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Spreading HR’s Business Wings – HR Leader Magazine Issue 194
David Owens, Managing Director HR Partners discusses how HR professionals can broaden their experience in a business by rotating through other functions.
One move that HR professionals can sometimes make to broaden their business expertise - as well as their subsequent recruitment and career path prospects - is to move into other functions. David Owens, managing director of HR Partners, suggests that this is a more commonly held aspiration now than it used to be. "It is seen as a highly desirable thing to do - particularly by the more ambitious HR professional," he says.
Steps for skilling across functions
There are a couple of easy wins for HR professionals who may be considering a cross-functional move, Owens says, including landing a position of the HR professional responsible for a client group, such as finance, sales and marketing or IT. "After all, the HR professional who has an understanding of the commercial activity in each segment of a business is going to be more informed and more credible and, therefore, more capable of constructively advising on the best outcomes," he states.
Having a plan
Before stepping out of HR and into a line role, David Owens, managing director of HR Partners, says it is important to plan both the short-term and mid-term future. While it is helpful to have a connection with the business line head, he says it is also important to understand the expectations required in the role, what is required from a performance point of view and if it is a fixed-term appointment or a permanent move out of HR. “It’s important you know what the experience will give to you and you should be able to see a lot on the upside; you should, however, assess the risks and think about what the downside looks like,” he says.
HR professionals who have held non-HR roles usually prosper, according to Owens, because their experiences are valued and appreciated more. "Generally speaking, the HR professional benefits from the expansion of their firsthand knowledge of having worked in a non-HR role," he explains.
"The value of having had a non-HR role translates into heightened commercial acumen, insight and appreciation of other disciplines, and, by default, credibility. The non-HR experience should really assist in building stronger bonds with the leadership team, and, therefore, enable you to contribute more directly to the direction of the business and the opportunity to earn the accolades and rewards that flow from that."
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