Human Resources Management is an extremely important area in corporate organisations.

Although the traits listed below are not all-inclusive characteristics a Human Resources professional should possess, they are the ones most sought after by employers.

So if you are looking into Human Resources for your career, brush up on your social skills, focus on communication, ethics, conflict management, leadership, maintaining organisation, etc.

Good HR managers are goal-driven and organised individuals who want to help organisations achieve their goals/objectives and employees reach their potential.

The HR manager’s role is to interview and hire candidates based on their skills and talents, but it goes beyond that in this present age.

Here are the qualities of the Human Resources Manager in detail.

1. Good Communication Skills

The primary function of all HR professionals is facilitating communication between employers and employees. This means that both your oral and written communication skills need to be sharp so that you can relay information clearly and effectively to employees at all levels.

Part of the communication requirements also involves negotiation. During the hiring process, or when conflicts arise between employees, successful HR pros are able to help opposing groups compromise and find a middle ground.

2. Strong Ethics

The HR department of a company serves as its conscience. This means that you will need to have a keen sense of ethics when it comes to confidential information and following company policies. HR professionals have to earn the trust of company employees and executives so that they can effectively do their job; honesty and discretion are key components of any successful HR department.

As a Human Resources Professional, you have to be beyond reproach when it comes to ethics. For example, a friend who is also an employee might ask about another employee’s pay. As her friend, you may want to tell her, but as a Human Resource Professional, your ethics will prevent you. Additionally, it is your job to set ethical standards and promote them in the workplace.

3. Organizational Skill

One of the most important characteristics of HR professionals is the ability to get organised. This includes strong time management skills and the ability to complete tasks efficiently. On a typical day, you’ll be balancing a variety of different tasks, ranging from hiring and firing, dealing with employees’ personal issues and creating recruitment strategies for open positions.

Multitasking is key, as well as self-discipline. You’ll need to set ethical and behavioral standards for others to follow and make sure you are following them as well. HR professionals also manage deadlines and accomplish tasks quickly so that both employee and employer needs are met.

4. Conflict Management Skills

It is never easy to deal with conflict, and conflict in the workplace has a way of either being quickly worked out or blowing up. It’s up to you, the Human Resource professional, to use your critical thinking skills quickly and manage the conflict.

You will need to gather all the information, identify the problem, come up with possible solutions, and negotiate a solution. Conflict is natural, but with the right conflict management skills and ability to shift perspective, you can keep the office running smoothly.

5. Empathy

While it is certainly important for HR professionals to keep their emotions in check when they are examining a situation at hand, they must also still have the basic capacity to put themselves in the shoes of the people that they are working with.

The situations that an HR professional manages can certainly be complex, and though these must be judged impartially, they should be done in a matter that takes the perspective of all people involved into interpretation. HR professionals should be capable of balancing their empathy with their capacity to assess the situation in a manner that is well-advised.

6. Leadership Skills

In many situations, employees look to HR professionals for answers and leadership. The nature of many HR positions is that you will be seen as an expert on a wide variety of company-related topics, so you will need to have the confidence to lead.

This can mean anything from finding the answers to employee concerns to putting together a team to run a local 5K race for charity. The best HR professionals can balance being a friendly presence in the office by taking control and helping things run smoothly.

7. Time Management Abilities

An HR has a number of jobs to handle o manage and hence time management is extremely important for any HR individual. If you want to grow as an individual or as an HR professionals time management has to be a very important part of your routine. List down your jobs for the day on a piece of paper according to their priorities set time for your jobs and work accordingly.

8. Emotional Control

As an HR professional, there will be many times when the job calls for dealing with certain sensitive aspects of the industry that can be emotionally charged. In order to carry out their job effectively, the HR professional will need to prioritize the efficiency of the organization over their personal feelings of what the implications of a situation may be. For the benefit of everybody involved, HR professionals need to provide an unbiased window of perspective on situations without allowing it to compromise their judgment.

9. Ability To Motivate Others

The only effective workforce is a motivated one. You must understand what does and does not motivate your employees. Motivation is not about just offering incentives, it is about creating sustainable reasons to maintain a quality of work and to foster employees’ belief in the organization’s cause and their team.

In particular, you must be able to successfully motivate your managers, who in turn, will motivate the employees under them.

10. Courage

There will be times when your career calls for you to stand firmly in the face of fierce opposition whether it be having to conduct layoffs or opposing poor ideas from management. When faced with unpopular decisions or actions, you must be able to stand firm in your convictions and beliefs regarding what is best for your organization.

Qualities of Human Resource Manager By Henri Fayol

According to Henri Fayol, an HR manager should possess human relations skills much more than other managerial skills. He divided the qualities needed by an HR manager into these categories:

Physical-health, vigor, address; Mental-ability to understand and learn; judgment, mental vigor, and also adaptability; Moral-energy, firmness, willingness to accept, responsibility, initiative, loyalty, tact, dignity; Educational-general acquaintance with matters not belonging exclusively to the function performed; Technical-peculiar to the function; and Experience-arising from the work.