Choosing Human Resources as a Career Path

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I want you to take a moment to ask yourself why you are considering a career in the field Human Resources… Are you considering becoming a HR Generalist or a HR Specialist?

Done? Okay, let’s begin.

The moment HR becomes a field of interest to you that you would want to venture into, a set of very good questions you’ll need to ask yourself are; “What area am I going to be in? Would I want to be a generalist or would I want to be a specialist?

HR Generalist vs. HR Specialist

The focal point is, a HR generalist role is more about handling all aspects of HR. That is, all HR functions. However, being a specialist, you would have to stick to just an area of specialization since HR has many sub-functions. To further explain this, we quickly look at the various areas in HR practice; both in Nigeria and globally. It’s important you begin to think globally in this age.

Areas of specialization in Human Resources

The areas under HR include:

1. Recruitment
2. Learning and Development
3. Performance Management
4. Compensation and Benefits
5. HR Operations
6. Employee Engagement
7. HR Psychology
8. Industrial Relations
9. Organisation Development
10. Organisation Design
11. HR Strategy and so on

The last three parts (and more) are more of senior roles. In essence, you would have to have had experiences in other areas first. The first 5 are the usual functions and are usually what we have in most companies. So to those of you that are thinking of being HR specialists, if you start as a specialist and spend about 12 years in the profession, do you think you can rise to become the HR Director especially if there’s someone else who has a more aggregate experience of these other areas even with lesser experience in terms of years?

HR Specialist or HR Generalist?

Let us take an example together. Say there are two candidates in an organization, Mr. A and Mr. B. Mr. A has worked in the organization for 12 years specializing in performance management. Mr. B on the other hand, has worked in the organization for 8 years, working in 3 or 4 areas of HR and has basic knowledge of the other areas. If there is a position open for a HR director, who do you think will get the job? Mr. A or Mr. B?

Well, Mr. B will most likely be selected. Reality sometimes however may pose some exceptions. So, the idea is as a rule of thumb. Young HR practitioners, are advised to start off as generalists at least for the first 2 years of their HR career. They are advised to get the hook of what every area is all about before specialising in one afterwards. This way, you are neither a jack of all trades nor a master of none. Nevertheless, at some point you would have to choose a specific area to focus on for some years then do a rotation to others.

Choosing an area of specialization in HR

Moving on, let me quickly explain the areas in HR, then you can start deciding the area you would want to specialize in. Most times, people think HR is not for them until they fall in love with just one area. Let us see if you are going to fall in love right now!

If you love numbers, HR is for you and if you hate numbers, HR is for you too. If you like working with people, HR is for you and if you don’t like people at all because you’re like the devil’s younger brother or sister, HR is also for you.

How do I mean?

Lovers of numbers

HR is a career of variety. If you love numbers and want to be dealing with that a lot, these areas can be considered: Performance Management, Compensation/Benefits/Reward Management, and HR Analytics. Let us discuss what they are about.

Performance Management Cycle

Performance management involves the performance management cycle. Every other thing in performance management falls in here. Most of it all requires you to cascade whatever goals has been set by top management to divisions, and further cascade to units and teams, and then to individuals. In most cases those goals have to be given a naira value. In whichever cases, they must be something objective. Objectivity usually is numbers or something you can see and measure in clear terms.

On the other hand, Compensation management has a lot to do with numbers. Salary! Salary!! Salary!!! That salary you’re looking at has lots of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. How are they arrived at? What determines what Mr. A gets and what Mr. B gets? If I’m promised, what should be my reward? So many questions and it is their job to find these answers. A specific area that deals with the actual salary management on a monthly basis is called Payroll Management.

HR Analytics is similar to data analytics, but here, you will be focusing more on numbers that are employee-inclined, especially in large organizations where you’ll be working with big data. Just one employee alone has a lot of data related to him/her e.g. their names, gender, age, educational qualifications, years of experience, year he/she was hired, etc. All that data for just one employee! Now imagine working in an organization that has above 300 employees. That is a lot of work. Here you’ll have to use big data analytics. You’ll have to use the same Power Bi that people use for commercial data, like the guys in marketing, sales, product management, etc. The only difference is that you might not need to dive into the likes of Python, SQL, etc.

For you to be able to do proper HR analytics, to a very large extent you’ll have to understand basic visualization analytics tools like MS Excel to a very advanced level and Power Bi in the most basic level. There are a number of these tools, but Power Bi is one of the most used currently. What differentiates the HR analyst from the regular data analyst is that the HR analyst needs to understand HR from the various perspectives and he/she is analyzing with the purpose of drawing insights or giving recommendations that are backed by his own knowledge of the profession. For example, trying to find out why the performance scores for a particular branch has reduced drastically. Here, you’re not just an HR person from the angle of instincts or intuition alone, but you’re also going to be presenting facts and data.

Non-Lovers of numbers

There are areas like that need little numbers but require psychology, L&D, and recruitment. However, data has taken over, so you just might have to learn numbers too. I’m sorry! For example, I’m in L&D. Today is Friday and my day was on PowerBi almost all through doing analysis that are training-inclined.

The learning and development (L & D) specialization is a really good specialization, depending on you. If you love talking to people, public speaking, and you’ll like to facilitate the process through which someone acquires a skill or gains knowledge, this could be a really good specialization for you

The training/L&D cycle involves four stages which are: identify training needs, design the training, deliver the training, and measure success. In most cases, it would involve you either training people directly, or facilitating the process through which they have to be trained.

• Identifying the training needs involves analyzing the skills that the employees are lacking and the skills they need. This could be as a result of various reasons, e.g. recommendations from the manager, the growing needs of the business, surveys, semi interviews, etc.
• Designing the training involves setting the objectives for the training, deciding what kind of training it is going to be, e.g. physical, virtual, discussions, hands-on, a blend of different methods, etc., depending on the audience.
• Delivery of the training involves the implementation of all the planning, carrying out the actual training in itself in the classroom.
• The measuring success stage is usually called post training evaluation. You’ll learn more about this when you start doing your CIPM. This stage involves measuring their reactions, learning, behaviour, and results. CIPM means Chartered Institute of Personnel Management. It is the regulatory body in charge for determining the level of knowledge for members before practicing.

Recruitment on the other hand, is more like the foundation of HR. If you ask a regular person what they think HR is about, they’ll tell you that it has to do with interviewing and recruiting people for organizations.

Recruitment Cycle

The recruitment cycle has six stages. Preparation, sourcing, screening, selecting, hiring and on-boarding.

• Preparation is the stage where the organization does job analysis. For example, at the beginning of the financial year, the organization looks at the various factors that would determine how many people they need to employ to ensure their processes run smoothly. Then they craft out job description, specifications, etc.
• Sourcing is when they put out the job ads on different sites, like LinkedIn, Jobberman, etc.
• Screening has to do with the shortlisting process, reviewing CVs, tests, interviews, etc.
• Selecting has to do with deciding on the people they want to employ, based on the results of the screening.
• Hiring is when the decision is made, and all the other details are worked out e.g. compensation, medicals, etc.
• Onboarding involves training of the newly employed staff to ensure they fit well into the organisation.

L&D Cycle

Now, let us move on to In-House HR and HR Consulting:

An In house HR personnel is a person that works in the HR department in any organization irrespective of the field, be it finance, oil and gas, technology, production, etc. While, an HR consultant is a person that does HR consulting or works in an HR consulting firm.

It is mostly recommended that you do In house HR for a start so that you will be able to learn in-depth. HR consulting is more streamlined because you’re going to be rendering your service to third parties. Sometimes you may not be able to see whatsoever service you render through to the end of the cycle, so you might not really be able to see if you’re really learning or if whatever you’re doing is as productive as you think. So, it’s a lot better to start out with In house HR and then eventually move into HR consulting.

What are the things you can start doing now before you start your HR career?

By now, I believe that we all understand that we have to make learning a habit. So, read about the different areas in HR and learn about the various tools used in these areas, e.g. LMS tools, ATS tools, MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Power Bi, etc.

Actually, you can start HR consulting now. Honestly, this is the best time to start. Start involving yourself with basic HR consulting among students. Know how to write a CV very well, help others review their CVs, etc. With this you can start to familiarize yourself with some of the HR processes. The same goes for cover letters and LinkedIn profiles. Build up your LinkedIn profile well. Learn how to do these things properly. Also, follow thought leaders in the HR space to enable you gain more knowledge and insight into the field.

The career path to an HRD (Human Resources Director):

Sometimes this is called a CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer). This is the overall head of HR in any organization. It is like the zenith of the HR career in In house HR. Typically, the time period from the start of your career to the HRD takes about 15 years and above, depending on how lucky you are. Recently though, the time as reduced to about 7–15 years.

Right reasons to love HR:

Some of the right reasons to love HR are

• It gives you an opportunity to influence people positively.
• It is a field of variety, there are different areas in HR that suit whatever personality you have.
• HR is a very vast field, it opens you up to different opportunities and also challenges that can help you grow and learn more.
• It also gives you flexibility, you can work in almost any field or industry of your choosing.

It is very important to be as flexible and open-minded as possible, don’t be too rigid. Of course, you still need focus in a context, you can define the areas you think you would like to focus on, even though you’re not so completely sure yet. Be open-minded, so if an opportunity comes e.g. an internship comes you can take it up to gain more knowledge and explore, eventually you might find out that you enjoy doing that particular thing. You do not necessarily have to work in the field you are studying in now. This would help make you more versatile and build up your skill sets.

In conclusion, if you really want to be a HR practitioner, be prepared to go through the rigor of learning and personal improvement. Don’t be a half-baked HR practitioner. Most of the areas in HR are more subjective e.g. intuition, judgment, other soft skills that makes it difficult to know it all at once. You have to keep learning and discovering new things.

By: Evans Uhunoma

Compiled by Adesuwa Osawaye and Edited by Eunice Edeoghon Eunice Edeoghon

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