In-demand HR skills to strengthen your teams

Your HR department is vital to maintaining continuity across your organisation. They empower your people to be the best they can be every day. It’s so important that you have the right HR skills to make that happen.

In the current tight recruitment market, when hiring new people into your HR team, it’s crucial that you know the most valuable HR skills to look out for in potential new employees. And from the other side, as an HR professional, these skills are invaluable for improving your career prospects.

As part of our new salary guide, we identified some of the most important skill sets that employers globally look for when hiring into their HR teams. Here’s what we found…

Broad HR skills:

Global Mobility

Global mobility skills enable an HR professional to facilitate the worldwide deployment of staff. Understanding and managing immigration, internalising local laws, taxation, and other legal obligations when shifting staff to foreign regions are some key aspects.

HR Business Partnering

HR professionals who excel at business partnering are invaluable assets to any organisation. They possess strong business acumen and a deep understanding of key business drivers, allowing them to effectively partner with leaders and align HR strategy with overall business goals.

HR Change and Transformation:

As organisations navigate a dynamic environment, HR professionals with expertise in leading and managing change initiatives are key to ensuring a smooth and successful transition. Consequently, having an upper hand in change management principles and best practices enables them to effectively communicate, engage stakeholders, overcome resistance to change, and ensure change initiatives are implemented successfully.

HR System Implementation/Digitization

Most companies use HR technologies to manage their workforces; therefore, expertise in these systems is a prerequisite for HR professionals. They must select, implement, manage, and train people on HR systems that align with the business’ needs and ensure the workforce runs smoothly.

Exposure to Global Laws & HR Policies

Understanding global labour laws and regulations has become a necessity for HR professionals. They need to be able to adapt HR policies and practices to comply with local laws in different countries, ensuring a smooth and efficient operation across diverse landscapes. Additionally, staying abreast of global HR trends and best practices allows them to implement innovative solutions.

HR Data Analytics

The capacity to examine and comprehend data in HR is vital to making informed decisions. Designing and implementing data analytics methods to improve HR performance and spur business results is a highly sought-after HR skill. To discover patterns, gauge performance, and make data-driven decisions, an HR professional must be highly skilled in HR Data Analytics.  

Talent & Recruitment skills:

Learning & Development

Learning & Development is an essential discipline within HR, responsible for designing and carrying out training initiatives in line with a company’s business goals. A solid grasp of learning principles, training requirements, and initiatives to improve employee abilities to get them ready for shifting corporate needs are key HR skills within this area.

Additionally, in the new world of work, HR professionals now need to master hybrid onboarding techniques, modify training delivery methods to accommodate both in-person and remote workers, and create focused reskilling initiatives to meet changing business requirements.

Talent Management/Development

Talent assessment, succession planning, and leadership development are needed to manage a company's talent pipeline. Today’s dynamic landscape of work demands a more nuanced approach. To truly thrive, organisations must place a high priority on reskilling their present workforce and getting ready for the constantly changing skills required in a world that is digital first.

HR team members who focus on talent management and development will adopt a proactive approach to develop a workforce needed to accomplish business objectives in this digitisation era.

360 Recruitment

Attracting and hiring top talent is crucial for organisational success. HR professionals with 360 recruitment skills are masters of the entire recruitment process, from sourcing and screening candidates to onboarding new hires. The ability to design a smooth and successful recruitment experience for both the organisation and the candidate is an important skill.

Compensation & Benefits

Competitive compensation and benefits are crucial for talent attraction and lowering attrition.

The 2024 Morgan McKinley global workplace study shows that 63% of employees prefer working from home as one of the top three benefits they look for, and 51% of professionals would forego a pay increase to obtain the flexibility of the working patterns they seek. This indicates that modern employees, post-pandemic value benefits that support a healthy work-life balance and opportunities for career growth, even if it means sacrificing some salary.

Recognising trends, issues, and opportunities, as well as designing and implementing initiatives to draw in, keep, and encourage people, have thus become crucial HR skills.

Employee Engagement/Relations

Communication, conflict resolution, and engagement methods are just a few key aspects of employee engagement and relations skills.

Positive employee relations, fostered by a supportive workplace, are the bedrock of high job satisfaction. This is especially crucial during company restructuring, where headcount reductions can create a vulnerable atmosphere and anxieties about job security. To navigate this, HR managers must strategically implement support initiatives and engagement activities to retain their valuable workforce.

Interpersonal, soft skills

As well as the more technical skills outlined above, there are a few key interpersonal, soft skills for HR that will help improve an individual’s success.

• Proactive and diligent
• Stakeholder engagement
• Strong learning agility
• Ability to effectively handle multiple priorities

If you are looking to hire someone in HR, get in touch today.

Equally, if you are a professional in this area and are looking for your next career move, we have a range of jobs available - you can browse them here.