7 Skills You Need to Make an HCM Strategy Successful

With a diverse (and often geographically dispersed) workforce, and dynamic business objectives, the day in the life of an HCM admin is complex and challenging! We discuss 7 skills that indicate you’ve hired the right person for the job.

HCM strategies are integral to HR practices above and beyond regular tasks such as recruitment, onboarding, L&D, and attrition management. However, an HCM administrator requires a slightly different set of skills. Typically, data pundits, number crunchers, and individuals with a technical temperament are most suited for this role. Remember, for a human capital strategy to work effectively; the administrator isn’t just a data entry specialist – instead, he or she is an analyst, driving insights, interpretation, and advanced decision making.

Also read: 3 Human Capital Management (HCM) Trends to Watch Out for in 2018Opens a new window

Here are 7 critical skills every HCM administrator must have:

1. Business acumen – An HCM administrator must understand specific business requirements, its scope, and importance, thereby ensuring every solution proposed is attuned to individual business needs.
    
2. Technical competence – An HCM administrator must be aware and conscious of the latest tech movements, enabling greater collaboration with IT departments, and the ability to optimize selected solutions and platforms.

Also read: Choosing an HCM Solution Opens a new window

3. Attention to detail – Needless to say, any HCM administrator must focus on accuracy, detailing, intricacy, and an overall completeness of information.
    
4. Project management – Any HR administrator must be able to successfully manage roles, situations, and scenarios, addressing chinks in the human capital strategy implementation process, actioning new modules, and helping team members reach their target.
    
5. Vendor management – As your primary interface, the HCM administrator must be able to work in close coordination with vendors, optimizing costs, shrinking HCM strategy deployment timelines, and maintaining data confidentiality.

Interestingly, there are tools available which make this easier, like Smart ERP which recently acquired vendor management specialist, Provade. The deal implies an integrated platform for human capital management and vendor monitoringOpens a new window .

“We are thrilled and excited to have Provade with us to further its vision of providing businesses with the ability to automate and expand their mission-critical vendor management workflow and decision-making process with our latest technologies and onboarding platform,” says Smart ERP’s CEO, Doris Wong.

Also read: Top HR Tech Vendors Offerings: Insights from Our 2017 ExpoOpens a new window

6. Communication – An HCM administrator must be able to connect, communicate, and converse with a variety of stakeholders in order to keep a variety of component processes of a human capital strategy running, engage with colleagues, and streamline projects.
    
7. Expertise in spreadsheet software – Any HCM administrator must have all data at his or her fingertips, even as he or she can take a bird’s eye view of what the numbers, facts, and figures purport, from a long-term perspective. This requires a robust understanding of spreadsheets and its many tools and applications for HCM strategy execution.

“A strong HR analytics function can also help create valuable employee experiences. For instance, employers can serve personalized benefits recommendations based on the information collected during the onboarding process. In the era of information overload, personalized recommendations like these are a great way to build unique experiences,” we realized, in conversation with  Amber LloydOpens a new window , Global Leader of HCM Strategy and Customer Engagement at Infor.

Also read: Top Trends Driving the Demand for HR AnalyticsOpens a new window

There you have it! These 7 pointers can help you determine how appropriate any candidate is for an HCM administrator’s position, responsible for handling your human capital strategy.

Note that ahead of these, he or she must be focused on quality, with a zeal to help people utilize state-of-the-art digitization for real results, and bear in mind the larger objectives of the company. This will help them align the HCM strategy, with the tools at hand, leading to greater impacts and service excellence.