Four tips to supercharge your HR career

The work of the HR professional is changing, along with the growing casualisation of the workforce and the rise of the ‘gig’ economy.

In this environment, the person you most need to rely on for a sustainable career – both inside and outside HR - is yourself!

Tim Ferris in his best-selling book, The Four Hour Work Week, radically shifted how people think about work.

He challenged the notion of the orthodox 9 – 5 working week, and how it’s the value you add rather than the number of hours you work that is more important. He showed the choices that people can make with their career.

The question to ask yourself is are you the leader of your career?

Great leaders:

• Set direction and take action to get there
• Back themselves and seek to continually develop themselves
• Surround themselves with people who will help them get the job done
• Know themselves and seek to understand others

These attributes equally apply to your HR career.

Here’s four tips to help you be the leader of your career:

1. Check how fit your career is
Assessing your career periodically helps you determine whether you are in a rut or holding on to an unrealistic, outdated view of your career. It also challenges you to think about what may need to shift to ensure a successful, sustainable and rewarding career.

2. Invest in your career
Set aside time each year to critically examine your career – where you are now, where you want to be and what you need to do to get there.

Look at your identified goals and consider how much progress you have made. This will help you determine what steps you should take next, and what elements of your plan may need to alter to accommodate changes in the HR profession.

As part of this step be clear on the value you offer and keep it current. Everyone brings certain skills and ways of operating to the work they do. It’s essential to be able to articulate that value and how it helps the organisation achieve their strategic objectives.

3. Find your learning edge
Continued success requires a constant desire to learn. You can’t just wait for someone (or your organisation) to tell you want you need to learn.

Strive for learning that is broad and deep by:

• Staying abreast of the latest thinking and ideas from the HR profession, and also from complementary professions, including project management, process improvement, strategy and design thinking
• Buying books on topics that are different to your HR day job, but provide useful knowledge
• Subscribing to online news so you can get up to date information and knowledge from around the world
• Checking out the Mass Online Learning Courses (MOOCs) from sites such as edX, Coursera and Open2Study
• Seeing the acquisition of deep self-understanding and emotional intelligence as important as your technical HR skills

4. Build your career advisory board
Your Career Advisory Board are core people in your network, including for example: sponsor, mentor, career coach, advisors, and industry experts.

This Board will help you navigate and adapt to the changing working world and the changing nature of the HR profession. They provide advice, share insights, constructively challenge your thinking and actions, and provide connections and ideas.

The legendary actress Mae West said: You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough!

So step up, leap forward in your HR career and live well!

Michelle Gibbings is a change leadership and career expert and founder of Change Meridian.