The Effective HR Professional

1.1

The HR Profession Map (HRPM) is a model designed specifically for HR professionals to help HR
Practitioners understand the skills and behaviours needed in their HR role. All HR professionals can
use this map at any stage of their career, to identify where they currently are and what behaviours
they need to develop to move to the next level. As per the CIPD website, “it provides the foundation
by setting out the knowledge values and behaviours required for HR Professionals to make their
greatest impact and thrive in a changing world of work”. (CIPD, 2021A)

By using this map, HR Professionals can make informed decisions, acting with confidence and
performing to their best. In addition, they could take part in organisation change and career
progression. Regardless of the person’s profession, the map is relevant to them.

CIPD HR Profession Map (Figure 1) (CIPD, 2021B)

The current HR Profession Map has four major components: (CIPD, 2021C)

 Purpose – championing an improved work and working lives

 Core Knowledge – these are the areas to prioritise to consider an individual’s expertise on
people, work and change.
 Core Behaviours – of thinking and acting to be considered an effective People professional.
 Specialist Knowledge – nine specialist areas within the people profession.

Within these major components, there are the following areas:

Core Knowledge:

 People Practice
 Culture and behaviour
 Business Acumen
 Analytics and creating value
 Digital working
 Change

Core Behaviours:

 Ethical Practice
 Professional courage and influence
 Valuing people
  Working inclusively
 Commercial drive
 Passion for Learning
 Insights focussed
 Situational decision making

Specialist Knowledge:

 Employee experience
 Employee relations
 Diversity and Inclusion
 Learning and development
 Organisational development and design
 People Analytics
 Resourcing
 Reward
 Talent Management

All of the areas above are presented in four bands of competencies. From Foundation Level through
to Chartered Fellow Level, these outline what responsibilities are required in these key areas for all
HR professionals. For example, for me, one of my development areas would be Professional courage
and influence, where I currently would be at Foundation level, and it is clear what I need to do to
reach Associate level.

From reviewing my current role, as a Senior People Services Specialist, I am currently between
Foundation and Associate level for most of the elements. Researching the HRPM, I have selected
some areas below to show how I actively perform these in my role:

Table text from the Profession Map (CIPD, 2021D)

Core Knowledge Core Behaviour Specialist knowledge

Policy, regulation and
People practice law relevant to your
(Foundation Level) work

Regularly ask for and

Passion for learning act on feedback to
(Associate Level) learn and develop

Employee Experience Your organisation’s

(Foundation Level) approach to employee
engagement

The skills captured above are all important and I chose these areas as they show how I support
customers and other functions within the HR team, understand the needs for colleagues/business
and my own personal development.

It is important that we in the HR team react to changes whilst listening to the needs of our
colleagues. For example, over the past year, our workforce has gone from a heavily office based
company, to now working from home. This has affected individuals in many different ways, so
ensuring we have that engagement and feedback is vital. If we do not engage with our colleagues, it
could lead to an unhappy workforce, higher turnover and/or high sickness. Therefore, I hold
quarterly feedback sessions with teams across the business to listen, engage and take their ideas
away on how we could improve.

In addition, it is imperative that Policies are reviewed to ensure they are fair and relevant. For
example, I support in reviewing the sickness policy, due to the Pandemic, and how this would affect
colleagues’ sickness and implementing this in our Absence policy.

Lastly, Passion for Learning was another area I chose, and not only do I find this is something I need
to grow within my HR career, but it is also supporting the business as I can take on additional
projects. I am constantly asking for feedback and learning new skills all the time in my role. I often
ask to take on additional tasks to help further my understanding and gain more experience. The next
level in my career is to become a HR advisor, so I have asked to shadow and support the HR advisors
in my team, and now manage a small number of sickness cases across the business. For this reason, I
have put myself at associate level.

Group Dynamics and conflict resolution

1.2

What is a Formal Group:

A formal group is formed when people come together to work on a specific task/project. The group
has a set objective and goals to reach with individuals having set responsibilities. This can be a
person’s departmental team, having the same objectives to deliver or working on a set project. The
formal group is defined as more than one person working together on an assigned project/task with
unique behaviours shown in such group. Within my role there are a number of occasions where I
have been involved working in formal groups to help manage a project. Recently I have been
involved with bringing in a new ATS (Applicant Tracking System/ Recruitment) platform in. This
group had ten key members, who were a mixture of internal and external colleagues.

When a new group comes together, the people involved adopt distinct roles and behaviours. The
effects of these are known as “group dynamics”. My group had massive amounts of knowledge to
share, from the technical side to how it can work and look, to the actual processing and what is
needed. Our ultimate goal was to bring in a system that would save time for our admin team
completing the end-to-end cycle, and a smooth, clear process for applicants. In addition, we had to
take into consideration the resource and time we had to deliver this project. I set out clear
timescales of when I could commit to this. I am going to refer to the Belbin theory to describe some
of the group dynamics.

Application of chosen model: Belbin Theory (Figure 2) (Smart strategies, 2019)

By using the Belbin theory, I identified the roles of the individuals we had in the group. For example
the Group Leader, was very much a shaper, who came across very strong headed, forceful and
passionate about what they wanted, but didn’t have enough knowledge of the detail of the project. I
identified this early on and by using this model, I was able to identify that I would need to ensure
that we had the “thinking roles” and the expertise in the group alongside the implementers, to keep
on track and not miss the detail needed.

My role within the group was a mixture of all the team role styles. I was a specialist in my area so
had to ensure I was sharing my knowledge with the group to help them understand how we worked.
As it was only me and one other person in the group with this knowledge, I had to make sure I was
well organised ahead of the meetings and precise about the detail they needed to know – from this I
was the ‘implementer’. Alongside my knowledge, I made sure that our current process would work
in the new system, so had to work closely with the Systems Manager and external customer, to
understand how it could be built and feed this back to the others, which is where I played the role of
a team worker.

With so many different roles and behaviours in the group in did create some conflict with the period
of when the project should be completed and delivered to the business. I have chosen to compare
two models for conflict resolution, Thomas Kilmann model and the Interest Based Relational (IBR)
model:

Thomas Kilmann Method: (Challenging Coaching, 2021)

Interest Based Relational Method (IBR):

Both of these conflict resolution methods have benefits in reaching an effective outcome; however
they have different styles to achieve the desired result. The Thomas Kilmann model identifies two
dimensions when choosing a course of action in a conflict situation: assertiveness and
cooperativeness. Assertiveness is the degree to which you try to satisfy your own needs.
Cooperativeness is the degree to which you try to satisfy the other person’s concerns. (Challenging
Coaching, 2021) Whereas, the Interest-based Relational (IBR) approach, developed by Roger Fisher
and William Ury, suggests that conflict should be seen as a negotiation based on mutual respect and
more about listening and understanding other people’s opinions and trying to come to a solution
together.

The conflict in this particular project mostly came about because the communication had broken
down between the group. There was a lack of understanding about the tasks that needed to be
completed. I firstly ensured that everyone was aware of this and not just avoiding it. I “set the
scene” assertively with the group, as it was important to acknowledge the struggles we were facing. I
gathered all the information, and ensured I was being accommodating with the group, listening to
the problems that others were encountering and understanding their frustrations. This helped me
recognise what others needed from me and to negotiate a timescale for delivery. Both methods
were effective in this situation, and I could see how accommodating, compromising and
collaborating helped resolve this but also maintained those relationships with respect and
understanding.

Project Management

2.1

I have recently been involved in a project to move from paper approval HR forms to an online
approval portal, to make the process digital and easier for our managers and my team to get the
correct information. I looked after all the content that we would need for the forms, and what level
of approval that form would need. I worked closely with IT to upload to our portal.

Below are two project management tools I used whilst I was involved in this project:

1. Gantt Chart (See figure 3)

I used a Gantt chart to set out the project scheduling, who was going to be completing what, when
and how long this will take. It was also used throughout the project to manage any adjustments to
timescales that were needed. Using a Gantt chart for this project was useful as it was clear about
when things were going to be completed and the order in which they needed to be done. I included
regular review meetings to ensure we were still on track and to update the team if any issues had
come up. This Gantt chart was available to everyone involved in the project, so we were able to refer
back to it at any time. I was able to plan the other meetings I needed to have to help achieve this. If
we had not used this, deadlines could have been missed, and there might have been confusion
about who was managing each part of the process.

Figure 3:
 2. SWOT Analysis (See figure 4)

Whilst delivering this project it was also necessary to understand how the project would benefit
moving forward and evaluating impacts it may bring on other areas. For this I used a SWOT Analysis
to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Whilst evaluating, I did not
identify many external factors that could affect it; however I was able to identify some strengths and
opportunities. It was important to capture these benefits, for example, the time saving has reduced
for Managers and admin team massively. By completing the SWOT analysis, we were able to feed
back not only the benefits to higher management, but also some areas that still need to be thought
about in the future.

Figure 4

SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 Quicker for managers to get  Resource and time
approvals  Relying on third party to
 No need to track build
 No wrong information being  Process and systems
sent to HRS
 Data all saved on system

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
 Time saver  Workflow failures
 More streamlined process  Demand of client
 Easier for Audits  External Audits
 Technology Development

Problem solving techniques

2.2

A problem that occurred during this project was how the forms could be found in the portal for audit
purposes. Because the search function on the portal is so broad, it would make it extremely hard to
find the form. When we realised this, we needed to look at it from different angles to understand
how we could resolve this.

Looking at a problem-solving technique I used to help resolve this, I am going to look at the Six
thinking hats technique, written by Dr, Edward de Bono. This technique shows a problem solving
method made up of six mind-sets, known has the six thinking hats. Each hat has a different role and
bring its own view, making it easier to solve the problem.

Blue Hat – represents the process of the problem. We needed to ensure that the process we put in
place works for what we needed it to do and what our desired outcome looked like. We needed a
process to easily find the forms and identify them quickly.

White Hat – represents the facts and information required. Thinking in this way highlighted that
there was additional information we needed to add to the form that was needed for the audit
checks.

Red Hat – represents the feelings and the emotions associated with the problem. It was important to
recognise how this problem affected others and myself in the group and looking at solutions to help.

Green Hat – represents creativity and new ideas. By ensuring that we explored other avenues, we
were confident that the process we had decided on was the best one.
Yellow Hat – represents benefits and looking at the problem in a positive light. Having a setback in
the middle of the project did demotivate some people in the group, so it was important to look at
the positive opportunities this would bring in the future.

Black Hat – represents the potential negative outcomes from our decision. Just as it was important
to identify the positives, we needed to identify how likely this would or could fail at any point. We
had a solution in place if the portal did stop running for whatever reason, knowing this would not
affect the audit.

2.3

I am now going explain how I influenced, persuaded and negotiated throughout this same project.

Influencing:

During the project, setbacks resulted in an individual becoming reluctant to continue working on the
project as they felt they had nothing to offer. I worked extremely closely with them and I knew they
were a critical individual, with their knowledge and expertise. We talked through how much they
had delivered already and what ideas they had for the next stage. This reminded them they still had
a lot more to offer and wanted to see this through to the end, so they had that sense of
achievement.

Persuading:

I had to convince others to change their viewpoint on the amount of detail we were asking the
managers to complete on the online forms. I did this by knowing what the individual needs were and
focusing on the benefits of not overloading our forms with unnecessary/repetitive detail. By building
this rapport and trust with them, it showed I was confident with what I was delivering and
requesting and they could see how this would be beneficial.

Negotiating:

I had to negotiate with the Project lead about the timing and resource we had to deliver this project.
I had my concerns about the timeframe and the outputs we needed to deliver in this period. I asked
to revisit the process using the GANTT chart and come to a win-win situation for us all. By doing this,
we were able to understand the needs of each other and were able to compromise on some of the
timescales.

Professional Development

3.1 Self-Assessment (see appendix 1)

As I work in an HR Generalist role, I have completed a self-assessment against the CIPD Profession
Map. I have chosen the development areas to focus on, as I feel that they do hold me back
sometimes in my career. The strongest one for me is “professional courage and influence”, being
confident enough to speak out and influencing others from my ideas. My team I work in has some
very strong personalities and can be quite over bearing to share my thoughts sometimes. By
focussing on this area, not only will it benefit me with my confidence and share knowledge, but it
also links to the other two areas I have chosen, as both of these also need some element of courage
to challenge where appropriate, for example making a business case for change or supporting others
with their development. I know that by working on these areas, I will learn a lot, which will build
more confidence and be able to progress to that next level in my career.
3.2 Professional Development Plan (PDP) See PDP appendix 2

My personal development plan details objectives that I would like to achieve over the next 12
months. Some of these objectives are areas that I am currently getting exposure to in my current
role but want to build my knowledge so I am able to progress to the next level with them. I have
included completing the CIPD Level 5 diploma in my PDP, as all of my learnings from this course will
support me with progressing in my career.

One of the things identified from my self-assessment is a development area for Change. In my role, I
currently process all the paperwork (contracts etc) for any restructures, TUPE’s etc, but am not
involved from the beginning of these processes. I think this is an important objective to add to my
PDP, as gaining the end-to-end understanding of this, will not only help in my current role, but also
take me to the next level. I have a lot of contact with colleagues who are going through restructures,
so to be able to support them better with this, instead of asking the Business partner would be both
beneficial for myself and the colleague going through the change. I am going to proactively ask to
attend meetings from the start and ask questions where I may not be too sure. I feel by doing this, I
will know the process to support colleagues better.

Another objective I have added to my PDP is to understand and deliver learning programmes, both
face-to-face and digital. I chose to add this, as I feel I would gain a tremendous amount of skills and
experience, not only from the content and from putting together the programmes, but also how to
deliver theses. I also added this to my PDP, as I would like to become confident with public speaking
and how to present to a group.

References

CIPD., (2021) People Profession CIPD. Available at The People Profession: now and for the future
FAQs | CIPD Profession Map (Accessed 14/02/2021)

CIPD., (2021) New Profession Map. [online image] Available at New Profession Map | CIPD
Profession Map (Accessed 14/02/2021)

Smart strategies., (2019) Smart Strategies [online image] Available at A Simple Game Highlights the
FUNdamentals of Awesome Teams — Smartt Strategies

Challenging Coaching (2021) Challenging coaching [online image] Available at The Thomas Kilmann
Model (TKI) - Conflict & Challenge (challengingcoaching.co.uk)
Challenging Coaching (2021) Challenging coaching Available at The Thomas Kilmann Model (TKI) -
Conflict & Challenge (challengingcoaching.co.uk)

Appendices

Appendix 1:

Core Knowledge Core Behaviour Specialist Knowledge

Change Professional Courage and Learning and Development
Influence
As a HR Professional, I need to I have chosen this Behaviour as a This is an area of HR I have never
ensure I understand the future development area, as the further really been involved in, although I
and aspirations of where my ahead I get in my career the more have a lot of knowledge, I think I
company is heading. In my role, I opportunities to influence others have always thought of this role
support with restructures, from with my ideas. I would currently as “presenting” to a large group,
generating new contracts to say I am sitting between which is not my greatest strength.
reviewing business cases. I Foundation and associate level.
 answer generalist questions that At the moment, within my direct I have recently started to hold
may have impacted our team, I share ideas as and when small training sessions for new
colleagues. This shows I am we have meetings or working on a starters that have just joined the
working at Foundation level. Project. I also work in a very company. I prepare the slides and
I would like to move in to challenging role, where the presentation to deliver. This
associate level, so I am able to workload against the number of shows I am working at Foundation
manage the project/restructures head, is extremely overwhelming level in this area.
that are coming up in the future. and sometimes unmanageable.
Not only will this help with my From my Company moving to a
career development, but also I would like to evaluate my lot more digital e-learning, I
with my confidence and being current approach to influencing would like to shadow a Learning
known to more of the senior others and identify when I am and Development specialist in
leadership team. compliant, in order to more order to learn about the delivery
effectively challenge senior of learning programmes,
I would like to support the leaders and gain their particularly in regard to
delivery of a business change commitment to achieve the leadership to support my CIPD
project and shadow an OD organisation’s goals. By doing studies and move towards to the
specialist in a scoping meeting in this, I will be able to move to the associate level.
order to better understand associate level, having more
changing business objectives. confidence to share and challenge
ideas.

Appendix 2: