FIVE VALUABLE CHARACTER TRAITS FOR HR PROFESSIONALS

Updated December 5, 2022 · 2 Min Read

HR Professional Character Traits Great Communication Skills Emotional Control Empathy Intellectual Curiosity Accountability There is a certain collection of telltale characteristics that immediately the best kind of HR professional there is. By having a certain set of skills and personal qualities, it is possible for an HR professional to be fully capable of applying themselves ...

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HR Professional Character Traits

  • Great Communication Skills
  • Emotional Control
  • Empathy
  • Intellectual Curiosity
  • Accountability

There is a certain collection of telltale characteristics that immediately the best kind of HR professional there is. By having a certain set of skills and personal qualities, it is possible for an HR professional to be fully capable of applying themselves in just about any field that calls for their specific kind of expertise and professionalism. Though there may always be a certain bare-bones collection of requirements to fulfill the tasks of any HR position in question, the best HR professionals in all industries will have the following key indicators of a person who is truly at the top of their field.

Great Communication Skills

An HR professional has a stronger need to be capable communicators than almost any other position in an organization. No matter what the actual category of the business may be, an HR professional needs to serve as a central nexus of communications between a very wide pool of highly important roles; in order to do this effectively, it is essential for the HR professional to be both comfortable and effective keeping all of these people on the same page. Though there is certainly a bare minimum for professionalism in order to satisfy the role of a communicator, a truly gifted HR professional will have a certain way of communicating that is both clear and encouraging for others to engage them in communication as well.

Emotional Control

As an HR professional, there will be many times when the job calls for dealing with certain sensitive aspects of the industry that can be emotionally charged. In order to carry out their job effectively, the HR professional will need to prioritize the efficiency of the organization over their personal feelings of what the implications of a situation may be. For the benefit of everybody involved, HR professionals need to provide an unbiased window of perspective on situations without allowing it to compromise their judgment.

Empathy

while it is certainly important for in HR professional to keep their emotions in check when they are examining a situation at hand, they must also still have the basic capacity to put themselves in the shoes of the people that they're working with. The situations that in HR professional manages can certainly be complex, and though these must be judged impartially, they should be done in a matter that takes the perspective of all people involved into interpretation. HR professional should be capable of balancing their empathy with their capacity to assess the situation in a manner that is well-advised.

Intellectual Curiosity

HR professionals who are a great fit for the organization can be an even greater fit if they are committed to learning more about the best practices for excelling in their profession. Many professionals will agree that the true master in any craft is an internal student, and in HR, this means being willing to learn new ways that they can develop as a professional in their area of practice. There should be an ongoing effort to determine the ways that others before them have approached the job and discovering new ways that these approaches might potentially be fine-tuned for even more efficiency than ever before.

Accountability

Just as is the case in any other professional area, the field of HR does have a certain margin of error involved. It is impossible for every single situation to be handled without the chance of making mistakes, but despite the inevitability of these missteps every now and then, there must be unconditional accountability. An HR professional should be comfortable with taking responsibility for certain situations that may have fallen out of their control, not allowing these situations affect the manner in which they are able to continue facilitating success for the organization.

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