Maximising your personal HR success

What high performing HR Professionals do

Business acumen is how you apply commercial skill and judgment to assist your organisation to achieve outstanding business results through an understanding of how business in general, and your organisation in particular, works and what it means for its people.

Research shows that the most successful HR Professionals are able to link HR practices and policies to the needs of the business, communicating them in a way that business managers are able to understand and relate to their teams and needs. This ability to talk the language of the business and match their HR skills and knowledge to business needs builds their credibility which enables them to influence the way people are managed as well as implement HR strategies which are aligned with organisational objectives.

For high performing HR Professionals, business acumen 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.

As a HR Partner, Business Acumen is all about you understanding what the people and HR implications are of the organisation’s strategy. HR Professionals who are great at business acumen tend to share the following views:

Your role is to demonstrate your understanding of how your organisation works with a practical application as to what this means for those you have HR responsibility for and the organisational leaders you support.
Have a very good understanding of your organisation’s products and services, revenue streams, key business drivers, customers and market position
Adopt a variety of techniques to monitor changes in the marketplace and are able to identify the actual/potential people implications
Actively stay close to and influence your organisational leaders
Make proposals and recommendations on how the People and HR strategies and plans can remain aligned to and support the organisational strategy.

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.