HR managers – Workforce

Khalid Raza, a 2016 winner of Workforce’s Game Changer Award, is now a talent acquisition leader at EY. As someone who’s been recognized for his achievements in human resources, Raza answered some questions for Workforce.com about his career in HR, the rise of data analytics and the importance of constant curiosity for a well-rounded talent professional.

Also read: How technology fits into an HR manager’s job description

Workforce: How have you grown professionally over the course of your career?

Khalid Raza: Career is not a destination but a journey where evolution happens with each experience. The growth of a professional is a story of continuous transformation stemming from experiences, interactions, reactions and self-reflection. Success and failures contribute to the depth of learning.

I had the luxury of being surrounded by visionary and compassionate leaders, talented team members who always set the bar higher, and my family which stood by me at all times. My professional growth has been fueled by curiosity to learn, do and achieve more.

WF: How has your career changed?

Raza: [As] someone who gets bored of [the] mundane, I moved roles within HR frequently, allowing me to appreciate and inculcate an understanding of every function and role. The organic accumulation of knowledge has helped me be more effective at all times. I am fortunate to not have a unidimensional career.

WF: What are some of the trends you’ve seen in HR over the past few years?

Raza: Equipped with data and analytics, HR now takes more informed decisions and provides measurable business solutions.

WF: What advice would you tell yourself five years ago?

Raza: The only advice I have is to be more curious about the business we work for. HR exists to support the organization. Isolated efforts yield amputated outcomes.

WF: What have you learned over the course of your career in HR?

Raza: People are the key to success. Organizations that understand this theme continue to grow through tough times, too. Humans are not resources. The most successful teams are [successful] because of the people driving the transformation.

WF: What do you foresee in the future of HR?

Raza: I see more real-time analytics impacting outcomes [and] more open organizations, allowing leadership to tap and leverage mutual knowledge of all the employees. Those days are gone where a bunch of suit-clad executives decide in a boardroom what the strategy of the company should use, oblivious of the fact that the next big idea may come from a desktop engineer.

Impact of changes need to be understood in real-time through sentiment analysis.
Tailored bouquet of compensation structures.
Skills and value-driven compensation and growth.
More focus on inclusion than diversity.

WF: What are some things that you value most about your career field/position?

Raza: Talent or HR as a function deals with people, and as I alluded earlier, people drive companies to success or failure. I value the impact HR makes to the organization’s growth.

WF: Do you have any advice for HR professionals?

Raza: Yes, I’d [like to share this] guidance to HR professionals:

Be Curious.
Strive to learn more at all times — people, experiences, struggles, success, and failures — there is always a lesson to be learned.
Don’t network. Build relationships. Adding random people on a social network is of no use unless you have built relationships with them.
Always find a mentor who can guide you — be it a career mentor or a skill mentor.

Also read: HR 101 for new human resources managers

While human resources used to be a more functional role, over the years it has become more strategic, with more HR executives earning a seat at the table. On the front lines, HR managers also have an evolved job description, increasingly relying on technology to take over the automatable parts of their job so that they can focus on more human tasks.

Just as employees are expected to grow with the times and learn technology skills like data science and programming that make them more attractive to employers and relevant to the jobs of the future, HR managers must do the same.

Technology is gaining a larger role in many traditional HR duties, from recruiting to scheduling to performance management. This has been happening for a while and means that HR managers must be prepared to learn new systems and skills related to the software an organization uses. Relying on current skills is not going to get an HR manager far. They must be willing to be flexible, show curiosity and learn new skills.

Also read: HR 101 for new human resources managers

However, if an HR manager is tech-savvy enough to manage various HR technology systems, ultimately they will have more time to focus on the HR duties that require timeless skills like tact and empathy.

Programs enabled with artificial intelligence, for example, can help answer common employee and candidate questions, leaving HR professionals time to focus on other responsibilities rather than repeatedly answer the same common, basic questions. Chatbots can’t answer more complex questions, but they can alert a person to answer those queries.

In the recruiting context, technology can help HR managers quickly review resumes. This has both advantages and risks. On one hand, employers don’t spend as much time going over resumes. On the other hand, recruiting technology may make biased decisions if it has been programmed with biased training data. Still, with appropriate training data, this has potential to make the recruiting process better.

Also read: How the talent acquisition game has changed in the past decade

And with scheduling, workforce management software can help HR managers create schedules, even considering compliance laws that make scheduling complicated. Different states and localities have varied regulations regarding paid time off, sick leave and overtime. But the appropriate software can take regulations into account as someone creates a schedule for its workforce.

Meanwhile, some HR tasks should always retain the human touch. Managers should always terminate employees face to-face, avoiding doing so via text message, email or other forms of virtual communication. Managers also have key communications responsibilities — for those times as common as the annual open enrollment and as unique as a crisis or global pandemic. Being able to effectively, strategically and sympathetically communicate information is part of the HR job description that does not change with the advance of HR technology solutions.

Given these tech-enabled and human-centric HR tasks, when a company is looking for a new HR manager, employers should include certain responsibilities in their job description. Some of these skills are constant:

Consults legal counsel to ensure that policies comply with federal and state law.
Develops and maintains a human resources system that meets top management information needs.
Oversees the analysis, maintenance and communication of records required by law or local governing bodies, or other departments in the organization.
Advises management in appropriate resolution of employee relations issues.

Other responsibilities can likely be streamlined through technology:

Recruits, interviews, tests and selects employees to fill vacant positions.
Responds to inquiries regarding policies, procedures and programs.
Administers benefits programs such as life, health and dental insurance, pension plans, vacation, sick leave, leave of absence and employee assistance.
Prepares budget of human resources operations.
Responds to inquiries regarding policies, procedures, and programs.

Additionally, the rise of technology solutions adds extra responsibilities to that list, like understanding how to use several types of tech tools. These include:

Knowing how to use social media to post jobs, research candidates and communicate with employees.
Knowing how to use an applicant tracking system.
Using talent management software and learning management systems can help you streamline hiring, onboarding, training and retention processes.
Using time and attendance software to quickly and efficiently create compliant, fair schedules.

While HR practitioners are expected to do more than ever before, they have more technology and tools available to make their jobs more efficient in many ways.

Tag: HR managers

Always be curious: Khalid Raza’s journey through human resources

How technology fits into an HR manager’s job description