Maximising your personal HR Success – Building Relationships #1
What high performing HR Professionals do
‘Meeting and greeting’ is something everybody does, in work and outside of work. We make friends, we develop a sense of belonging, we learn who to trust and we know how to be sociable and when required do ‘small talk’. Actually, this is all about building relationships and in our view at CourageousHR if you’re good at doing this kind of stuff outside of work it shouldn’t be that difficult for you inside of work.
Research shows that the most successful HR Professionals are able to build strong and enduring relationships with their leadership teams. Their high credibility enables them to influence the way people are managed as well as implement HR strategies which are aligned with organisational objectives. This is why, the ‘people skills’ aspect of modern day HR Professionals is now so critical. This is because it is about being able to build and sustain effective relationships across an organisation and with HR colleagues. Collaboration, partnering, influencing, communicating and sharing knowledge and / or information are all aspects of building strong and effective relationships.
What is becoming increasingly more and more clear is that the success of individual HR Professionals as well as the wider HR community is about how effective their alliances are.
The best performing HR Professionals are able to powerfully combine their understanding of how to build and sustain effective relationships across their organisation with a practical application of turning talk into productive decision making and action taking.
For high performing HR Professionals, building relationships is all about developing their profile and credibility. This enables them to influence, guide and constructively challenge the people they work with in order to implement HR strategies and solutions which deliver organisation and people value.
HR Professionals who are great at building relationships tend to share the following views:
- I make it my business to meet new people across the organisation and find out what they do and explore how we can possibly work together;
- I understand and use my organisation’s diversity to create ‘chains of influence’ throughout the organisation; I achieve by understanding others as individuals and as position-holders (e.g. stakeholders, key decision-makers, change agents);
- I understand and respond appropriately to the unstated feelings and concerns of others;
- I build relationships by understanding the networking benefits for others and by seeking to build a common ground;
- I actively share my knowledge and experiences (good and bad) with others;
- I accept that others in my organisation have different strengths from which I may learn;
- I actively support colleagues and do not compete against them;
- I ensure I understand responsibilities and that I meet deadlines.
To find out how CourageousHR can support the development of your HR Function please email [email protected] to arrange a call to discuss your specific development needs.
