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10 Traits Any HR Professional Should Possess

A solid HR department is critical for a successful and powerful organization, regardless of a specific industry or profile. HR practitioners have essential responsibilities within a company, from interviewing candidates for different job positions to ensuring employee satisfaction.

Considering the fact that a business’s employees are the ones to drive profit and competitiveness, companies need to staff their HR department with professionals who can help find and keep the best talent. As an HR representative, you should hold a variety of characteristics that permit you to support the entire workforce of an organization.

Whether you have been working in HR for a while and want to perfect your abilities, or you are interested in entering this field and want to know what it takes, you should have a clear understanding of the most important qualities to possess.

HR Professional

While each organization might have slightly different requirements, the following qualities remain relevant in all scenarios, and any HR practitioner thriving for success should have:

1. Expertise and knowledge in Human Resources

Let’ start with the most important aspect here and that is having expertise and knowledge in human resources. In order to become a successful HR manager or specialist, you will be required to hold an educational foundation in this field of practice.

A bachelor’s degree will allow you to enter this particular domain, and a master’s degree can help you obtain the career development you are targeting. However, in addition to these standard qualifications, as an HR professional, you should display a commitment to remain up-to-date with the latest trends, and the best ethics and practices in this profession.

Your expertise and knowledge of HR, in general, will allow you to stay dedicated and disciplined, and effectively deal with any potential challenges that could regularly arise within the organization you’re working in.

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2. Multitasking Abilities

Fine-tuning a recruitment strategy, answering questions about vacation days, responding to potential staff complaints – an HR professional needs to tackle a variety of tasks on the daily. That means you should have the abilities necessary to multitask.

In HR, new issues can arise periodically. If you are unable to carry out several responsibilities at a time, you can easily get overwhelmed and might fall behind on your work. An organization’s requirements can evolve and shift, so dealing with different employee issues is likely to happen regularly. That is why multitasking has become a key consideration for businesses when selecting a new member for their HR department.

“Resolving an employee conflict the same day you are interviewing a candidate for an important in-house position is an example of scenario HR representatives face. A successful professional in Human Resources is able to handle two or several problems at the same time” – explains Denise Batt, an HR manager at Studious.

3. Strong Communication Skills

To achieve success in HR, you should possess the ability to effectively communicate with different audiences. On an average workday, you will be interacting with staff, business executives, job applicants, etc. To appropriately engage in interactions with a wide range of people, you should fine-tune this skillset continuously, regardless of the exact audience you are communicating with.

Both your oral and written communication skills should be on point. You should use a professional tone, be concise and clear to employees and superiors on all levels. Communication skills can be perfected over time. The more experience you gain, the better you will be able to interact with different individuals, but you should have your way with words from the start.

4. Engaging Presentation Abilities

There are situations where, as an HR specialist, you are required to carry out training sessions with employees. Whatever piece of information you will be explaining to your audience, you should be able to convey the meaning desired and help everyone understand the message. For that to be possible, having engaging presentation abilities is a must.

You will need to put together written presentation materials, as well. These should deliver your target message in a clear and concise manner, but should also be sufficiently explanatory and free of grammar and spelling mistakes. If your abilities in this department are perfected, and you use a few writing tools and services for your written materials, such as Grammarly, Best Essay Education, and Hemingway Editor, delivering excellent presentations won’t be an issue. The purpose is to know how you can hold the attention of participants or readers.

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5. Negotiation Skills

Determining a valuable candidate to accept a lower salary than what they’re asking, or persuading an employee to not quit their job in sensitive situations are two examples of scenarios in which you must be pretty good at negotiating. To ensure compromise is met when needed, and things go in the company’s best interest, you need proper negotiation skills.

6. Integrity

It’s your role to uphold equal and reasonable employee opportunities. Equity and fairness are two major factors that contribute to correct employment practices. A fundamental quality, thus, is integrity. Maintaining company information private, compiling with company programs and workforce laws, pursuing organizational strategies fairly – all of these things are relevant in the world of HR and go hand in hand with good ethics.

7. Conflict Management Abilities

The conflict between employees can affect the operations of a business. Managing issues that arise within certain teams of an organization falls on the shoulders of HR representatives, so having conflict management abilities can be critical. It will be your responsibility to ensure an optimal work atmosphere. Employees with different personalities should work together civically at all times to meet company goals. When conflicts or misunderstandings arise, HR needs to tackle the issues in an effective way.

To diffuse tense situations, use your critical thinking and problem-solving skills. You must gather information from all parties involved and address each factor correctly, in order to reach possible solutions.

8. Organizational Skills

To complete all tasks effectively and in a timely manner, you need to be an organized individual. As mentioned above, the variety of HR tasks you need to stay on top of daily can range in complexity, and only by having exceptional organizational skills, you will manage to complete your workday to-do list.

Because you have to joggle between doing a lot of paperwork, putting together presentations and dealing with employees, organizational abilities become a necessity in keeping up with all of your duties. Although nowadays, you have systems and digital tools that help you in the organizational department, your own abilities here remain essential.

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“From dealing with potential workplace conflict and hiring new employees to maintain office records and keeping up with new laws and regulations, HR professionals have their hands full with a lot of tasks. Developing optimal organizational skills can influence one’s career in human resources” – states Leonard Gause, an HR specialist at Pick the Writer.

9. Courage

While this might not be something you’ve thought about, when entering the world of human resources, courage is, in fact, a valuable trait that can influence your career growth. You will often deal with situations where you will be required to do layoffs. You will be the one to talk to employees about less popular business changes or deal with severe conflicts. To successfully overcome all of these challenges and more, being confident and firm is important. If you’re characterized by courage, this will help you a lot in your professional progression.

10. Leadership

An HR professional has often seen as a leader whiting a company. To fill in that specific role appropriately, you should be focusing on building leadership skills, while at the same time avoiding a micromanagement approach. Make it your objective to take care of employees, but don’t meddle and let managers control things. You should be leading and guiding individuals working in the company by being agile and understanding. Maintain a human-centric leadership style and adapt to the exact needs of your organization’s team.

Conclusion

Being an HR specialist can be rewarding and satisfactory if you enjoy working with people. However, in order to actually thrive in this domain and to achieve the results you desire in your career, possessing some essential qualities is necessary. From strong communication skills to presentation and conflict management abilities, each one of the traits mentioned here is critical for success in Human Resources.

Melanie Sovann is from the greater LA area and is a seasoned writer and blogger, passionate about a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from technology to sociology. She is currently a writer and editor at Trust My Paper and loves every second of it.

About Sonia Kukreja

I am a mother of a lovely kid, and an avid fan technology, computing and management related topics. I hold a degree in MBA from well known management college in India. After completing my post graduation I thought to start a website where I can share management related concepts with rest of the people.