What are the key traits every HR Manager should have?

Posted by Carlo Marques on 8 May, 2017 4:21 pm

Today’s business world is highly competitive, global and fast-paced. 

Miguel Pina e Cunha, Professor at The Lisbon MBA

At a time of great economical uncertainty, companies need to invest on people’s talent to ensure a high level of competitiveness and innovation within the industry. In this context, a good HR management becomes more and more important in the way that it allows an organization to find solutions to maximize the company’s return through an effective people’s management.

Which are the key traits every good HR manager should have?

  1. Technical skills: a good HR manager should know about HR management, understood as advanced professional know-how supported on empirical research. As redundant and obvious as it may seem, the truth is this isn’t always the case. HR managers are like football fans that feel they could manage their football team better than the coach itself: everybody can manage people; after all we’re all people, right? Wrong! Why not testing your knowledge on this subject through this simple questionnaire? (link for questionnaire) (The original is a part of the book “Manual de gestão de pessoas e do capital humano” (ed. Sílabo))
  2. Interpersonal competencies: a good HR manager has to “like people”. An HR manager that doesn’t like people is like a chef that doesn’t like food. He will inevitably treat people as… human resources.
  3. Liking people means: (1) offering a sense of unequivocal organizational support, combined with (2) challenge and growth, rigor and excellence. An HR manager is not a social worker nor is he a psychologist; he’s a manager.
  4. Strategic qualities: he has to lead the organization and not just at the organization.
  5. He should be able to acquire competencies that allow him to manage other areas within the organization – i.e. he shouldn’t be too attached to the personnel function.
  6. He should create truly meritocratic organizations. In this area, HR management is paramount. Without a fair performance appraisal system set in place, people management will miss out on one of its key functions.
  7. To create meritocratic organizations means that the HR manager is ideally a manager that is able to be both tough and soft in the right proportion – not too much and not too little.

Test your knowledge

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