The Four Cs of the HR Profession

It's Monday, so we'll keep it simple!

Last week we had the Three Cs in A divinely simple approach to talent management. We'll make it slightly more complex this week by talking of The Four Cs of the HR Profession: Competent, Curious, Courageous and Caring.

An article in a rather ancient (2005) edition of Human Resource Management Journal, summarises research to determine how the HR profession is perceived by other, non-HR executives. What will the successful professionals of the future look like? Successful HR professionals today, and in the future, have to be (according to the article) competent, curious, courageous, and caring about people.

Competent
Earn your seat at the table by demonstrating individual competency in delivering value. In particular, prove yourself by operating in the domains of:

• Strategic contribution
• Business knowledge
• HR delivery
• Personal credibility
• HR Technology

Curious
"HR professionals should ask CEOs what keeps them awake at night. If the HR function isn’t focused on the same issues, we won’t be adding as much value as we could"

Courageous

HR professionals must have the courage to do the right thing when they are under great pressure to do something else.

Caring about people
Valuing people and the contribution people can make to an organization is a key characteristic of good HR professionals and always will be. And we shouldn’t apologize for it or try to minimize it in an effort to be viewed as “strategic.” HR professionals who care about people will automatically make strategic decisions and recommendations that are based on a full understanding of how they will impact people.

Just one question, dear readers: perhaps it's an old fashioned concept, but is it still part of the role of the HR profession to care for people, or is this rather old hat in the hard-edged, bottom line driven 21st Century?

Human Resource Management: The four Cs of the HR Profession: being competent, curious, courageous and caring about people (Summer 2005)