You Do What Now?

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In Human Resources we are always spouting consistency, best practice and meeting standards. I find it interesting then that there is no consistency in HR positions. If you do a quick search online you will find a myriad of titles and descriptions for roles but there is often no real way of knowing what a job will actually involve doing.

A recent survey through AHRI asked whether certification of HR competency would be beneficial to HR professionals, similar to what is used in America’s Society for Human Resources Management. Obviously something like this would assist in determining what level of expertise someone holds and assist in developing titles and positions that match those competencies.

Unfortunately, HR also moves through trends very quickly, a year ago you wouldn’t have seen any advertisements for a ‘Resourcing Coordinator/Specialist/Officer’ in Australia, whereas a key word search on Seek today gave me 222 results.

While title is not everything, the title a position is given will give an indication of the role and the level it is at. A large amount of advertisements no longer list the salary, so it becomes even more important that the title and the advertisement clearly state what the role is and the responsibilities.

This is important not only for attracting the right candidate but also so that you don’t have to sift through large numbers of inappropriate applications due to the position title not being clear.

An example of the inconsistency is shown in two advertisements I saw recently;

Human Resources Advisor / Administrator

We are looking for an energetic and experienced Human Resources Advisor to join a fantastic small HR team within a very well known not for profit organisation and also to handle administrative duties.

This will be a challenging and interesting HR support role that will see you working as part of a very small team and assisting the senior HR staff with their daily responsibilities as well as taking responsibility for handling staff HR queries and providing some initial HR advice.

To secure this role you will need to have Human Resources experience, good administration skills, a can-do-attitude and be able to adapt to new policies and procedures quickly.

Human Resources Advisor

The successful candidate responsibilities will include:

- Generalist HR advice for all Business Lines and their Managers and the Executive Management Team

- Management of relationships with key internal stakeholders

- Coaching with Managers on HR related issues including performance management & first level industrial relations advice

- In conjunction with the Human Resources Director ensure that all Colleagues are remunerated appropriately

You will possess:

- Proven expertise in the development and implementation of the HR strategic direction

- High levels of enthusiasm and energy

- Demonstrated capacity to juggle and deliver on multiple projects

- Experience building relationships with senior management

- High personal impact and the ability to gain credibility with colleagues quickly.

- Bachelors degree in HR or related field

- 3-5 years Generalist HR experience

- Working knowledge of Australian industrial legislation/OH&S regulations

- Ability to facilitate training programs 

Clearly, these are two very different positions which can prove confusing for candidates and also for recruiting managers when they are hiring. Someone may have worked in a ‘HR Advisor’ position but is it what you consider a HR Advisor level position?

I would like to see AHRI leading the way with getting consistency in the industry and putting guidelines in place regarding roles, experience and competencies required for each level.

What do others think? Do you feel this is an issue and if so, what do you think would lead to improvement?