What does an HR do?
Over the course of studying and practicing Human Resources (HR) work, many people around me were curious about: “what does an HR do?”. In this article, I will be sharing my experiences in HR Operations, Talent Acquisition, and the challenges that I faced in these roles. In addition, I am also sharing some thoughts on why I decided to take a User Experience (UX) boot camp early in my career journey.
What is the Job Scope of an HR?
It really depends on how HR is being structured in a company, and what is required of HR at the time of the organisation’s growth. In companies with fewer employees i.e. startups/ Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), HR is usually a ‘one-stop’ resource. Previously I have interned and worked full-time in HR with 3 SMEs that began as a startup. I hope this gives you a little more context about my previous work environments.
Some common associations of HR are recruiter, administrator, payroll person, business partner, etc. Other uncommon ways of describing an HR are the face of the company or even a workplace counsellor. In environments with a flatter organisational hierarchy, work is more dynamic and it allows my work to have a more direct impact on the business.
HR Operations/ Generalist Role
I found this analogy most useful in helping me explain what I do at work:
“I’m the first point-of-contact, and employees see me around a lot.”
As an employee moves through the employee life cycle, HR Operations work is there to ensure the standard processes of recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement, performance review, and offboarding. Whenever there are any concerns, it is part of my job to address them.
As the scope of work is very broad, some important tools or skills that helped me toggle between the different HR functions were to:
- Keep a To-Do list (I used Trello for the past few years, but you can consider other project management tools like Notion). It helps tremendously in managing multiple tasks or projects at the same time.
- Multitasking — Mentally (or physically) switching between the different tasks. For instance, it can be challenging if there’s a sudden pressure on recruitment efforts, yet you are still expected to manage your time for other aspects of your work.
- Listen and empathise. At the heart of HR, there should be a good two-way conversation to balance business and people's needs. HR facilitates that.
- Always communicate. As the first point of contact, I seek my teams’ understanding that sometimes I might need some extra time to get back to them. Communicate all these to employees and managers so that they are kept updated.
- Do a weekly review of my tasks. Sometimes you forget what’s on hand, and Trello saves my life when I need to re-prioritise my tasks (not a promotional pitch; it’s free for personal use).
Thoughts & Tips
It’s great for exploring HR work. I got to experience working on the different aspects of HR and to understand what I might want to specialise in within the HR functions. As long as you review your priorities consistently, you should be able to stay on top of the game.
Talent Acquisition or Recruitment Role
On the recruitment side of things, I really love talking to different candidates and hearing their stories and motivations. There’s just so much to find out about every candidate, but so little time for the interview calls. The main objective of recruitment work is to identify the most matching candidate profile for the open roles and the company.
So what goes on behind the scenes?
- As a recruiter, on busy days my calendar is fully booked for the entire day from 9 am to 6 pm. I was using a scheduling tool called Calendly (it’s free too) so that candidates can schedule an interview time that works best for them.
- Sometimes the recruitment pipeline is like the Sahara Desert — it is up to the recruiters to be resourceful and creative to find alternative ways of getting more profiles. LinkedIn InMail and direct messages are awesome ways to reach out to passive job seekers. But even then, not many potential candidates respond with their interest to find out more. It is even more challenging if the company doesn’t have a strong employer presence in the hiring location.
- The hiring manager changes their mind about the job scope. My response to them usually goes like this: “I hear you, but a job description that has been posted can’t be edited just like that… And also, let’s make sure we practice fair screening processes.” Well, if needed, do schedule for a discussion to realign and advise on the best practices for recruitment. After all, recruitment is a shared responsibility owned by both HR and the business team.
Thoughts & Tips
Recruitment is fun, and it’s a fantastic role if you love connecting people and resources. It always gives me great satisfaction when I manage to match an amazing talent and a good opportunity with one another. A tip for starting recruitment work is to follow the employment laws and abide by the Tripartite Guidelines to ensure fair recruitment practices. This helps in reducing the biases that you might bring in as a recruiter.
Lastly, do keep an open mind. Throughout the day, get a quick refill, and continue to stay energetic for your calls.
HR Business Partner (HRBP) Role
It is a role that involves the alignment of business objectives with employees and management in designated business units. Many companies have HRBPs who join with an average 5 to 8 years of experience. As a fresh graduate, it was very humbling for me to work alongside different managers and head of departments to support HR matters with my perspective.
What are some of the common challenges?
- It is complex work to balance business and employee needs. Having a good understanding of how HR works best in different contexts, would definitely optimise the advice and solutions given for building up the organisation’s people strategy. No two companies are the same when it comes to HR.
- Convincing others. People’s needs might be argued to be less important than the core business needs. Well, that’s not true for me. I believe that the reason why businesses can be kept going is because of the people working there. Sometimes it can be difficult to convince stakeholders of the importance of implementing certain HR processes, but the right thing still needs to be carried out.
- The lack of my industrial experience limits the kind of advice and solution I can provide for the business units that I partner with. However, as a junior HRBP, I would be able to offer the insights that I have gathered from the team and suggestions on the best practices based on competitor reviews and employment guidelines.
Thoughts & Tips
Speaking with different people helped me to understand their perspectives, and to gain a greater insight into the dynamics and priorities of their departments. Viewing things from their point of view also allowed me to better suggest areas of focus, in terms of work or employee relations, to the relevant stakeholders.
It’s not a job for the faint-hearted because there is bound to be a lot of pushback from different sides. What helps is to remain objective, open, and collaborative so that an optimal solution can be implemented. And lastly, always do the right thing for people.
Why am I moving away from HR?
Ahh, one of the hot questions I’ve received from a few friends: “Is HR that terrible?”. Just to share, I really enjoy doing HR work. For me, people make up a huge part of why I find fulfillment in my work. At the beginning of my journey, I decided to specialise and work in the field of HR because I like collaborating with people.
If work makes up a large proportion of our lives, it should be enjoyable and meaningful.
Thinking about the amount of time that we invest our lives in work motivated me to strive towards making work experiences better for everyone. I definitely had moments of self-doubt about whether HR is the ‘right path’ for me. After lots of reflection and conversations with different people, I concluded that my passion for people stems from my personal value for wanting to see people grow and feel amazing emotions through their experiences.
Hence, instead of moving away from HR, I want to take this chance now to learn more about User Experience, and to be even more human-centric and people-focused. As I had previously done a Design Thinking project on my internship 3 years ago, through the years, I found myself still being deeply interested to learn more about behavioural insights and human-centric work. When I put my various school events, work experiences, and volunteering activities together, I realised that no matter what I’m working on, I have always focused on wanting to make experiences a great one for people.
There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ career paths, I think what matters most is the experience gained. Hopefully, I can utilise the skills and experiences that I have gained across Business, HR, and UX to continue making experiences even better for more people.
Let the learning continue.
