Since 1987 our research has identified the skills that
determine effective HR professionais. Over these 25 years,
the fundamentai skiiis required for HR professionals have
remained much the same (know the business, deliver vaiue added
HR practices, manage change and have personai credibiiity),
but the specific competencies have evoived based on changing
business conditions and expectations for the HR profession.
Our 2012 competency data set for HR professionals is a unique
partnership with many ieading HR professional associations
around the worid. With their support and the active invoivement
of RBL institute members and the University of Michigan, we
have coiiected giobai data from over 20,000 respondents and
650 organisations. This data comes from line managers, HR
and non-HR associates who rated HR professionais on 139
behaviourai and knowledge-based competencies. They tie
HR competencies to both personai effectiveness and seven
dimensions of business performance.
in this latest round of research we have identified six domains
of competencies that HR professionals must demonstrate to be
personaiiy effective and to impact business performance.
These competencies are driven by three themes facing
businesses today;
1. Outside/in: This means HR must turn outside business trends
and stakehoider expectations into internal actions
2. Individual/collective: Which means that HR targets both
individual ability and organisational capabilities
3. Event/sustainability: This implies that HR is not about
an isolated activity (a training, communication, staffing,
or compensation programme) but sustainabie and
integrated solutions.
With these three trends. Figure 1 points out three spheres
of infiuence of HR work:
• Individual: What high performing HR professionals do as
individuals to build effective reiationships and reputations
within their organisation
• Organisation: How effective HR professionals design,
develop and deliver HR systems and practices that enable the
organisation to create capabilities, manage change, innovate and
integrate HR practices, and depioy HR technology
• Context: What respected HR professionals do to ensure
understanding of the external trends and reaiities facing the
organisation and responsiveness to external stakeholders.
With this as background, each of the six domains of HR
competence captures the role and responsibility of HR
professionais in creating vaiue (see Figure 1).
• Strategic positioner. High performing HR professionals think
and act from the outside/in. They are deeply knowledgeable
of and able to translate external business trends into internal
organisation decisions and actions. They understand the gênerai
business conditions (e.g. social, technological, economic,
poiitical, environmental and demographic trends) that affect
their industry and geography. They target and serve key
customers of their organisation by segmenting customers,
knowing customer expectations, and aligning organisation
actions to meet customer needs. They also co-create their
organisation's strategic response to business conditions and
customer expectations by helping frame and make strategic and
organisational choices.
I Credible activist. Effective HR professionals are credible
activists. Credibility comes when HR professionals do what
they promise, build personal relationships of trust, and can be
relied on. Being a trusted adviser helps HR professionals have
positive personal relationships. As an activist, HR professionals
have a point-of-view, not only about HR activities, but about
business demands. As activists, HR professionals learn how to
influence others in a positive way through clear, consistent, and
high-impact communications. Some have called this HR with an
attitude. HR professionals who are credible but not activists are
admired, but do not have much impact. Those who are activists
but not credible may have good ideas, but will be ignored. To be
credible activists, HR professionals need to be self-aware and
committed to building their profession.
I Capability builder. An effective HR professional creates an
effective and strong organisation by helping to define and
build its organisation capabilities. Organisation is not structure
or process; it is a distinct set of capabilities. Capability
represents what the organisation is good at and known for. HR
professionals should be able to audit and invest in the creation
of organisational capabilities. These capabilities outlast the
behaviour or performance of any individual manager or system.
Capabilities have been referred to as a company's culture,
process or identity. HR professionals should facilitate capability
audits to determine the identity of the organisation. One of the
emerging capabilities of successful organisations is to create
an organisation where employees find meaning and purpose at
work. HR professionals can help line managers create meaning
so that the capability