A dedicated Human Resource manager is important for a business to thrive. They are responsible for various activities within the organization including the creation of a safe and efficient work environment. They also align organisational goals with employee needs. A few everyday duties of an HR manager include conflict management, recruitment, onboarding, employee retention, appraisals, performance reviews, career development, employee relations, compensation and staff training.

Human resource managers are necessary for any successful business. HR professionals have a broad spectrum of responsibilities Hence it is essential that HR managers possess certain skills to effectively handle their day-to-day activities.

Whether you are a business owner seeking to acquire the skills of an ideal human resource professional or a current HR manager looking to perfect your skills and expertise, our list of must-have skills for human resource managers will help you reach your goals.

Communication Skills

The most important skill for an HR professional is communication skill. Communication is necessary for bridging the gap between employees and the company. An HR is considered as a representative of the company as an employer and as an activist for the employees.

HR professionals require excellent communication skills to fulfil their duties and responsibilities efficiently. Each day HR professionals communicate with various stakeholders at different levels of authority.

The type of communication with the CEO of the company and with fellow employees varies. However, an ideal HR professional always builds good connections with different types of individuals and leaves a positive impression.

Human resources managers must possess exceptional communication skills. Communication plays a fundamental role in various aspects of the business and it is necessary for an HR manager to have strong written and verbal communication skills.

HR professionals require strong verbal communication skills in salary negotiation, company presentations, benefit explanation, employee handbook updates and conflict resolution.

Non-verbal or written communication skills are needed to determine whether people are confused, confident, uncomfortable, or dishonest while speaking or during interviews and presentations. These skills are also helpful in resolving problems or when a team member files a discrimination claim.

Some of the ways in which communication helps HR professionals are as follows:

• Communication helps in building and fostering productive relationships at the organisational level.
• Effective communication encourages employees to communicate innovative ideas or any form of feedback.
• Open communication in the organisation boosts the team’s morale and helps in building an effective and more cohesive team.
• When HR managers are effective communicators, they will be able to provide constructive feedback to the team, convey about the organisational goals and build better relationships.
• Effective communication facilitates better team management.
• Communication skills help HR professionals to improve organisational productivity and prevent any delays in the implementation of policies.
• Moreover, communication skills are important to build trust among the team members through transparency.

Leadership Skills

Effective leaders are the backbone of any organization. Leaders build strong and cohesive teams within an organization and ensure the functioning of the company. HR professionals often equip themselves with a bunch of different skills to ensure that projects and initiatives of the company are performed successfully.

A good leader effectively increases employee engagement and retention, fosters positive relationships among the employees, creates a positive work environment, and solves any conflicts or problems that may arise. Good leadership also encourages other inspiring colleagues to inculcate positive leadership traits in their work.

Hiring and retaining employees is a difficult job especially in senior leadership roles. Average job tenures are dropping at all levels of organizations and retaining talented individuals in any industry has become challenging. In these circumstances, Human Resource professionals play an important role by training and developing leadership traits in senior and executive roles.

HR Managers utilize the recruitment and selection skills in the following ways:

• HR managers assist fellow colleagues at executive levels in developing talents, systems and processes necessary for attaining organizational goals.
• Leadership skills help in achieving and sustaining the overall productivity of the organization.
• These skills are necessary for driving revenue generation.
• Leadership skills are helpful in getting the desired outcome by aligning them with the required circumstances.
• Effective leadership skills improve employee engagement and retention within the organization.
• HR managers use leadership skills to train future leaders and help them in developing leadership skills.
• HR managers utilize leadership skills while recruiting and appraising.
• These skills are also helpful to maintain an employee-centric approach across the organization.
• Moreover, leadership skills are needed in choosing and implementing design-oriented strategy.

Analytical Skills

Importance of analytical skills has risen to a great extent due to the growth of data-driven working and analytics. Nowadays HR managers are required to be well-oriented and analytically-driven. It is mandatory for HR professionals to possess the knowledge and expertise to understand the key metrics of human resources.

A few important HR metrics include recruitment, employee engagement, employee retention, employee performance and value. Additionally, sound knowledge of Ms Excel or Google sheets will prove to be of great value.

All departments in an organisation depend on the power of data analytics to make informed decisions. In human resources, data analytics is used in the form of complex predictive analytics on HR data or simple data is used to make the best possible decisions. It is also called evidence-based HR.

The olden days where HR professionals would type employee performance reviews on typewriters are gone now. Present-day HR professionals use various software and applications such as digital spreadsheets, visual planning software, online databases, PowerPoint for completing their tasks. It offers ease of application and saves time and effort.

Some of the ways in which analytical skills helps HR professionals are as follows:

• Analytical skills are necessary for making better decisions and action plans.
• They help in solving problems through critical analysis.
• These skills come in handy when analyzing massive amounts of data and making informed decisions.
• Analytics enable HR professionals to determine the impact of business on people’s policies.
• These skills help in measuring the financial impact of the Human Resource activities and making concrete decisions.

Negotiation Skills

In any organisation, employees come to the HR management whenever there is a conflict. Often people who come with an issue believe that they are right and want the matter to be resolved in their favour.

It holds true in complaints involving salary, working hours, leaves, deductions in salary, responsibilities, conflicts with fellow team members or any other problem.

Under these circumstances, HR management resolves the problem by negotiating with team members.

Here are a few situations that can guarantee negotiations:

• A new employee with a college degree and comprehensive experience demands a higher salary than the company’s starting package.
• An old employee wants a raise and would quit otherwise.
• An employee wants to stay with the company but has problems with the working hours.
• An employee has conflicts with the reporting manager
• An employee is not satisfied with the deductions in salary.
• An employee wants to switch to another department due to the feeling of unappreciation by the team.
• An employee is dissatisfied with the raise received.
• An employee complains about discrimination by another employee.

In these circumstances, the HR professional must solve the problem tactfully so that both the company and the employees are benefitted.

Recruitment and Selection Skills

Another important HR skill is recruiting and selecting the right candidate for the job. Searching candidates, selecting the most suitable candidates and finding out if the chosen candidate is compatible with the organisation culture and the manager is a part of the recruitment process. All these tasks are essential activities of the HR manager.

HR managers always look out for details because even one overlooked detail can lead to a bad hire, wastage of time and hiring resources and damage the reputation.

A few countries mandate the employers to follow certain rules and treat all the candidates equally with no discrimination across various factors such as age, gender, sexuality, nationality, marital status and other factors. Furthermore, several companies have internal targets for variety in the workforce.

HR Managers utilise the recruitment and selection skills in the following ways:

• Interviewing the candidates is a significant portion of the recruitment and selection process.
• The HR manager is also responsible for ensuring that the complete process of recruitment is conducted fairly.
• HR professionals recruit candidates by using suitable sourcing such as passive candidate sourcing, basic sourcing, strategic sourcing and Applicant Tracking System.
• HR managers use recruitment analytics for analysing data and using it strategically to hire the most suitable candidates, reduce costs and increase revenue generation.

Human resource management compels various skills and expertise when compared to other forms of management. If you are an HR manager and do not have the above-mentioned skills, then you schedule training sessions and work towards acquiring these skills.

And if you already possess these skills, then you must always try to stay on the top by continually polishing your skills. This will help you lead the HR department and take your organisation to higher levels of excellence.