5 Positive Steps to Advance Your HR Career

HR has shown why we need to be at the leadership table in the past two years! If you’re ready to advance your HR career, now is the time to take action! Let’s explore 5 specific ways to get started. Using 5 specific steps from my book, Taking Your SEAT at the Table, together we can make your career goals happen.

1. Show Leadership You’re Ready for More

If you want to be more, you have to do more. Be more than just your job description. Learn what your manager’s goals are and look at the strategic plan behind them. Ask questions and find ways to contribute meaningfully to the organization in a way that you’ll get noticed. If you don’t have the necessary skills to get ahead, consider joining peer-to-peer advisory groups or a non-profit board to add new skills. For example, if you want to learn finance, become a treasurer.

2. Connect With Leadership

My power partner, Deb Calvert of People First Productivity Solutions, said, “Inspire with emotion, seal the deal with logic.” If you want to build bridges within your organization, you need to make that happen.

Management won’t necessarily come to you, nor should you wait for them! If you want career advancement, you need to meet leaders on their turf. A great way to do this is to invite them to lunch. This gives you a terrific opportunity to find out what they care about so you can align your communication messages with their priorities.

3. Measure What Matters

HR is often tasked with creating metrics for management. However, just because you can measure something doesn’t mean you should.

For example, organizations will measure how long it takes to fill a position - but what are we doing with that information. What we want to know is how open roles are impacting productivity. Consider measuring how long it takes a new hire to become productive, when they received their first promotion or waste as valuable data points. Identify what matters most in your business and create metrics management will care about.

4. Delegate Effectively

You can’t do everything yourself. Outsourcing some of your day-to-day work to vendors who specialize in these tasks can save you a tremendous amount of time and let you focus on what’s most important for you.

If you have had a vendor in place for a long time, check the agreement with them to be sure it still meets your organization’s needs. Your vendors need to be accountable for the job you pay them to do, so once you’ve determined what you can get off your plate, don’t forget to make sure it gets done.

5. Ambition and Drive are Visible Competencies

If you want more responsibility and authority, show your leaders. Always check in on what you do and how you do it. Proactively solve problems and evaluate your tasks to see how you can work smarter, not harder.

If your plate is too full to take something new on, you’re not doing anyone any favors by agreeing to do the work. Instead, say no, but find them someone who does have time. Management will see you as an effective leader who knows how to get the job done - one way or the other!

Taking on more responsibilities and proving to leadership you’re more than capable is a surefire way to advance your HR career.

At HR Topics, we are dedicated to providing our community with the tools and resources needed to advance their HR career and help better manage and run their HR Departments. We have a number of training courses and other tools and that you can use to help advance your HR Career.

If you are ready to advance your HR Career in 2022, use the tips above as your first roadmap to a career that will take you where you want to go. You just need to take the first step!