6 Skills You’ll Need To Become a Human Resources Consultant
In Human Resources there’s a real need for consultants. Becoming a HR Consultant is an exciting role to get into in HR. To be a consultant in HR means being on top of the industry trends, going from company to company and troubleshooting issues within the human resources department, boosting employee engagement and satisfaction as well as championing diversity and designing protocols and programs to help workplace culture and recruitment systems.
What is a Human Resources Consultant?
Generally, if someone is a Human Resources Consultant, they have usually worked within the Human Resources field for a while. They may worked their way up to becoming a Human Resources Manager, or Strategist.
As a Human Resources Consultant, you would go business to business, company to company, analysing how the protocols and systems for the human resources department work and making suggestions for the change and betterment of the company and its employees.
Where do Human Resources Consultants work?
Human Resources Consultants can work for consultancy companies or run their own business. They can specialise in different industries as well, focusing on education or retail or the public sector for example. It just depends on what their background is, what field they are interested in and what kind of expertise they bring to the role.
How much Human Resources Consultant earn?
Human Resources Consultants are in high demand. This particular role is a high level position that requires experience and expertise. According to Talent Human Resources Consultant make anywhere from $79,540 per year to $120,000 per year with the average annual salary being $99,500.
What kind of Skills do you need?
Human Resources Consultants are professionals with extensive experience in their field. They have all the skills gained in working as a Human Resources Manager, but their role requires additional knowledge and an understanding of project planning and analysis.
Here’s six skills that will help you excel as a Human Resources Consultant.
Creative Problem Solving
To succeed as a Human Resources Consultant, you’ll need to have excellent creative problem solving skills. This kind of work requires you to come up with creative solutions on a large scale.
You’ll often be brought in by companies when they are experiencing ongoing issues with staff turnover, workplace culture or employee engagement. And they’ll be looking to you to come up with out-of-the-box solutions to tackle these issues.
Critical Analysis Skills
A Human Resources Consultant must take a wide overview of the whole organisation’s approach to HR, and critically analyse the issues they are facing. This can be a challenging part of the role. Often leaders in a company can’t see the forest for the trees, and you’ll need to see the forest and find a path through the trees for them.
Tact and sensitivity are incredibly important to be able to guide a company through the issues and solutions while keeping them on your side.
Communication Skills
In human resources communication skills are always a must. You’ll need to be an effective de-escalator, good at fostering open communication within teams and excellent at writing reports, plans and correspondence.
But in this particular role, your ability to effectively communicate the issues without getting any managers and or departments’ backs up, will be essential. You’re coming in to tell them what they are doing wrong, and to show them how to fix it. Getting people to understand these issues without taking offence and to work with you, will be vital.
Trend aware
As a consultant in human resources, you’ll be a fountain of knowledge on current industry trends, new protocols and systems and experimental programs. You’ll need to be passionate about your industry and committed to ongoing professional development and learning.
Maintaining memberships with industry bodies, attending networking events and keeping on top of industry news and research will help you stay trend aware.
Project Management and Planning
In your role as a Human Resources Consultant, each workplace you consult with will be different, with different issues to be solved. The crux of your job will be project planning and implementing new systems to address the issues the company is facing.
You’ll need to be excellent at project management and planning, with an eye for the details and a head for future proofing the systems.
Technical skills
This role requires excellent technical skills, and an understanding of various administrative systems and staff skills matrix systems that can be implemented for the management and filing of staff data. You’ll need to be a fast learner and always ready to jump on and get the hang of a new staff management system, payroll system or survey platform.
Understanding the complexities of these systems will help you to choose the best ones for each company you work with and to train staff on the processes so they can be implemented with ease.
How do you become a HR Consultant?
Human Resources Consultants have usually spent years working in the human resources field, gaining valuable on-site experience across a range of industries. If you’re in human resources now and you’d like to move on to become a consultant and get to move around different companies and industries helping on a strategic level, you can look at achieving some higher level HR qualifications through RPL.
What course should you do?
The qualification you’d want to pursue to get this job title would the Advanced Diploma of Human Resources Management. This course is only offered through RPL and typically suits individuals who are working as Human Resources Managers or Strategists.
How does the RPL process work?
When looking at completing a course through RPL or Recognised Prior Learning, you can review the course here to get an idea of whether you’ve completed all the necessary work associated with the competencies. Once you’ve done this, you can submit a free skills assessment, where you’ll answer some questions and add your resume.
Then our RPL assessor will be in touch to let you know if you’re a good candidate for RPL. From there if you are eligible, you can formally begin the process. Our RPL assessor will provide a mapping document where you can add your experience and evidence against the competencies. The whole process can be as short as a few weeks or a few months depending on how long it takes to get all your evidence together for the mapping document.
Final Thoughts
Human Resource Consultants have an exciting job, moving from company to company making lasting changes and facing interesting challenges, which keeps this role feeling fresh.
If you’re interested in making the jump to this prestigious role, you can check out the Advanced Diploma of Human Resources here, or get in touch with our friendly course advisors. They’d be happy to help you find the right course for you.