You’ll Need These 5 Skills to be a Human Resources Officer

If you’ve ever had a job, you’ll have dealt with Human Resources. They would have been the people who interviewed you and they might have inducted and trained you. Your email Inbox might be abundant with policy changes or notifications about leave. These are some of the areas Human Resources handles.

What do Human Resources Officers do?

HR Officers can be responsible for:

recruitment
onboarding
employee training
employee relations
health and safety in the workplace and;
payroll

Being a Human Resources Officer is a varied and complex role. Your duties will range from administrative support to policy writing and training. HR is all about helping people.

Supporting the staff and facilitating conversation; ensuring everyone is comfortable, coping and thriving.

What industries need Human Resources Officers?

The great thing about getting into HR is that there is a need and demand for these skills in every industry. Construction, education, retail, the arts, law and the health industry all have a HR need. But these are just examples. There is no limit.

This is great for those with HR skills as you can switch industries pretty easily. These diverse roles have an endless opportunity for change.

So, you’re thinking and human resources as a possible career. Here are the skills you will need.

The Skills You’ll Need

Compassion

In HR, you are the point of contact when a staff member needs to disclose a personal situation that may affect their work. It could be something to do with their health, a family member or another employee.

During these conversations, you need to mantain an appropriate emotional distance. But, you also need to offer compassion and workplace solutions that can help both the employee and the business.

It’s a delicate balance but one you’ll need to be comfortable making in this kind of role.

Attention to Detail

In human resources it’s all going to come down to the small details. A keen eye for detail is paramount. You’ll likely be in charge of sensitive documents, important policies and paperwork.

In a regular day you could be working on policies that ensure your company is meeting industry requirements. In a HR role record keeping is important, so being detail oriented is a must.

Good Gut Instincts

In human resources, one of the myriad of tasks you’ll be performing is recruitment.

When you’re interviewing candidates and recruiting for a company it can be hard to know who the right person for the job will be. There are so many factors to consider!

You will come across candidates that have all the qualifications and experience, and picking between them can be hard. This is where gut instincts comes in. Knowing who will be a good fit within the company culture is important.

Getting a good feel for the candidate and how they’ll work within the organisation is a big part of managing people and recruitment.

Being a People Person

People skills are a huge part of working in human resources. Your job is all about people and you need to be good at dealing with people to do it well.

This means being approachable. You need to be able to make staff feel comfortable. If you do, they are more likely to come to you with their concerns and you’ll be able to solve them before they become full blown issues.

Being good with people is an essential skill for anyone working in human resources.

Communication skills

In human resources, it’s all about communicating.

You’ll need to have good grasp of different communication methods. Effective training techniques in a business comes back to good communication. This is similar with managing conflict. Communication will be key in your role as a Human Resources Officer.

If you’ve got these 5 skills you’ll make a great Human Resources Officer.

But what do you do next?

How do you become a Human Resources Officer?

There are many different pathways into human resources.

A sure-fire way to kick start your career in this exciting and ever- changing industry is to study a Diploma of Human Resources. This qualification gives you an overview of all components of HR.

In the course you’ll learn how to: