If you are a skilled worker and making the UK your priority as you sojourn abroad to look for greener pastures, we have information about the in-demand skills that dominate the mainstream job market in the UK.
It comes as no surprise that a career in the people profession, as well as the skills that distinguish a great people professional from an incredible one, are in high demand given the prevalence of flexible working, increased attention to employee wellbeing, and a host of other issues that are rising to the fore of numerous businesses in almost every industry.
1. Strong Communication Skills
Since HR and L&D form the foundation of most organizations, they frequently serve as the vital conduit between the workforce and the company.
It’s not hard to imagine that a need for people professionals to have excellent communication skills will remain, especially as the working world continues to change, given that both HR and L&D teams interact with a variety of employees on any given day for onboarding, training, and upskilling purposes.
Every employee will have a different level of authority and influence (consider newbies versus CEOs), making your ability to connect with every type of employee in a professional and positive manner essential to your success in your field. People professionals must also know how to speak to employees at every level.
2. Administrative Expertise
Although administrative labour is still a significant part of what it takes to accomplish your job properly, HR has come a long way from being a stodgy admin role. Examples include payroll, sending staff government health updates, and onboarding documentation.
We’re not out of the woods yet, even if the human resources field is rapidly undergoing a digital transition thanks to the rising automation of numerous HR operations.
Similarly, to guarantee that training is carried out successfully and that duties like the upkeep of e-Learning platforms are done with care, learning and development teams must have an advantage in administrative tasks.
3. An Understanding of HRIS & CMS
If you want to be the best at what you do as a people professional, you should brush up on your understanding of human resource information systems (HRIS), which is related to administration.
As part of the current effort to make HR more digital, these tools assist in tracking and reporting on important workplace factors like performance reviews, awards and benefits, and, you guessed it, onboarding and payroll.
If you’re actively engaged in employee training and upskilling, it’s also critical from the L&D perspective to have a working knowledge of various Course Management Systems (CMS).
By promoting and funding the best platforms and programs for staff, you’ll develop your analytical abilities and be able to stay abreast of the most recent advancements in virtual, blended, and online learning, enabling employees and the company to save time and money.
4. Talent Management Skills
The entirety of HR, or more specifically the procedures used to recruit, onboard, develop, and retain people, is best known as talent management. Employees no longer need or have the patience to work for organizations that don’t respect their growth and welfare since they are more aware than ever of what they want from their employers.
Employees are considerably more conscious of their worth and capacity to perform their jobs effectively. This makes the need for talent management skills more important than ever because businesses must stay on top of employee objectives and needs if they want to keep luring in the best and most modern personnel.
Additionally, this means that HR and L&D will need to collaborate in order to find, select, and train the right people for the right jobs and guarantee a satisfying and customized employee experience.
5. Diversity & Inclusion Awareness
We cannot emphasize enough how crucial it is to be conscious of diversity and inclusion in order to foster a positive workplace culture as part of the talent management process and the employee experience.
In light of this, it is essential for human resources professionals to create a level playing field at work for everyone, regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, background, or sexual orientation, when it comes to hiring, selection, training, and promotion.
Making employees feel safe, heard, and motivated at work requires embracing employee differences, paying attention to their wants and concerns, and staying sensitive to what each person needs to prosper.
6. The Drive to Be Proactive
Although being proactive may be seen as more of a personality attribute than a skill, it is a skill that can be learned. Being proactive can help HR professionals identify any possible employee or workplace problems early on and stop them from getting worse.
On the other side, being proactive in your job as an L&D professional is more about being organized. Having readily available learning resources for your diverse group of students is important, as is regularly updating and expanding on existing learning resources.
For all professionals, acting on pertinent industry information and updates while serving as a proactive source of knowledge and awareness for staff members is another approach to be proactive.
7. Mentoring & Coaching Skills
Particularly for HR and L&D training professionals who frequently participate in one-on-one or group sessions on a regular basis, these kinds of abilities are among the most beneficial.
When it comes to maintaining workplace standards where they should be, being able to mentor and train mid-managers and workers through a variety of working situations—whether that be aiding with frontline concerns, performance assessments, or dispute resolution—is of utmost importance.
8. Sound Advice
When we suggest that offering good advice is a highly sought-after ability, we don’t mean that you should think about getting a degree in psychology (so you can relax). To be an above-average people professional, you must, however, possess the ability to counsel employees, mid-level managers, and senior managers on operational and training concerns.
For example, putting together a successful return-to-office plan or even a brand-new upskilling program for staff would require assisting in the creation of essential documentation for management to use and distribute to their different teams. To put it another way, providing good advice is all about HR and L&D being in tune with the needs of the business and knowing how to effectively communicate information, updates, and changes.
9. Leadership Skills
It should go without saying that this is one of the most in-demand soft talents for any human resources practitioner.
Every employee, from recent hires to C-suite executives, has turned to their HR and L&D teams to assist them organize what the new world of hybrid and remote work and training looks like as we continue to navigate current workplace developments.
Government regulations continue to control our conditions at work and at home, so human resources professionals have had to take on a stronger leadership position and aid employees through the shift.
10. Collaborative Skills
Teamwork abilities are essential for those in the people profession because as someone working in HR or L&D, you’re expected to collaborate with your coworkers and senior management in an effort to actively align HR, L&D, and the company.
People managers wouldn’t have the knowledge or capacity to think critically about the organization as a whole, and as a result, they wouldn’t be able to positively contribute to what should be the company’s inclusive aims and objectives.
