Is the ‘service’ industry for you?
Would HR professionals recommend students or fresh graduates to take up a career in human resources? Three HR leaders share their thoughts with Lee Xieli.
■ Charlotte Tham
HR director
CrimsonLogic
It’s always great to hear people wanting to pursue HR as a profession. The most critical criterion is not what you have studied in school but what your real passion is. You need to like to work and interact with people. You need to have an interest in adding value to people’s lives because establishing HR policies, guidelines and strategic planning will impact many lives in the company you are working with.
I do not have any HRM-related qualification and I do not have a “pedigree” in HR. I happened to have the opportunity to work for a company that believes HR should be every manager’s job. We took responsibility for developing our employees, working on their performance management and employee relations. I enjoyed it, unlike my peers who would groan and moan when they were working on these tasks. That’s when many told me I had the “material” to be in HR profession so I started pursuing HR late in my career.
Understanding the importance of business objectives and what the voice of the customers means to our business helped shape my mentality and perspective when I work on HR initiatives subsequently.
If you are looking into specialising HR as your future career, be prepared to learn all trades before settling in HR. HR is not for everyone or anyone. It is for someone who has passion – endless, tireless, selfless passion.
■ Roselin Lee
Director of human resources
Estee Lauder Travel Retailing
Before I recommend a student to take up HR as a major or ask a fresh graduate to start his or her career specialising in HR, the incumbent must have the passion and clear vision of what he or she wants in a career. HR is not a job where you only consider or take up if all other job interviews fail. It’s about having the thirst and passion of wanting to see people succeed, understanding how you as HR can help a person grow within his or her job and contribute towards an organisation’s success.
It’s about having the right skills – good interviewing techniques, effective negotiation skills during salary offers, good written and conversational skills, being good at interacting with different staff levels, having the emotional intelligence to handle employee grievances and feedback. HR is a unique job where one has privy to a lot more information than most employees so one has to learn when, how, why and what to say to each individual. It is also important not be emotional when providing advice and decision making. Integrity, dignity and professionalism in HR must also be intact at all times.
It all boils down to having the passion of wanting to help people succeed yet not expecting compliments or applause. Once you take up a job, regardless whether you have a degree or not, you must have the passion to strive and be the best in what and who you are.
■ Alan Lee
Head of rewards management
UOB Group
To do HR really well, you need to have a certain level of EQ (emotion quotient) rather than IQ. You need to have the ability to empathise, listen and look beyond the person’s words and his or her body language because HR deals with people a lot more.
Unlike specialised professions such as lawyers and medical doctors, HR is not straitjacketed by a degree. Your degree only gives you theoretical knowledge, while you can still pick up technical skills and knowledge subsequently. It’s about whether you want to learn and adapt along the way. A person can make up for the fact that they do not have HR training if they understand the business because the experience you garner from the operational side is not something you can replicate or buy.
In fact, a lot of HR practitioners now hire a significant amount of people with a finance background because HR needs to be more analytical and a lot of HR people are very uncomfortable talking about business, revenue, [operations] continuity. Because to be a strategic business partner now, HR needs to look at data and talk the language of the business.
