How your HR system can help advance your career in summary:
- HR systems reduce time-consuming admin tasks, allowing people professionals to focus on career growth by providing valuable time and insights.
- As well as reducing time on admin, using a good HR system can help you track personal goals, facilitate lateral moves, and support succession planning.
- Also, HR systems provide vital actionable insights: allowing HR professionals to demonstrate strategic value, which in turn, boosts their reputation and career progression.
Brace yourselves… I’m going to say something a little controversial here. HR professionals need to challenge their own perceptions of tech solutions.
Yes, we all know great HR system are proven to dramatically reduce the admin load of HR departments, organise and streamline processes, and help provide more accurate, easily accessible data. But, what’s often overlooked is the fact that great HR systems can also support people professionals progress in their careers.
In fact, choosing the right HR system can open doors for people professionals: From generalists who want to pursue a speciality, to those who seek better business insights to improve the advice they’re giving. An HR system can help with these needs… and much more besides!
A great HR system can deliver the structure, time and insights HR professionals need to move up the career ladder. Here’s how…
Benefitting from your tools of the trade
It’s a well-known paradox that people often forget to use their trade skills for themselves. For example, the plumber with the leaking tap, the carpenter with an unfinished deck, the insurance broker who forgets their own insurance, and so on. People professionals can also fall into this trap, forgetting that HR tech can help HR with their own career development.
As one of the people who best understands your business’ HR system, make sure you’re getting the most out of it for yourself and your team. The right HR system can help you to keep track of your skills and qualifications. It can record your goals and check-in conversations, and help with succession planning for your HR team, too.
Your HR software can also help if you wish to make a sideways move within HR. If, for instance, you’ve been focusing on onboarding, but you’d like to move across to absence management, you’ll have the advantage of working within a system that’s already familiar to you (allowing for differences between HR modules), and you’ll also be able to quickly get up to speed with your new focus area using the data that’s conveniently stored in the system.
Time to think
For HR generalists drowning in spreadsheets and paperwork, having time to stop and think about their own career can feel like a pipedream. The treadmill of never-ending absence enquiries, new-starter and leaver paperwork, performance management forms, etc. doesn’t leave much time for HR people to think about themselves or to come up with a plan about where they want their career to go.
The right HR system can deliver a change in pace for HR, giving you time to step back and to think about your work more objectively. You can then better determine what you like and don’t like about your role. You can plot out a career that plays to your strengths and interests, and look for opportunities that align with them. When there’s no time to think and plan, years can go by before you realise that you might be in a professional rut.
Having time to think also allows you to work less like an administrator and more like a strategic leader. For example, your HR system can manage logging sickness leave so you can look at seasonal sickness patterns and plan ahead to cover resourcing.
Your HR system can also look after onboarding paperwork so you have time to personally connect with new-starters, focussing on making them feel welcome and checking how they’re settling in – even if they’re working remotely or offsite. Leaving the paperwork to the software gives you more opportunities to shine and move forward in your profession.
Insights that help your business and your reputation
Intelligent insights are a key ingredient for career progression. Demonstrating a deep understanding of your business and presenting data-backed ideas is an effective way for HR professionals to gain positive recognition. And, honing in on critical business challenges and having access to specific intelligence helps HR to carve out areas of expertise.
An HR system like Cezanne will give you the depth of information you need to have an impact on your business. Using the data your software provides, you can become known to senior leaders in your business as a go-to person for business intelligence. Your knowledge of your workforce, from performance and absence trends, to onboarding insights and more, will ensure your business recognises you as valuable talent, to be retained and nurtured.
Our article, 4 ways to use your HR system to win HR a position in the C-suite explains just how important business insights are when HR wants to secure a spot in the C-suite. Hard data that the business can use to make informed decisions is a key ingredient in winning respect within your organisation.
If you want to progress in your career, you’re missing a trick if you don’t make the most of a great HR system. You need to harness HR systems, both as a system administrator and a system user, deriving the maximum value from it for your business and yourself.
The right software can give you the time, insights and tools you need to find and pursue the speciality that’s right for you – and to gain the recognition you deserve!
Shandel McAuliffe
Now based in sunny Australia, Shandel is prolific writer and editor - particularly in the world of HR. She's worked for some big names, including the CIPD and the Adecco Group. And more recently, she's been the Editor for new HR publication HR Leader.
