HR Professional Analysis

Professionals, regardless their specialty or occupation, are required to master certain knowledge and skills in order to run the business efficiently and successfully. So are the HR professionals.
The most important and core areas for HR knowledge and skills are insights and leadership. The first is significant to design strategy and solutions to meet organizational needs, while the second is crucial to contribute as much as possible throughout the organization by supporting, developing and measuring others.
When we look at the evolution of HR (Next Generation HR), so we can see the Insight Driven HR gradually became a successor of Service Driven and Process Driven HR that includes three – Business, Contextual, and Organizational savvies
One should feel the insights of business in order to lead the others. Here, HR professional is a role model who has a vision for how to make a difference, how to take an initiative to chase these changes, how to use talents and resources and how to lead others.
My HR professional is a thinking performer who “seeks to contribute to underlying organizational purposes, reinforces the compliance role of the HR function when it is necessary, challenges the way in which things are done, to find solutions that are better, cheaper or faster, keeps in touch with customers through networking in order to understand the business better, reacts to feedback and proactively develops” (The Thinking Performer concept, page 1).
The core areas integrated with eight professional areas are mostly skills and knowledge that HR professional is supposed to possess. It is very important how an HR professional translates these abilities into activities. The Map also identifies eight behaviors within of which HR professional demonstrates in action a number of skills by pursuing innovative ways to add value, identifying options and making recommendations, gaining necessary commitment and support from the stakeholders, building and delivering professionalism, working successfully with people within and outside of the organization, delivering the best results for the organization, speaking up and challenging others,
Mostly, I see myself in Courage to Challenge which “shows courage and confidence to speak up skilfully, challenging others even confronted with resistance or unfamiliar circumstances” (page 50). I was lucky to get positioned in Band 4 which made me a decision maker and I could sometimes use Push model of influencing. Despite my Band 4 position I passed through all the activities described in other bands. It took me some time to get insights, to develop strategy and solutions to all the shortcomings I identified during my `observation period`. The company had very autocratic management, ruled only by one person, who was not CEO(!), and focused only on aggressive sales. It was not very easy to change the management style, but I was challenging the owner and the CEO since I was confident that I was doing the right thing. I developed job descriptions for each director and line manager where I clearly described their responsibilities. Some people lost authority, some gained. But majority was happy with it. Another immediate change was introduction of Policy Manual and Code of Conduct. The company never had any written procedures regulating internal rules. I did not use the decision making authority given to me by the owner and CEO by pushing the ready-made document into force. I discussed the