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Read this if you are in HR

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Five things HR managers don’t need to know any more:

. How to “become a business partner”. If you aren’t contributing fully to your business team, no amount of calling yourself an HR business partner is going to change that.

. How to pepper your reports with “MBA speak” from the latest management bestseller. Being an HR manager is not about dazzling colleagues with the latest jargon. It’s about listening and speaking in a way that’s relevant and clear.

. How to tell people only what they want to hear. Your duty is not to be nice, but it doesn’t mean you have to be nasty.

. How to push paper or force your staff. Technology takes care of this.

. How to play “policy police”. If you can’t explain why a rule exists, you should not be applying it.

Five ways in which HR will never be the same:

. Social media has changed recruitment and forced recruitment agencies to review their business models. The move is towards recruitment, screening and orientation or development services.

. Knowledge is power and several factors have converged to put more power in the hands of candidates. Employers can no longer get away with good PR to build their employer brand. Your candidates know the real story.

. Big data means we no longer have to rely on habit and intuition about which approaches work and which don’t. We can target recruitment efforts better, focus on training that delivers results and make sure that compensation and benefits are really working.

. Recruitment and selection have moved online with sites such as Careers24 and LinkedIn. It’s a great time-saver for recruiters and increases efficiency.

. South Africa is part of the global talent market, which means we easily export top talent but struggle to import skills due to strict visa regulations and unfavourable exchange rates. While it’s time-consuming and expensive to bring foreign talent into the country, it’s easy to lose stars to global employers, so ensure you build a great place to work.

Five traits of a highly effective HR manager:

. Analytical – able to make sense of the numbers and trends and interpret them in a useful way to your business.

. Understands technology and systems and how they support HR. If this is not your area of expertise, ensure there’s someone on your team who you trust and is great at this.

. Understands business and is curious – reads, networks and develops himself or herself constantly.

. Results-driven. If what you do is not making a difference, your budget will shrink.

. It’s no longer about just being able to manage change. You have to be agile.

* Goodwin is general manager of human resources at Media24

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