The new HR all-rounder: Time to up your skills

HR is used to thinking about critical upskilling and reskilling needs for employees. But within the HR department itself, the need for development is equally acute. Have you taken stock of your skill set recently?

The role of people leaders is changing once again. The more well-rounded HR leaders become, the greater role they will play in an organization’s long-term success. And those who don’t grow risk getting left behind. 

The pandemic brought challenges and opportunities

Let’s begin by looking at how far the HR function has come. What began as a centralized function for hiring, firing, and compensating employees has morphed into a multi-headed strategy and operations shop. 

The strategic importance of HR came into stark relief during the pandemic, says Matthew Daniel, senior principal for talent strategy at Guild. Almost overnight, people leaders had to become experts in how to manage a remote workforce and handle health policies. 

Not only that, but they were still responsible for allocating resources, maintaining productivity, measuring performance, and boosting employee morale across what was suddenly hundreds or thousands of work-at-home locations. 

“Before the pandemic, HR was regularly struggling for relevance," says Daniel. "CHROs really carried the torch during that difficult time.”

Now, with the rapid emergence of generative AI, new skills-based approaches to talent, and evolving paradigms of work design, HR is being asked to broaden its domains of expertise yet again. It’s just a matter of accepting the challenge.

“Some people leaders are deferring critical decisions to the business,” Daniel cautions. “If HR leaders don’t lean into this moment and set the AI and skills agendas, we risk falling back into irrelevancy.”

Matthew Daniel

The need for 'Systemic HR'

But as HR departments added new responsibilities, those domains became increasingly specialized, notes Josh Bersin, founder and CEO of research and advisory organization The Josh Bersin Company. And for most companies, that is still the case.

Experts in salary and benefits are unlikely to know much about training. Learning and development professionals are probably unfamiliar with the challenges facing recruiters. Talent acquisition specialists probably couldn't tell you much about how to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. And so on.

With little crossover between these specialties, HR departments became highly siloed service delivery organizations, not unlike the IT departments of the 1980s and early 1990s, says Bersin.

"The business models of the last 20 or 30 years were based on industrial scale -- more products, more channels, more distribution," he says. "Now business models are built around iterative design, time to market, creativity, and closeness to customers." 

“Most of the organizational structures designed for old business models aren’t useful any more. That’s why breaking down silos and developing ‘full stack’ HR professionals is crucial.”

Matthew Daniel

Bersin has termed this new paradigm of strategic people management "Systemic HR." In this scheme, HR departments function less like compliance mechanisms or service delivery organizations and more like internal consulting firms. And while his research estimates that only 11% of organizations have achieved this level of systemic maturity, the returns for these firms are significant.

According to Bersin Company research, companies that have implemented systemic HR are twice as likely to exceed their financial targets than less mature ones. 

They are four times more likely to have a diverse workforce, seven times more successful in recruiting talent, and nine times more likely to have engaged and happy employees. Not surprisingly, these organizations are also better at adapting to change and innovating effectively.

Dive in and get your hands dirty

Breaking down silos between specialties means learning more about different HR domains, through either professional development or rotation programs that allow specialists in one domain to gain exposure to new disciplines. 

Most companies need to invest more in HR career development and succession planning, notes Dieter Veldsman, chief HR scientist for the Academy to Innovate HR. They may also need to change their operating models, breaking up monolithic departments into multi-disciplinary teams. 

Some larger organizations are even creating independent people teams for every business unit within the company, each with its leadership, specialties, and strategies.

At the same time, every HR pro also needs to develop and hone new sets of multi-disciplinary skills — especially in the areas of business acumen, data literacy, user-centered design, and analytics, adds Daniel. 

"HR leaders cannot outsource data analytics to some other team within the organization," he says." Every HR practitioner needs to be able to look at your HR data and the business data, make correlations between them, then know which levers your HR teams can pull to have an impact on the business." 

As an HR leader, Daniel honed his own number-crunching skills by embedding an analyst into his team for "reverse-mentoring," helping him dive deeper into the data. He developed design skills by attending a week-long bootcamp, then experimented with building new learning projects, calling in UX design experts within the company to check his work. 

"At the end of the day it's all about finding learning programs you can trust, a mentor to guide you, and getting your hands dirty," he says. "Figuring out what the business problems are and how to solve them is the best way to learn."

“Figuring out what the business problems are and how to solve them is the best way to learn.”

Matthew Daniel

Dedicate time for learning

Still, it's a lot to ask. Make time for your own learning and development, rotate into cross-functional teams, learn the business, and master new digital skills like UX design or generative AI — all while continuing to manage a queue full of crises every day. 

"There's been a lot thrown at us over the last four years, and a lot of people are fatigued and on the verge of burnout," says Jessica Lantis, vice president of people operations for Guru, an AI-powered knowledge platform. 

"As HR practitioners, we support everyone else. It's uncommon for us to say, 'I have my own learning and development priorities,' because there's always some other fire we have to put out." 

Lantis notes that leveraging new technology — such as using gen AI tools to draft job descriptions, candidate letters, and emails — can automate repetitive elements of the job, leaving more time for skill development. But it also requires top management to enable more opportunities for learning. 

"You need dedicated time chunked out for deep thought and comprehension, and you can't do that when you're playing whack-a-mole," she says. "It starts when the business looks at its people team as a strategic thought partner, not just an administrative function within the organization. That's how you crack the code."

“It starts when the business looks at its people team as a strategic thought partner, not just an administrative function within the organization. That’s how you crack the code.”

Matthew Daniel

Think like a consultant

When HR leaders evolve into full stack professionals they become strategic consultants instead of service administrators, which will offer greater opportunities to contribute to the organization's success, notes Bersin.

“If you’re in a service delivery job, you answer the phone and say ‘How can I help you?’” he says. “If you’re a consultant, you dig in and learn the depth of the problem. Once you move to this level, you are in every strategic conversation. You’re talking to the board, you’re dealing with M&A, layoffs, reorgs, all of that stuff. And the profession itself becomes a lot more enjoyable.”

Every employee in every workplace is being asked to do more today than they were five or ten years ago, notes Daniel. HR is no exception. And that’s a good thing.

"Most HR leaders are thrilled by solving real business problems,” he says. “As even more challenging business problems like AI arise, CHROs need to identify those gnarly problems and figure out the people-angle to each of them. Since one of those problems is figuring out how AI will impact the business, then enabling people to develop skills that allow them to remain relevant is an exciting bit of work for us to do as HR professionals."

About Dan Tynan

Dan is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about technology since long before we all started carrying a computer in our pockets. Along the way he's been an investigative reporter, feature writer, copy editor, columnist, executive editor, and editor-in-chief for several national publications.