From line manager to hr manager
Line managers in areas like production and sales may also make career stopovers as staff hr managers. A survey by the center for effective organizations at the university of southern California found that about one-fourth of large U.S. businesses appointed managers with no hr experience as their top hr executives. Reasons given include the fact that these people may find it easier to give the firms’ hr efforts a more strategic emphasis, and the possibility that they may sometimes be better equipped to integrate the firm’s hr efforts with the rest of the business.5
However, most top hr executives do have previous hr experience. About 80% of those in one recent survey worked their way up within hr. about 37% were in employment/recruitment, and so were mostly involved in activities like recruiting and selecting employees. Thirty percent were in labor relations (union-management), and 27% worked in training and development. The other basic hr functions the top hr executives came from include compensation, benefits, EEO/affirmative action, human resource systems (hris), payroll, workers compensation, and safety. About 17% of these hr executives had earned the human resource certification institute’s senior professional in human resources (sphr) designation, and 13% were certified professionals in human resources (PHR).