HR PRACTITIONERS CORE COMPETENCIES

Introduction

The HR Practitioners core competencies are the essential skills, knowledge and behavioral attitudes required of a high flying HR Practitioners. They represent the job skills, knowledge and general capabilities needed by HR Practitioners to deliver superior performance.

The knowledge of these core competencies will affords HR Practitioners to know where they are in terms of skill and capabilities requirement of their enviable position and what they need to do to add value to the bottom line.

The essence of these core competencies is to expose HR Practitioners to the major competencies expected of them so as to leverage on their skills and knowledge gaps and invest in continuous training and development in order to fill the identified gaps. My take home to HR Practitioners who possessed all the identified competencies is: Never relent on your effort towards a continuous self development. Keep learning, relearning and unlearning.

 Core Competencies

Here are some of the top HR Practitioners core competencies.

• Strategic thinking.
• Vision.
• Global mindset.
• Employees-Employer Advocate.
• Internal/External Customer’s focus.
• Excellent Teamwork/ Team spirit.
• Change initiator.
• Professionalism.
• Creativity & flexibility.
• Business literacy.

The HR Practitioners of the future must strive towards demonstrating a detailed knowledge of the above identified core competencies so as to be able to deliver superior HR functions at work. All efforts must be put in place to ensure the mastery of all the identified core competencies through training and retraining.

Conclusion

Managing human resources has become critical to the success of all companies, large and small, regardless of industry (Ulrich, 1997). This shows that the success or otherwise of any company depend solely on the quality of its human resources.  Therefore, attracting, developing, motivating and retaining human resources needed for superior organisational performance can only be achieved by organisations staffed with well trained and competent HR Practitioners that possessed the identified core competencies.

REFERENCES

Stephen C. Schoonove r (1998).  Human Resources Competencies for the year 2000: The wake up call. Society for Human Resource Management.

Ulrich, D (1996). Human Resource Champion, Boston, Harvard University Press.

About the author

Ajiboro Ayodeji is a Chartered HR Practitioner based in Lagos, Nigeria. Tel: 2348027807452. Email: hutrenconsulting@gmail.com.

©Hutren Consulting 2011