How to Become a HR Business Partner
Deciding on a career path can be difficult at the best of times, with so many opportunities on the table, being sure which direction to take can often be stressful and not always clear.
Combinations of sector, industry and job role are almost endless, so once you’ve made your choice, how do you know it is the right one, how do you understand what a role truly entails and how do you map your progress to journey’s end.
The ‘how to become…’ series explores a number of successful journey’s and provide insights to aid your career decision-making. To do this we have interviewed successful business leaders, employees and employers to find out how they got to where they are today, giving insight into a range of different job roles, offering first-hand advice on how to improve your potential and employability.
Laura Morton – Core Skills Trainerto HR Business Partner
How did you decide that this career was for you?
I always gravitated towards the ‘people’ side of any job or business I worked in – I built my career in hospitality management (restaurants/coffee shops) and took every opportunity to get involved in things like training and recruitment and learn as much as I could about HR in its entirety.
What is the best thing about your role?
Learning every day! You never stop learning when you work with people, as situations always arise to challenge your thinking and encourage you to generate new ideas and better ways of doing things.
During your development, what skills would you say are essential for your role?
Adaptability is key – being able to work with different groups of people at different levels of role and to flex between them constantly throughout the working day/week. The ability to plan and organise yourself autonomously is also essential to ensure you can balance a number of priorities simultaneously.
What advice would you give to someone looking to develop these skills?
Learn from those who are great role models in the areas you need to develop! Make the effort to spend time with people who are better than you at those things, and dedicate the time to putting that learning into practice – and seek feedback on how others see your progress.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced during your development?
Coming into a new role (whether through promotion or moving companies) and having to get up to speed with a lot of new people and initiatives quickly – as well as having to learn the business and recruit great people in to join it!
How have you overcome these challenges?
Making sure I reach out as widely as possible across the business to learn about different roles and departments – and never being afraid to ask the simple, and the challenging, questions to understand why things are the way they are.
Give one piece of advice for a potential candidate joining your business
Think about what you can bring to any team and capitalise on your strengths – its easy when you join a new business to feel on the back foot, but you’ve been recruited for a reason – so make sure you know what that is, and be a great role model to others in demonstrating it.