What do Current Young HR Professionals (Experience between 0-4 years) look for?

Results of Poll run at https://www.facebook.com/groups/HRCareers/ (Data as on 1.5.2013)
What do you think Current Young HR Professionals (Experience between 0-4 years) look for?

Key Points for Review:

1. Majority of 58% of people posted that they look for generalist exposure to HR. An ability to perform Generalist jobs in the HR Function.
2. While the lowest with 6% of people mentioned an extreme learning experience in their jobs.
3. Focus on money expressed by 16% of people and any job/specialization should be okay with them.

The Reasons may be as follows (More interpretation can be done in Discussions/Comments): 

• Beginning of the career always focuses more on acquiring diverse knowledge and while experimenting on various tasks/jobs.
• While low focus on Extreme learning experience can be attributed to the opportunities to learn at that stage of career.
• 10% of specialized exposure voting can be more attributed the desire to work in Recruitment, Training, Employee Engagement and other specialized function in large organizations.

Key Inputs/Take-away:

• HR is such a vast subject and requires quite focus in the Initial stages.
• An Effort to build a career in HR gives the desired momentum for growth
• Growth always begins from Hands on Experience to strategic thinking opportunity in HR
• The more diversified in function and industry would be a great plus for building better HR career
• Building capabilities at each stage important : Like-in  Recruitment Function (Can you Interview better in identifying competencies), Employee Retention (Do you understand the psychology in relation to business), Training ( can you stand up and Train & manage a group’s learning) etc.,
• Focus on Building career on the basis of “Human Management /HR function is in Every Industry”.  Building HR experience around an Industry/Function may not be a better solution for growth in long-term to play a strategic roles.
• Ultimately, remember you need to grow to a stage to manage a business than just function.

We Welcome your comments/suggestions/inputs to enhance the reading experience of our future readers...

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Why HR Professionals Hardly seen on Other-than HR Networking Forums !!!

Today (Sunday-9th Dec 2012) : I  attended a forum on Public Speaking in Hyderabad. I met few :  business owner, doctor, engineering student, govt. employee, Teacher, CA, Marketing Professional, Hotelier and many others...  had a great time in learning from their experiences.... 

9.12.12 - Hyderabad - Keen Learners

While, driving home I was thinking myself that I did not meet any HR professional. This is not the first time I have encountered this question. While attending many forums across India and other countries I seldom meet any HR professional in "Non-HR Forums".  

I was trying to get an answer and thinking  "Is it that HR professionals Are - 

• Well Read and Informed that they don't have a need to attend beyond HR forums (Even many HR Forums  attracts less numbers)
• Think that they have enough interactions during their course of job that they do not see a need for interaction.
• Too busy that they can't spend any more time
• Balancing Life after Work
• Thinking the world ends by  meeting or networking with people who are their official employees or few other HR professionals..

Let me stop here and explore further. With my limited exposure of 21 years in HR profession & business also an average of 2 network events attend every month over last 21 years, let me write somethings to find reasons (not definitely an answer). 

Networking :  While world is moving to network based Business Relationships, Hiring, Learning and everything in business... I see very less done by the HR professionals to foster this aspect in their own profession. I am sure in my wildest guess the HR Fraternity is minority compared to many professions as on today... 

We can make a difference : Considering approximately 4 crore establishments (Large+MSME) in India and < .5% of them have HR Department - The number May be at 1-1.75 lacs of professionals (both organised & un-organised HR departments). The opportunity is with an average of 10-20 external interactions other than your own company, it would make a lot of difference in building the profession and keeping it close to the Business.  

My urge to the budding professionals from B-Schools and also the HR job holders in any Organised & un-organised HR Department :  If you want to make career in HR and you wanted it to be known... its time to focus on networking with, other than HR professionals and make your mark with multiple professional groups and individuals. This not only gives you a learning exposure to be successful but also a great understanding of "Business on the Otherside". 

This would not stamp you as an "Event Manager" but "Eventful Business Manager"....

Please do share your thoughts and feedback on my note to improve and bring different perspectives... So We learn more than what is know....

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HR Function Management Support for SME's (Your HR Department is Here): 100 HR Ideas for better Business : 6-10 : Inductio...

HR Function Management Support for SME's (Your HR Department is Here): 100 HR Ideas for better Business : 6-10 : Inductio...: Wish you all a very Happy Diwali !!!!  Also wishing Naresh Babu Deevi (Co-author of this blog) a very happy birthday !!! Here are the ne...

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Consequences of Errors done by HR

In my earlier post Bharat requested me to write on "Consequences of Errors done by HR". This is something the HR professionals face and experience every day. We are Human and errors are common... However, In one word HR Errors can cause a consequence of "Business". I have experienced the cost of consequences as a job holder and worked for a company and more so impact while running a business. We do experience many such errors but we learn and ensure do not repeat the mistake.  More importantly look for any potential mistakes in every other action or activity that HR handles.

Here, is a simple experience : In one of my experience I received a letter to be signed for a an Offer to a prospective Hire prepared by one of my associate. The associate was well educated(MBA), technologically savvy and  doing job for many years by then.  I would not sign any letter unless I review/scan.  I asked the Associate to change the letter and bring it again as we have not promised what was mentioned in the letter.  The associate have gone through the letter and said it is perfect. I asked him to check and comeback. After 5 minutes he came back and said everything was okay.  Then I pointed that there is an excess of "0" zero in the salary figure.  The additional zero we could have not afforded for the job role and experience and impact on our company by that individual.  But it was impacting because of the letter drafted.  The salary offered was 1 Lac per annum and its mentioned as 10 lacs( Rs.100000 to Rs.1000000). In this case Technology was helping us to do our job better but the impact of what you feed is important.  That talks about the attention to the details by HR is very important. This error even if we have issued the letter still would have been rectified by going back and informing the New Hire about the error, however go through my next experience.....

2nd Experience : Here is a company who were growing more than 40% of annual rate of growth while the industry was growing at a rate of 30%+( 30+% is a sign of growth in the industry characterized as sun rising). The Management decided to hire a new CEO instead of the founder owners who have built this organisation. This entire process of decision making and implementation would have not been possible without the involvement of senior hr professionals. The new CEO was with great credentials from a very well known and successful Multinational conglomerates... Within one year of his take over, there has been many changes in the organisation... To name few - New Organisational structure, New and different hiring, New business models, change in product lines and many others. None of these seems to have worked in one year of time and the management were forced to take a decision to counsel the CEO (In this case definition of Counseling is helping him to take decision to leave) as it was impacting the whole existence of business. In this case HR worked hard to help in getting back to normalcy with the help of people again.

I have taken two different examples to illustrate the impact that the Business can have with HR.  I could write hundreds and thousands of examples but time is essence.  We discuss more in future as need arises or as our readers request for specific inputs. However, HR is the function more and more prominent as the businesses are becoming Knowledge based and People become only the Differentiators to compete in the Global Business scenario.

The Business of HR has become more Profit / Impact oriented than ever before and the Required Qualities/skills/competencies of HR are defined to next level every day...

Please read more on the qualities of HR in this blog.  Also for all People Differentiators experiences read : www.hrsme.blogspot.com

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