How to Become HR Manager: Process, Skills, Responsibilities & Salaries
In the era of groundbreaking advancements and cutting-edge creativity in the realm of human resource management, the urge to upgrade shelves and hold onto the position of dignitaries is in pressing demand.
For those who are pursuing or expecting to pursue a career in human resource management (a bachelor’s degree in HR or a master’s degree in human resources management) look up to upgrade their efficiencies to become an HR manager in the later part of their career.
Wondering how to become a human resources manager empowered with proficiency and skills? Then this is a must-read for you, for we got you all the details of how to become a human resources manager. What is the process? The skills and responsibilities required for it and the current salary structure prevailing in the market for an HR manager.
Dive in to get an insight of all at one and unleash the possible ways to become a human resources manager (an HR manager).
Who is an HR manager?
Before knowing ways of how to become a manager in human resource management, it is essential to understand who are HR managers and what importance they hold in shaping the organization’s workforce and workflow.
An HR manager is a head of the human resource management department who is responsible for strategizing, supervising, and leading the HR professionals to organize the workforce management and their necessities such as deciding on compensation and benefits, training and development, working on enhancing employee relations with the organization, managing grievance, and adhering with compliance, etc.
For human resource managers, it is imperative to be proficient enough to be versatile and scalable in adapting to minor alterations that occur frequently in an organization.
Human resources or HR managers are crucial for handling the most precious resources of the business: the Employees. Employees bring almost 90 percent turnover to businesses by utilizing their creativity, skills, and capabilities. So, it is crucial as well as responsive to manage the employees and need the finest qualities, strategies, and efficiencies to become a people’s leader as well as support them in adversities.
An HR manager is nothing less than a cornerstone of an organization’s success, ensuring that its most valuable assets: its employees are supported, developed, and aligned with the company’s goals as well as the organization benefits from the efforts, creativity, and efficiencies of the employees.
What is the Role of an HR Manager?
An HR role is diversified and multifaceted so is the role of an HR manager. The roles of an HR manager consist of a myriad of responsibilities that demand precision, caution, and attentiveness during evaluation.
On becoming an HR manager, the following are the roles that require comprehensive acuity to accomplish the goal of business expansion and growth.
Let us understand in detail:
1. Recruitment and Staffing
The first and foremost role of HR managers is to look after the recruitment and staffing of an organization. It is pivotal to fill the vacancies with adequate talents in the organization for seamless work operations.
2. Performance Evaluation
The HR manager is required to evaluate the performances of employees to ensure fair assesment, appraisal, recognition and rewards for outstanding performances rather than biased and illegitimate promotions.
3. Decision-Making’
Decision-making is pivotal to becoming an HR manager as significant decisions on employees benefit and compensation, employee well-being, employee engagement and other policies weigh on the cognitive decisions of the HR managers.
A few decision-making types include:
➔ Strategic Planning
Planning on staffing at right time and filling in the vacancies with right amount and proficient individuals, etc are included in strategic planning.
➔ Employee Engagement
Planning employee engagement activities such as philantrophy, CSR activities, etc are the role of HR managers. To manage the resource or budget for employee engagement is also vital role of HR managers.
➔ Conflict Resolution
Conflicts resolution is essential in a diversified organization and HR managers are needed to be proficient in resoluting conflicts with ease.
➔ Compensation & Benefit Management
The HR manager is responsible for managing the compensation and benefits percentages of employees by aligning it with their designation, performance evaluation outcome, years of experience, governmental policies, organization norms, etc.
➔ Reimbursement and Revaluation
Another important role of human resources managers is to approve the reimbursement requests of provisioned employees and fix the percentages of reimbursements of various employees depending on the designation, gradation, terms of service, etc.
4. Compliance Management
Addressing the concerns and grievances of employees as well as being vigilant about compliance is a significant role of HR managers to keep away the business from legal lawsuits.
5. Policy Development
To develop suitable policies regarding employees well-being, terms of service, contracts, etc and align it with the goal of the company and governmental policies or labor laws is another important job role of HR managers.
6. Diversity & Inclusion
In a diversified organization where the employees hail from varied economic, social, cultural and educational backgrounds, the HR managers need to implement inclusion techniques to maintain a harmonious workplace environment.
Key Skills to become an HR Manager
For becoming an HR manager, you can earn a bachelor’s degree or a related field degree to build a career in it, but to face the daily challenges in the field of human resources, your soft skills are required to be enriched before stepping into the world of human resources.
HR-related roles are accomplished by utilizing soft skills so it is imperative to enhance capabilities to become an HR manager in the future. Let us discuss in detail:
1. Communication Skills
An HR role leverages the communication skills of an HR. Communication is the key to success and a human resource manager needs to be proficient in communication to weigh heavily on decision-making.
Furthermore, it adds clarity to the daily HR processes which is essential to stay away from conflicts and unnecessary challenges.
2. Leadership Skills
It is foremost for an HR role or HR manager to possess leadership skills to be able to navigate the efforts of the workforce towards the goal attainment of the company.
A great leader builds a proficient empire and so is an efficient HR manager who can pilot the HR related tasks in the interest of the organization and its workforce.
3. Collaboration Skills
In the field of HR, collobaration is a part and parcel of HR related tasks. Networking not only improves efficiency of the HR managers but also serves as a opportunity to expand reach and stay tuned with the latest HR trends in the industry.
4. Strategic Planning
Leadership and strategic planning goes hand in hand and in HR related role, the HR managers needs to be strategic in approach to avoid conflicts and issues as they deal with a diversified work audience.
5. Continuous Learning
Learning is a continuus process and the key to adapt to changes seamlessly is through adequate learning. Learn the new HR trends, current HR strategies, etc to enhance employee relations and adapt to alterations that come up in the business operations.
6. Flexibility
An HR role demands flexibility as businesses are subject to uncertainty. May it be collaboration, integration, acquisition of a business, etc, the HR managers are required to stay scalable to handle the organization.
7. Technical Skills
In the era of technicality and advancements in technologies, HR managers need to be technically sound to adapt to HRMS software as well as to make optimum use out of it and other HR-related applications.
What Educational Qualification is required to become a HR Manager?
➔ A Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management:
According to the current educational requirements, to pursue a career in human resources management, it is essential to complete an integrated bachelor’s degree in human resources management. A bachelor’s degree in business administration is mostly preferred by present-day top industries. So, earn a bachelor’s degree in HR management or business administration when you think of pursuing or becoming an HR manager.
➔ A Master’s degree in Human Resources Management
A Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) with HR specialization is the greatest degree in the HR realm and is beneficial for HR managers’ roles, especially in strategic planning, decision-making, organizational development, etc.
A bachelor’s degree or a related field degree like a master’s in human resource management can help you enhance your skills and establish yourself as an HR manager.
What is the Salary of an HR Manager in India?
The salary structure for HR managers in India varies, depending on the factors that are natural and relevant in the field of HR or a related field of business. Factors affecting the salaries of HR managers are:
- Location of Organization
- Work Culture
- Company Policies and Norms
- Geological Location
- Company Size
- Size of Workforce
- Experience and capability of the HR managers
- Certifications Authenticity
- Type of Industry, etc.
Although there is no concrete structure of salary packages for HR managers, we got you a few approximations :
Approximate Salary Range for HR Manager in India:
- Entry-Level HR Manager: ₹ 3,00,000 – ₹ 6,00,000 per annum
- Mid-Level HR Manager: ₹ 6,00,000 – ₹ 12,00,000 per annum
- Experienced HR Manager: ₹ 12,00,000 – ₹ 20,00,000+ per annum
Steps: How to Become a Human Resources Manager?
The question of how to become an HR manager is frequently anchored in the cognitive responses of the human resource management (HR professionals) aiming to become a human resource management manager.
If you are the one wondering about the same, then we got you covered with a step-by-step process to become an HR manager:
1) Educational Background
The foremost step to start your career as being HR professional is to get a bachelor’s degree in human resources or a master’s degree in HR management.
A master’s degree in human resource management is essential to grasp theoretical knowledge on the basics of qualities, ethics, and procedures that HR professionals are expected to exhibit during terms of service.
2) Gain Experience
This is crucial for HR professionals to gain a sumptuous amount of experience in the human resources management realm to gain insight into real-life challenges and tackling tactics before becoming an HR manager.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the minimum work experience required for becoming an HR manager is 5 years or more. So, try getting into your preferred industry to gain experience in the HR realm, you can also start with internships and startups as they provide you with 360-degree experience by assigning you multiple HR tasks.
Experience is a great teacher that makes you learn the unpredictable and helps you grow wiser with every passing event. Becoming an HR manager demands the empowerment of cognitive skills that boost decision-making capabilities. Experience plays a pivotal role in surging the capabilities of HR professionals to perform efficiently in managing human resources.
3) Certifications & Specializations
Specialization refers to the act of specializing or mastering an HR trait to expertise in that particular domain. For example: Human resources managers have multifaceted roles so you need to specialize in particular domains such as recruitment, training and development, compensation and benefits management, employee relations, etc. A master’s degree in human resources management course will allow you to specialize in a particular domain as well.
Certifications such as:
- SHRM-CP
- SHRM- SCP
By the Society of Human Resources Management
- PHR (Professional in Human Resource Management)
- SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources Management)
From the HR Certification Institute (HRCI), etc.
4) Stay Updated & Improve Skills
Improve your knowledge and do not hesitate to try new areas or your areas of grey. Work to enhance your knowledge as in the present era of technological advancements, innovations are frequent and require enhancement of skills as per alterations.
Stay updated with recent trends in HR advancements, innovations, and implementations as well as brush up your technical skills to update your knowledge on HRMS applications to keep up with the latest modifications.
Furthermore, remain current with the revised government percentages that are implemented in PF (provident fund), and ESIC contributions to process error-free payslips, etc.
5) Establish Contacts
An HR manager must maintain cordial relationships with both the internal (employees) and external (stakeholders, clients, etc.) public to strengthen networking.
So, being HR professionals, you can work on your collaboration and networking skills by socializing (online & offline) much with other HR professionals, experts, HR managers, and other Human resources managers from varied industries.
6) Seize Opportunities
Seize and grasp every opportunity that aligns with your skills, interests, and goals. Different types of opportunities are beneficial for aspiring HR managers:
a) Internal opportunities
Grasp the opportunities inside your organization for example: advancements, promotions, professional skills expansions through company-sponsored certifications, participating in leading HR council meetings and workshops, etc.
b) External Opportunities
External opportunities are the chances that you get externally, For example: Better offers from other organizations that match your expectations, preferences, requirements, and skills, then go ahead and seize it.
Pull Up Your Socks!
In conclusion, to become an HR manager or a human resource manager is a self-taught process in which you need to improve your capabilities, skills, knowledge, and experience to thrive and succeed. Irrespective of the fact that a bachelor’s degree in human resources or a master’s degree in human resources is imperative for being a human resource manager, what holds significance is the core knowledge and experience you gain from facing real-life occurrences during your employment.
So, pull up your socks and embrace your capabilities to enhance your networking and seize all possible opportunities that come your way to become a human resource manager. Remember, it’s never too late to start, so keep perceptions aside and start working on your goal by starting with continuous learning and enhancing your skills to prove your capabilities in the cut-throat HR market regime.
