Thanks for your reflections Steve. I completely agree there is no ideal person and no ideal route into the profession although the latter does seem to be in evidence by all the posts about how to transfer into HR.

Bringing the right people into the room resonates. So often there's a lack of consultation and engagement in the softer, more generic sense of the word and that's a shame.

I'm surprised not to see union experience missing. I read an excellent book last year, The Future of Work by Melanie Simms, which made me think about the gaps in knowledge HR professionals have in ER if they haven't worked with unions or in a unionised environment.

I'm a big fan of the human in HR. I've seen it be marginalised as the role has shifted almost like we can't be this and be other things too. If you don't have the capacity to empathise, actively listen and bring a human, ethical side to HR then I'm afraid I don't think the role is right for you.

Thank you for this, for the links to other threads and for your work here. Appreciate it. It's my Wednesday ritual logging on and contributing. Thank you. I get a lot from it.

In reply to Sharon:

Thank you, Sharon... and for your kind words and positivity about our Community.

Sharon said:

I'm surprised not to see union experience missing. I read an excellent book last year, The Future of Work by Melanie Simms, which made me think about the gaps in knowledge HR professionals have in ER if they haven't worked with unions or in a unionised environment.

This is a great point, I think... don't you think, David?

The profession has undergone various small(?) changes over the last 30 years based on my experience and that has been commented upon in the podcast. However, some of those changes have occurred unevenly across organisations.  

Anyone remember Tom Peters? MBWA? The Excellent Organisation?  Around the 1990s I went to one of the CIPD annual conferences at Harrogate. A part of his presentation was a scatter chart? covering all the fashionable ideas HR had had over the years - this he'd done on the simple basis of word counting  the different subjects/articles etc.,  from I think the People Magazine over the previous several years and graphically showed how different things come and go.   Anyone remember out door management training?

Non of my former workplaces expected HR to 'sort out people problems'. That was and still is a management function which should be undertaken by line managers. I can't recall doing anything on my PG DPM in 1991 which covered, 'sorting out people problems. Line managers are responsible for managing their own staff. What I have noticed change is that HR is getting more involved in management in general. To do this well It is essential that HR has a good business head on its shoulders. It needs to think, how can I make this organisation more profitable? - that is ultimately the bottom line. That is how HR should seek to make itself more influential. And of course this is possible through business focussed procedures, policies & ideas.

Those core competencies you mention from the Podcast are surely key skills of any good manager. When I did my DPM I didn't notice any one particular subject which would turn any of us into a 'people professionals'. Oh yes, it covered Maslow, we spent some time looking at Herzberg theories of motivation (sorry, 'employee engagement) and others. None of these theories were new and I have in-front of me a copy of an article by Herzberg "One More time: How do you motivate employees?' published in the Harvard Business Review in 1968. It seems we sometimes never really learn. And I discovered that those people doing business management diplomas also covered those same qualifications. Can we really claim sole holders of our self proclaimed, "people professionals'?
And given the role of Ms Van den Bogerd's role in the PO scandal and her subsequent employment as "Head of People" for the Football Association of Wales, i'll say no more.

I'd suggest line-managers often have more experience of managing staff than most HR professionals who may only manage a handful of staff at the most? I've worked for a couple of senior HR managers and of course several line-managers who were from business backgrounds in construction and other fields. I'm sorry to say the best manager I ever worked for was our site manager when I worked at ICI as a scaffolder. A real gent and an excellent manager of people, even though I had to tell him a couple of times we were going on strike or having a day off, 'in protest', at some trivial (to me) event.

What I do strongly believe is that for people entering the HR profession you cannot get a better grounding in management than by working on the shop floor. At least one year working at the bottom of the pile as a dogsbody on the factory floor, or some other job where you are hardly seen or heard from the CEO's office window or the executive dining room. Perhaps a shop assistant in a big store? or maybe a year in the armed services? - as private of course! A bit of one-upmanship could easily be had if you also took part in strike action or some other industrial action such as a go slow or work to rule. Experiences like these really make you understand what makes the 'average', man or woman tick. You can't get those experiences by going to college alone.

In reply to David Perry:

Just to pick up on the working on the shop floor. Kawasaki used to (maybe still do) make every new employee spend a few months on the production line before they could start their main job.

In reply to David Perry:

There's such lot to unpack there David. Feels like a blog post or podcast of it's own and I think we could have a good debate about the role of HR, the training and background of people professionals and what makes a great function. I pride myself on my unusual route into the profession but I see it's getting harder and harder to transition into HR unless you come from a senior finance or ops background. I definitely think being outside the function and working in direct customer facing or business roles can really help an HR pro be better.

I would say that the route to line management is also an imperfect one, this whole 'accidental line manager' thing and the lack of good formal & informal development to support people going into the role is a recurring problem I see a lot across the businesses I work in. So not all managers are the best either and certainly the HR profession isn't without it's challenges. I still believe good, commercially focussed, business savvy HR pro's are out there and we also need to walk the walk not just talk the talk.

My suggestion for the ideal HR professional is to have worked in as many non HR jobs as possible ie operations, marketing etc before doing any HR stuff and ideally as a manager.

To pick up one of the points made by David Perry, an ideal HR type should spend a significant amount of time on the 'shop floor' as possible and this links to the Tom Peters MBWA, incidentally Tom Peters is now a lifestyle guru! Get out of your chair and spend time to understand the problems and issues of a shop floor operative or a manager. An example is the CEO at Uber spent time as a driver after lots of complaints about the driver software, after experiencing the problems the CEO ordered the software to be fixed immediately.

A good understanding of the problems faced by a delivery driver, someone in DevOps or some middle manager will make it significantly easier to work out why they are leaving or staying.

Understand the finances of the business, what are the profit margins on your products, what are the growth markets and what are the real costs of delivering your product or services?