CHAPTER 3.

SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

It is a given that a sales representative's relationship with clients can make or

unmake a sale. A customer service person needs to be truly customer-focused and
customer-oriented in order to maintain good customer relations. Everybody, regardless
of his position in a company can benefit from good human relations and interpersonal
skills. It is not only a human resource professional who needs these skills but everyone
in the organization.
The basic definition of management is getting things done through people.
Managers make decisions, allocate resources and - this is the most difficult part - direct
the activities of others to attain their goals. Organization is a conscious social unit
composed of two or more people who do their work.
Since organization is a social unit, interpersonal skills therefore are important in
order to get things done. A study of 191 top executives at Fortune 500 companies sought
to answer this question: Why do managers fail? The single biggest reason for failure
according to these executives is poor interpersonal skills.
There are other skills, however, aside from interpersonal, that are equally important
to contribute to success in human resource management. As you will find out in Chapters
5 and 6, when interviewing a candidate for a certain position, a human resource
professional must follow a standard procedure to assess a candidate as compared to a
list of critical skills and personal characteristics needed for the job.
Maybe, it is time to turn the tables and come up with a list of critical skills and
attributes for Human Resource professionals to be successful themselves.
Based on observation of successful HR practitioners, here is a list of critical skills and
attributes that are credited for their success:
1. Human Relations or Interpersonal
2. Multitasking
3.Organization
4. Ability for Dual Focus
5. Trust and Confidence
6. Dedication to Continuous Improvement
7. Negotiating and problem-solving
8. Team-oriented
9. Honesty and Integrity
 A word of caveat: these critical skills and attributes are by no means exclusive. There
may be a few others that contribute to the success of human resource management.
HUMAN OR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
The title of the profession is obviously suggestive. The HR profession does not deal
with inanimate objects. It deals with human beings with feelings, values and behavioral
attitudes influenced by the interplay between heredity and environment. As the position
deals with day-to-day problems of behavior and motivation, no HR professional can
succeed if one is poor in interactive skills.
The interpersonal demands of an HR professional is so great that laterally and
vertically in the organization, he must deal with them almost on a daily basis. He must
interface with his peers, with the union in a unionized company, manage his subordinates
and also manage his boss. While all managers must have human relations skills to get
the job done, it is more critical to a human resource professional since he has no line
authority but banks only on his role as consultant and expert on human behavior.
MULTITASKING
On any day, an HR professional will the deal with a disciplinary problem one minute,
an incentive package program initiated by Sales Department the next and a union
negotiation strategy in the next few minutes. A call from the CEO for an emergency
meeting to launch a corporate social responsibility program is received by him. Production
needs technicians and engineers to recruit fast.
Priorities and business needs move fast and sometimes change fast, and a
Supervisor who has a problem employee to be disciplined, Sales who needs a survey of
competitor companies on sales incentive program, a boss who needs an immediate
meeting, and the Production Manager who frantically needs technicians and engineers
don't care much if your hands are full. You must be able to handle them on time as
"customers." You need to be able to handle them all at once.
ORGANIZATION
Human Resource manager is the paragon of orderly and seamless organization. His
staff is well organized. Organized files, strong time management skills and personal
efficiency are good indicators of a well-organized human re- source function.
You are dealing with people's lives and careers here, and when a manager requests
a personnel folder or recommendation on appropriate compensation structure that is
internally equitable and externally competitive with the industry, you cannot just say:
"Hang on, give me a few days to look for the file," or "give me several months to organize
and train a team to evaluate jobs." You have got to give it to them as needed. The HR
professional must be proactive enough to anticipate these needs and prepare for them.
ABILITY FOR A DUAL FOCUS
Employees expect the HR Professionals to advocate for their benefits and
concerns, yet you must also enforce company policies, rules and regulations. It takes
personal adroitness to do a deli- cate balancing act. The balancing act here involves a
fair and impersonal judgment of what is right under the circumstances.
HR professionals have to consider the needs of both employees and management.
There are times when you must make decisions to protect the individual employee and
other times when you protect the organization, its policies, culture, and values. Sometimes
you feel that you are caught in a two-horn dilemma. Damn if you do and damn if you don't.
Your "advice" (decision) may be misunderstood and you might draw flak from either
side. But your side is what is right and fair in your judgment and you just have to explain
it to the party who is unhappy of your advice. A good example is when an employee is
caught stealing & company property worth P100.00. Stealing in your company Code of
Conduct is under any circumstance an act of dis-honesty which calls for dismissal after
due Investigation.
You are the enforcer but you know that the erring employee has been in your
employ for more than ten years with unblemished record except this one. You also know
that said employee was forced to steal in order to buy medicine for his youngest child who
was seriously ill. Under these extenuating circumstances, what would you do? Temper
justice with compassion and enforce discipline without firing but suspending him for a
number of days or weeks. In fact, a case similar to this was ruled by our Supreme Court as
too harsh to merit a penalty of dismissal.
Your skills to carry out this dual role firmly but objectively will earn the respect and
trust of the employees and management.
TRUST AND CONFIDENCE
You are the custodian of all personnel records which hold a lot of individual personal
secrets. In our time, we held the employee folder of the CEO. In one company, the Chief
Executive's salary increase document called Personnel Change Notice (PCN) initiated by
the home office in the U.S. could not be implemented without our "ministerial" approved
signature.
You are being asked to conduct a salary survey of all top positions of the company
including that of the CEO. You administer the salaries and benefits of "expats" which if it
leaked out could be explosive.
People go to you for advice on marital and other personal problems. You act as
father or mother confessor. If you hold all this confidential information sacred and inviolate,
you win the trust and confidence of management and employees. This enhances your role
as consultant, advisor, and coach of the organization and confidant of the employees.
DEDICATION TO CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
HR professionals need to train managers how to coach and develop their
employees. The idea is, complacency has no place in the HR profession. There must
always be a better way of doing things. Processes, flow of work must be continuously
analyzed to cut operating costs and achieve maximum efficiency. The goal is continuous
improvement and innovation as well as remediation.
The HR professional must also have the capacity to look inward and be sensitive of
his own deficiencies and make corrective measures. Above all, the HR professional must
have the innate market or customer-oriented skills to satisfy his different customers and
stakeholders.
NEGOTIATING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING
When there are two or more people in an organization, there is always conflict. First,
it is almost impossible to find two people or parties with overlapping interests, or same
attitudes, and values. Second, change always occurs in organizations and change
invariably creates conflict.
There is conflict between two departments, between two managers, between a
manager and his subordinate. There is conflict between labor and management.
Caught in the vortex of these conflicts is the HR professional. He looks at the
problem, considers the personalities, examines the issues and presents himself as the
mediator and problem- solver. Achieving a conflict resolution re- quire negotiating
prowess and problem- solving skills. The relevant skills include the ability to gain trust and
confidence of the parties, clear thinking in identifying the real problem and tactfulness and
per- suasiveness in offering practical solution.
TEAM-ORIENTED
In the olden days, running an organization was simple. The hierarchical order is
followed. The head of the hierarchy is king. Today, the team is king. HR professionals
must understand and appreciate team dynamics and find ways to bring disparate
personalities together and make the team work.
The HR professional, therefore, must be gregarious, an extrovert and sensitive to
the needs, values, and feelings of others to win their cooperation and collaboration in
order to attain the overall goals of the organization.
At this time, when fewer people man the organizations, when the number of
supervisors and managers are reduced, called "delayering," there is growing inter
dependence among them. No one can work in isolation. No department or section can
operate within itself. There is greater interdependence among all people and among all
departments and sections.
 Team building training in developing a more effective organization is a critical
function of HR. One cannot orchestrate a team building training unless he is naturally
inclined to work as a team.
HONESTY AND INTEGRITY
Human Resource professionals are the conscience of the company and the
keeper of its moral image. As you serve the needs of management, you also should
monitor the managers' approaches to ensure that proper ethics and moral standards
are observed. You need to call the attention of managers who go astray on this narrow
path of honesty and integrity. Like Caesar's wife, the HR professional must not only
be good but must look good. He is the paragon of honesty and moral integrity. He
must walk the talk and practice what he preaches. Calling the attention of erring
managers to their illegal, immoral, or legal practices is not an easy job. But it has to
be done if you want to be the guardian of morals and ethics of the company. This job
should not be confused with "whistle-blowing" which is exposing company
shenanigans to the outside world for some personal motives such as monetary
rewards, tame or revenge. Advising erring managers is tor corrective or remedial
purpose.
SUMMARY
Manager's basic function is getting things done through people. They plan, lead,
organize and control. Every organization consists of people and it is management's
job to lead, direct and coordinate these people.
The HR professional is one of the managers. While the function requires
technical expertise, he has to have good people skills so he can handle his job more
effectively. In short, while it is absolutely critical to look at his "hard skills" (technical),
one must also look at his "soft skills" (behavioral). Success on the job depends on his
ability to harness these soft skills.
The nine (9) critical skills and attributes - human relations, multi-tasking, organization,
ability for dual focus, trust and confidence, dedication to continuous improvement,
negotiation and problem-solving, team-oriented, honesty and integrity make up for a
complete HR professional.