Careers in Personnel and Developement
Personnel Professionals have a variety of duties depending on the size of the company. They can specialise or have a variety of roles within several main areas:
- Recruitment and selection - preparing job descriptions and interviewing candidates.
- Employee development - dealing with skills training and appraisals for the development of employees.
- Employee relations - being involved in grievance handling, disciplinary proceedings and redundancy programmes.
- Employee services - looking at the health and safety of employees.
- Reward - administering benefits and payroll.
- Human resource planning - predicting an organisation's future staffing needs.
Personal Characteristics
Personnel professionals deal with a wide range of topics and the work requires accuracy and attention to detail, as well as maintaining a fair and objective attitude. Confidentiality is essential as the work involves dealing with sensitive issues. A personnel professional is not expected to discuss personal details of an employee's life with another member of staff. Understanding and respecting the importance of confidentiality is essential.
However personnel work is not social work and the personnel professional has to try and marry the best interests of tile organisation and the individual. This is not an easy job and it is essential that personnel professionals have the commercial awareness to be able to see things from the employer's perspective. This may mean that they have to deal with grievance procedures, make people redundant or dismiss them.
Personnel professionals should be patient, tactful, diplomatic and approachable. They deal with people who may be under stress and must be sympathetic to them but at the same time keep in mind their responsibilities to the company. They should enjoy working with people - co-operation and teamwork are important. Personnel professionals may have to work under pressure, so they must be able to keep calm in difficult situations
Training
Training is recognised a vital element in the success and effectiveness of an organisation. Companies, organisations, trade unions and the government have come to understand the value of a consistent and progressive training policy. All types of organisations must be able to adapt quickly and flexibly to technical, economic and social changes especially as people today frequently need to learn or acquire new skills.
Trainers are generally appointed because they possess highly developed trade, technical or communication skills. Obviously trainers must have transferable skills or knowledge but they must also be able to relate to their trainees, to motivate them and be interested in them as individuals and in their development.
Although trainers are seldom recruited directly as graduates, a degree is now often expected and it is getting more common to find trainers who have already worked for several years before moving across into a training role.
Trainers are no longer seen as just instructors and are often expected to work with management to solve problems and work with managers to achieve corporate objectives. They also appraise people's work performance and help put together training and development programmes.
Personal Characteristics
A good trainer has to enjoy performing - they need to feel comfortable talking to groups of people and making them enthusiastic about the training. Training is not a desk job. Good personal presentation and personal commitment is necessary. Trainers need to keep up to date by reading, attending meetings and courses.
Qualifications
Very few school leavers can expect to obtain a personnel post directly on leaving school and those who do can expect to do little more than routine administrative work. Any 'A' levels will be helpful in gaining entry to a professional personnel management course although English, Law, Business Studies and Psychology would be particularly useful. You can work in personnel with a degree is any subject, although Law is useful.
More Information:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development: www.cipd.co.uk/
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