees Tim Scott,
who joined Fletchers Solicitors as director of people in March 2017. “You
don’t need an engagement survey to know how people are feeling – you’ll
pick it up from them directly. Listen to how people speak to each other
about work; there are masses of little clues in everyday interactions that tell
you a huge amount about a company and its culture.”

One of the most important relationships you’ll have to cultivate – and one
that’ll be a particular challenge change for first-time HR directors – will be
with the organisation’s chief executive. “You need to speak to the chief
executive fairly early on and ask: ‘what’s good going to look like for you’?
And, ‘how are you and I going to work together’?” says Jackson. “Ask: ‘is
there anything keeping you awake at night that I need to tackle? Who
should I be getting close to?’ You also need to recognise that the chief
executive can act on what you say, so be careful about what you pontificate
about early on.”

Alongside all this, the new HR director will have to quickly get to grips with
the organisation’s strategy and structure, and build credibility with fellow
senior business leaders. “People who are taking on their first HR director
role often don’t realise that they are no longer representing their functional
specialism,” says Barnett. “When you enter that boardroom, you leave HR
at the door and you become a board member who is equally accountable
for every aspect of the organisation. That means you need to be credible to
your peer group, and you need to be able to quantify the commerciality of
your decisions. You need to be able to say, for example: ‘we have high
levels of absenteeism and staff attrition, this is how it’s affecting our bottom
line, and this is how it could improve if we tackle it’.”

As much as you may want to demonstrate your strategic skill, there is

undoubtedly value in getting some quick wins under your belt. Fire-fighting
urgent problems “is a good way to get ‘under the hood’ of a company – to
find out what really makes things tick,” says Scott. “But you need to set
some boundaries; it’s not about being ‘too important’ to do certain tasks, but
making it clear where you can – and can’t – add value.” Your first few
months are probably the time when your regular workload will be the
lightest, so be protective of your time and build in periods to reflect and plan
ahead.

“Keep asking questions. What do I need to know? What needs to change?

What shouldn’t change?”
When planning your priorities and strategy, it’s useful to think in terms of
discrete timeframes or ‘windows’, says Jackson. “In my last HR director
position, I was thinking about one week, one month and three-month
windows. So setting out: what am I going to focus on this week? What does
the first month broadly look like? Then you can gradually populate the
three-month window – because you can’t plan out the three months on day
one.”

However well you prepare for a new transition, you have to be realistic that,
in some unfortunate cases, the move won’t be a happy or successful one.
Gary Cookson, who recently founded his own consultancy, EPIC HR, made
two HR director moves in an 18-month period: one worked out, and the
other didn’t. “I did a lot of work for the first move; I researched advice about
what to do in your first 100 days, about the organisation, about people I
might know there. And it paid off,” he says.

“But things were different in the second organisation. For example, before I
joined I asked the HR team to answer a few questions, such as: what would
you like to know about Gary before he comes in? What do you want him to
do? What are the things you are worried Gary might do and rather he
didn’t? It had given me valuable information in the past, so I repeated the
exercise.

“It backfired. My future line manager told me that people had thought I was
self-centred and egotistical. It was an insight into the organisation’s culture,
the lack of trust in managers, and that they weren’t used to that style of
open engagement. A week before joining, I was left thinking: have I made
the right move?”

It’s when times are toughest that the value of your support network is
thrown into sharpest relief. “People who’ve never been an HR director
before can suddenly realise it’s quite a lonely position,” says Barnett.
“Because you no longer have that support from your HR peer group – your
board peers all have different agendas. If you have a career coach or
mentor, use them – it will make such a difference to have someone
independent to bounce ideas off.”

Katsambis uses social media to stay in touch with old contacts and form
new ones. “I find it much easier to do that online rather than at after work
events,” she says. “I’ve been in touch with my old HR director on Twitter, for
instance, just to float ideas past them. It really helps.”

Whatever approach you decide to take to a new HR director role, one of the
most important ingredients for success is to make sure you’re responding to
the organisation you’re operating in. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach
to entering an organisation: you’ve got to figure it out for yourself,” says
Cookson. “You can listen to what’s worked for other people, and you can
even look at what you’ve done before that’s worked – but you can’t copy
and paste it somewhere else.”
Five tips for success as a new HR director
“Say no if you need to. Say yes if you can. Be honest and open. Listen for
what isn’t being said.”
David D’Souza, head of engagement at CIPD
“Put pre-existing biases at the door. Listen intently, respect [the] legacy of
the team, organisation and previous incumbent. Put yourselves in their
shoes.”
Barry Flack, digital HR consultant
“Don’t assume you have all the answers. Don’t launch initiatives in the first
100 days – but do find early wins.”
Chris Akpakwu, HR director – international at CDK Global
“Don’t import what you did somewhere else because it worked there. Learn
the context and culture, then make decisions.”
Gemma Dale, co-founder of The Work Consultancy
“Establish great relationships with the board and your executive peers; ask
them what they need to see more/less of, and how they will judge your
success.”
Jacqueline Davis, managing director at Audacity Asso