Strategy and Solutions and Leading HR

IntroductionAs Steve Wynn says “Human Resources isn’t a thing we do. It’s the thing that runs our business.” (http://blog.hirerabbit.com/17-insightful-hiring-quotes-for-recruiting-hr-professionals/)

For this assignment, CIPD HR Profession Map will be used to understand the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to be an effective HR practitioner. It will summarize the 10 professional areas, 8 behaviours and 4 bands. It will then identify and describe one professional area in detail and describe three activities by giving examples and explain behaviour required for this area.
Activity 1

The CIPD Profession Map on the CIPD website is a self-assessment tool for HR practitioners. It is a great way to determine career progression in HR for individuals. The map shows how HR is linked to continuous organisation performance and designed accordingly to suit all sectors and organisations of all aspects

The architecture of profession map covers 10 professional areas and 8 behaviours and 4 bands of competency level starting from band 1 to band 4 for the beginning of HR career and for the most senior leaders respectively. It describes what HR practitioners need to know and what they need to do as per the bands.

There are two core professional areas at the heart of the HR Map and they are Insights, Strategy and Solutions and Leading HR which are applicable to all HR professionals. The first core area helps you to develop an understanding of an overall organisation’s performance and align the strategies and solutions after investigating the potential risks on the business. The second core area needs all the practitioners to demonstrate leadership skills and act as a role-model leader by supporting, developing measuring and maximising the efforts across the organisation.

One professional area which I identify myself with is Resourcing and talent planning. The main purpose of this area is to ensure that you’re able to identify and attract right people with right capability and talent to manage the changing needs of the organisation. This area happens to lie in Band 2 and I still need to gain more experience and knowledge in many areas. The activities that a Practitioner will undertake at either band 1 or 2 are listed below:

Develop and deliver talent acquisition plans – Identifying skills and capabilities of the candidate to deliver current and future work and support the managers and colleagues to make right choice to fill in. For examples – permanent staff, fixed short-term contract, experienced hire. Conducting regular internal and external talent identification exercises and advice managers on using the internal talent to build short term capability or resource externally. Ensure recruitment policies are in place to avoid bias and discrimination.

Assessment and Selection – Selecting candidates involves the two main processes of shortlisting and assessing applicants to decide who should receive a job offer. You’ll find here information on selection methods, selection interviews, interviewing skills, structured and behavioural interviews, references, psychometric tests, psychological testing, online testing, assessment centres and development centres and validity. (https://www2.cipd.co.uk/hr-topics/selection-assessment.aspx)

Selecting staff comprises two main stages: shortlisting and assessment. Throughout both stages employers should ensure that their selection methods ensure candidates are treated fairly, without discrimination or bias, and that selections are made based on the candidate’s ability to perform the role, contribute to the organisation and their potential for development.

This factsheet focuses on the interviewing stage of the selection process and the purpose of the interview for both the employer and the candidate. It covers the limitations of interviewing and how organisations might avoid common pitfalls. And finally, it takes a closer look at the practicalities of psychometric testing, assessment centres and pre-employment checks, such as references. (https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/recruitment/selection-factsheet)

Induction – Induction is a new opportunity for a business to welcome the new joiners to help them settle in and ensure that they have the knowledge and support they need to perform their role (https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/recruitment/induction-factsheet)

The skills to undertake these activities are listed below:
Personally credible – I see myself building and delivering professionalism through combining commercial and HR expertise to bring value to the organisation, stakeholders and peers.
Collaborative – I work effectively and inclusively with a range of people, both within and outside of the organisation
Driven to deliver – I demonstrates determination, resourcefulness and purpose to deliver the best results for the organisation.

The knowledge expected to show by a Practitioner is given below: A Practitioner must know the legal, regulatory and policies in relation to recruitment, talent and exit. – Jurisdiction Law
He needs to know a wide range of approaches to resource talent – Job adverts, social and professional media, press, etc)
He should have a sound knowledge on how to execute a recruitment plan in deadlines.
He should know how to conduct assessment and interviewing techniques and know how to induct a new joiner. – structured and behavioural interviews, references, psychometric tests, psychological testing, online testing, assessment centres

Activity 2: Service Delivery to HR Customers
To deliver a good and effective service, it is very much important to understand customers’ requirements. There can be employees who ask about their holidays, salaries or may be even any query regarding their contract terms. Also, some managers might ask for reports for any specific person’s absenteeism or it can be related to expanding business to plan for extra staff. Applicants can be our customers enquiring regarding any job vacancy.

There can be variety of information or service being asked from HR and may have conflicts with our workload, which can be challenging. Therefore, prioritizing is very important to provide exceptional service delivery. You may need to ask yourself that who has asked for the service and when was it asked when planning for the day.

My previous experience as an HR recruiter I will give an insight on how the services are completed in timeline and quality. There can be employees who are currently working in the organisation asking for any vacancy for their own growth within the company. An immediate manager might ask you to handle a recruitment campaign. New applicants may negotiate for a better position, better salary. As a recruiter, I had to obey my immediate manager first and call for new CVs by posting jobs online, through headhunting techniques, etc. Considering the company’s internal talent pool would be next in line. Shortlisting the CVs and the organising the campaign would be next, followed by managers approval or decision to select from the internal or external pool. There are various means of communication used by a recruiter for recruitment purpose which have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Job portals – Another way of communication for a recruiter is job portals. Most of the candidates land up on job portals to search of jobs which is popular these days. You can get access to a lot of CV’s and shortlist candidates based on CV’s. Disadvantage is that you email inbox might get full due to bogus CVs resulting in your time getting wasted on such CV’s.

Telephone – Telephone is the one of the useful way of communication used by recruiters. It is easily available and quick to use anytime and anywhere. Distance doesn’t matter if you’ve to get in touch. Recruiter can get some basic information over the phone about the candidate such as his current job, communication skills and some background of the family as well. There can be disadvantages like network issues or it might get difficult to get in touch with any candidate. More often, they say that this is not a good time to talk which leaves the communication incomplete and the whole objective of shortlisting the candidate is not met.

Email – Email is another fastest means of communication where in you can invite any candidate for an interview or attach important documents like offer letter, contracts, employee handbook, etc. Not only emails are easily available on your personal computers but can be archived and accessed from your personal mobiles. Records of emails can be taken to employment tribunals as an evidence for your case. Disadvantages of emails can be that they can go to the junk folder. Emails can go to the wrong person accidently. Feedback on your service performance is very important as it helps you in decision making and improve your service performance.