The HR Profession Map

The HR Profession Map shows in few steps how professionals could become a value within the organisation in which they work. It has been created by the CIPD for anyone who wants to upgrade and develop own career or for any other who wants to start working in the HR field. It describes what people need to do and to know and how they need to do it. For this reason the map covers all the professional areas within the HR field, giving the knowledge to become an effective and successful HR practitioner. The map is divided into four bands of competence, covered by ten professional areas and eight behaviours. Looking at the Professional Areas the first focus is on the core of the map “Insights, strategy and solutions”, in which the professionals must have a deep understanding of the Company’s organisation, business and strategy. They should be able to develop active insights, achieve specific HR solutions, build capacity and be agile and flexible in working. The second area, or rather the first ring of the map, is about “Leading and managing the HR Function”. It means that everyone has to know and improve in leadership, even if they are not leaders.

Professionals have to be able to develop in three different leadership areas: personal leadership, leading others and leading issues. They can do it planning HR resources, designing HR functions, delivering value in HR team, managing budgets and finances. While these previous areas cover the essential knowledge that professionals must have, the other eight sections are about different understandings required to provide a specific support, inside or outside the organisation. They are: The Organisation design that makes certain the organisation plan and design are always suitable with the objectives and every structural changes are monitored. The Organisation development that ensures the strategy plans for the organisation development are always in line with the culture, values and environment of the organization itself. It is about planning case development, program and project management, change management and communication change.

The Resource and talent planning is about the recruitment of those talented people who can be the key and the added value of the organisation to provide a competitive advantage. It regards workforce planning, resourcing, talent identification and succession, assessment and selection. The Learning and talent development that ensures people are always updated about the knowledge and necessary skills to have for the organisation future plans and ambitions. The Performance and reward that provides balance between the high-performance and the right reward, ensuring that reward systems are market-based, equitable and cost-effective. The Employee engagement that ensures the relationships between employees and co-workers and between employees and their superiors are positive and understood.

The Employee relations that makes sure the organisation polices, communication and procedures are always clear to guarantee the right relationship between the organisation itself and its staff. The Service delivery and information that ensures the Human Resource data is managed professionally, providing the information to leaders, managers and employees within an efficient and active organisation. The external ring of the map shows the behaviours that any HR professionals need to achieve their career plans and activities. They are settled in line with the four bands of competence therefore they cover different level of knowledge according to the role. For this reason it would be better to have an overview of the four bands before discussing in details the eight behaviours. The four bands remark the contribution that all HR professionals produce at every stage of their career in terms of relationship with clients, focus on their activities, place of spending time, services provided to clients and balance of their contribution and goals.

The band 1 covers the entry level, in which the HR professional is oriented prevalently on costumers, he/she supports peers with projects and administration, manages information and collects data. At the band 2 the organisation process and solutions are cleared to the HR professional. He/she is able to give strategic advices and/or manage any issues related to an individual or a team. At the band 3 the HR professional is able to lead a specific area, work as consultant or partner, plan challenges and relative strategies for medium and long-term. The last band 4 covers the highest level where the HR professional aside from manage a professional area can even lead an organisation. He/she is responsible for developing and delivering strategies for the success of the organisation. To understand how the bands work it is possible to take an example looking at one of the key areas.

According to the membership band if the HR professional has to relate with a client, he/she would deliver the fundamentals within the band 1, be a strategy adviser and problem solver for the band 2, work as consultant or co-operative partner to set and guide the strategies within the band 3 and be the client confident and coach while lead the professional area in the band 4. Working in a specific professional area it is possible to transit from a band to another, developing or improving own skills and behaviour. In this regard the HR professional map shows and recommends to follow the eight behaviours about which we said above. Looking at them in details a HR professional should be:

Decisive thinker, showing the ability to analyse and collect data quickly, using the information to select different strategies and options and making recommendations and brave decisions; Skilled influencer, assuring the best performance from the stakeholders in influencing them to gain the necessary duties and commitments; Personally credible, bringing value to the organisation and its employees through being professional at all levels and mixing commercial and HR expertise; Collaborative, working with people inside or outside the organisation to achieve the goals; Driven to deliver, assuring the best results for the organisation in demonstrating determination, ambition and skilful; Courage to challenge, having no fear of exceeding expectative and challenging others even under pressure or unfamiliar situations; Role model, giving example of integrity, impartiality and independence always looking at organisation and legal parameters; Curious, being future-focused and open-minded, always looking for new ways and strategies to add value to the organisation.

Summarising, the HRPM is organised around area of professional competence, not job levels or roles. Although in the HR field people operate at several levels with tasks and responsibilities according to their role and status. Therefore it is possible to have different combinations of the eight behaviours within each professional area depending on the effective role. For example, working within the area of “Resource and talent planning” an HR and Recruitment administrator has to support the HR team, carry out the administration of HR department, greet candidates arriving for interview and take copies of documents, ensure efficiently the organisation of interviews, induction and training, process employment and new starter contracts, update and maintain secure and confidential records, produce data for such purposes and so on.

To achieve the best from these duties the Recruitment administrator should be well organised and meticulous for the deadlines given, able to work under pressure and unfamiliar situations, helpful and approachable in working as part of a team, conscientious and diligent. Therefore the behaviours that could be suit for this role, looking at the main activities and skills required, are: “Driven to deliver” because he/she has to demonstrate determination to obtain the best results for the organisation; “Curious” because he/she has to relate with several people and tasks, that required attention to details and to be future-focused and open-minded with new situations; “Collaborative” because always he/she has to be able to deliver professionalism to the organisation and work as part of team to achieve the goals. Obviously the level required for each behaviour changes according to the band of competence.

Within the band 1 the HR and Recruitment administrator should be “curious” in terms of analysing new ideas, trying to be open to new purposes, driving to understand how people change according to circumstances and environments. In regard of being “driven to deliver” he/she should demonstrate a constant inclination for action and desire to deliver, identify the steps to achieve the purposed goals, objectives and tasks, try to exceed the standards. In the end being “collaborative” at that band 1 it means that the practitioner should be sensitive and respectful of other cultures, feelings and beliefs, make a valid contribution to the team, establish effective and constructive relationships with colleagues and peers and keep them up-to-date.

Activity 2
2.1 The HR professional has to relate with different costumers, both internal and external. Sometimes costumers needs could be in conflict. In that situation the professional has to understand carefully the importance and urgency of the needs and then he/she needs to deal with the problems prioritising them. For giving an example, we have to serve three different costumers as an HR manager, an internal employee’s request and an external supplier. 1) HR Manager needs a complete file of personal absence for a meeting with Director at that afternoon. 2) A representative of employees requires details of their holiday entitlement for the remainder of the year. 3) A supplier of training course has a query on a purchase order for a course that has to take place in the next three days. All the costumers want the service at the same time. To solve the conflict it is important to prioritise the needs.

Firstly we can complete the absence report for the HR Manager. That is because it takes an hour to run the report and especially because our superior has an important meeting at the same day. Our Manager needs that report on time for showing it to the Director and to have an estimate of employee’s performance and compare it with organisation outputs and processes until that time. Secondly because of the training course is within three days we need to serve the supplier. He has to fill the query before that time to give us the best service and on time. Lastly we can deal with the employee’s request about the holidays. It is the last not because it is less important than the others, but just because they do not have an urgent request. We could do a report with holiday entitlement in the next two or three days, even because the enquire is about the rest of the year therefore more time is required to draft it.

2.2 There are several types of communication. The most popular classification of them is: •Verbal communication (phone, meetings, presentations, conferences) •Written communication (letters, emails, notes, fax)

•Non-verbal communication (body language, facial expressions, gestures, posture) •Visual communication (signs, drawing, graphic design, illustration) In business is important not only to communicate but to do it effectively. For that reason it is essential to have a deep understanding of and to use all four type of communication. Each method of communication has own advantages and disadvantages. For example within the written one it is useful on the one hand for making information short, for assuring accuracy and clarity before sending, for returning again in the future on the message sent previously, but on the other hand sometimes information could be lost or sent to the wrong person and there is no guarantee of a quick feedback or receipt of information.

Even in the verbal communication we can find advantages as highlighting specific points, concerning queries and immediate responses, possibility of clarifying information, having a quick feedback, but there are even disadvantages as impossibility to proof that the communication has taken place, it could take a person away from the workplace more time and the quality of that communication the majority of times depends on the communicator’s skills and experience. METHODADVANTAGESDISADVANTAGES

Email
•Delivered faster than traditional post;
•Can be sent whenever in a day, week or year;
•Can be sent at the same time to several people;
•In terms of costs it is cheaper than traditional post;
•Can be erased and written several time before sending;
•Can be saved in a record and used again in the future as a proof.
•Can be received as spam or junk email;
•Can be sent to wrong recipient;
•Cannot be read without an internet connection;
•There are no guarantees that the recipient read it on time;
•Together with it can be sent virus;
•Personal details can be used by fail users as identity theft.

Fax
•Delivered quickly and received by the recipient as soon as it is sent;
•There is always an hard copy that cannot be altered electronically;
• A confirmation receipt can be required.
•In a workplace it can be picked up from the wrong person;
•The quality of reading depends on the quality of faxed documents;
•The recipient’s fax machine must be turned on to receive the documents.

Telephone
•It is possible to have a response instantly;
•With mobile phone it is possible to call from everywhere;
•Voicemail messages can be left when the phone is turned off or not able to answer.
•The quality of call depends on the quality of line (mobile)
•Voicemail box cannot be checked frequently;
•There are no proofs that the conversation have taken place;
•Sometimes it is not possible to pass an urgent information if the recipient does not answer on time.

2.3 As we have understood clearly which kind of service our customers need, to meet their expectations we have to deliver the service in the best way possible dealing with the timeline, the budget and possible complaints. We should be able to plan and manage our projects, resources and operations to control the costs and the quality of our service. A SLA could be helpful to measure and clarify them, but it cannot measure how the service has been delivered and its own quality. To be effective we have to consider both quantitative and qualitative measures of our service. Delivering service on time: it is hard to do everything on time, for that reason often we have to prioritise our work in terms of importance and urgency. We can do it listing a sheet of priorities and making a plan of what we are going to do. Sometimes it is useful to inform the customer about our project and timeline even to give him/her a deep understanding of our work.

Delivering service on budget: we can work with a partner or in a team to draw up a plan with all the service costs and how we will use the budget. Obviously we can even use system as Project Plan. Delivering on difficult customers and complaints: usually each organisation has its own policy and procedure that help to deal with these situations. However sometimes we have to deal with them relating only on ourselves. The first thing is to clarify the problem and find out different options to solve it. We must have cleared the advantages and disadvantages of our solving plan, then we can show it to the customer and assure him/her about our work and service and that the problem will be sorted out.

Activity 3
3.1 The CPD (Continuing Professional Development) regards the process of tracking and documenting the skills, knowledge and experience that an employee gains at work. It suggests a continuous learning to improve and up-to-date capabilities, knowledge and skills to achieve new goals and to deal with new challenges. It is a process and a combination of approaches to help professionals in reflecting on their own development and growth and on what they are learning to improve themselves as workers. Nowadays employers believe that there are benefits of CPD not only for promotion or upgrading but also for own right and pleasure to learn. Moreover benefits of CPD are clear even for the employers to the organisational growth. Benefits to an employee:

•Focussing on training and own development can bring steps to achieve goals in career;
•Reflecting on own gaps in knowledge can help to fill them and to be more productive:
•Showing new developed skills at the workplace can give more chance of promotion;
•To be in a better position to deal with changes and to keep new challenges;
•To remain always competent in own role;

•To manage own development on ongoing basis;
•To focus on own achievements.
Benefits to an employer:
•To maximise own staff potential;
•To have always an up-to-dated HR staff, ready to deal with new business needs;
•A developed and up-to-dated workforce gives a positive image of the organisation;
•Suggesting appraisals helps to have an active and productive staff.

3.2 / 3.4
Personal development plan

Name Rosa PalmieriMembership Number41619700
Covering period from:April 2014To:January 2015

All development opportunities are in line with the Associate Membership Criteria and are designed to enable me to meet this criteria and successfully gain CIPD Associate Membership.

What do I need to learn?What do I need to do to achieve this?What resources or support will I need?What will my success criteria be? Target dates for review and completion 1. Build practical and technical HR knowledgeFinding an internship in HR department and following the HR trainersSuccessful application and interviewIncrease my HR knowledge and experience October 2014

2. Upload my knowledge in collating, analysing and interpreting data
Learning new data systems and working within an HR teamGuidance and support from colleagues and trainers, self-study of specific data systemsIncrease my collecting data system knowledge and improve my HR skills

August 2014
3. Complete my CIPD qualification

Completing successfully all TMA on time and respecting CIPD criteriaTutor and students support, course material, CIPD resources, VLCCompletion of the course and get the CIPD qualification January 2015

3.3 In building my personal development plan I have thought carefully how to achieve my goals. Choosing a way rather than another is never easy because there will be always advantages and disadvantages. Therefore it is important to evaluate both and take a summary of what we are going to do and whether it is suitable for us until that time. Analysing my plan I thought that having an internship in HR department could help me to improve my knowledge and experience in this field. I could show my interest and my commitment to the trainers and learn more about new data systems. Unfortunately it could be unpaid, the company could be not suitable for my personal interests or it is possible to find people not interested in helping you.

However I think it is the best way to develop my skills and to gain experience for the future. Instead I have chosen to get the CIPD qualification attending the Home learning college because learning online could give me the opportunity to study at home and I could attend the live classes even from abroad as I have already done with the first one, during which I was in Italy. Moreover the course material is always accessible online and I can contact the tutor often enough when I need information or support. Obviously learning online means also that there are few opportunities to meet other students or to have a face-to-face interaction.

Moreover I need always an internet connection to attend the live classes and sometimes it is not easy to find the concentration, studying at home with distractions of any kind. However the tutor is always willing to help if I need him and it is possible to get in touch with other students using social networks as Facebook and find some of them from your same city for arranging a study group as I did with two colleagues in London. Moreover if I cannot attend a live class because of internet connection it should not be a problem: it is recorded, so it is possible to watch it as soon as the problem is sorted out.