Most Important Skills For A Chief Human Resources Officer At Cloudera
For a senior HR role, a strong business acumen is crucial—"understand what's going on in the business"—as is the ability to collaborate effectively across teams to gain support for initiatives. Without broad-based support, even executive-level HR professionals cannot successfully implement strategies.
Business Acumen, Cross-Team Collaboration, Strategic Alignment, Persuasion and Influence, Executive Communication
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Britt Sellin
Retired - Former SVP of HR /CHRO
Cloudera
UC Berkeley; UCLA extension for an HR certificate post graduation from Berkeley
N/A
Psychology
Technology
Human Resources (HR)
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Business Acumen: Understanding the business context is crucial for aligning HR strategies and initiatives.
2. Cross-Team Collaboration: Successfully implementing HR programs requires collaboration and gaining support from various teams.
3. Strategic Alignment: HR professionals need to connect their work to the overall business strategy and objectives, rather than just executing tasks in isolation
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
There are several skills you need. One is understanding the business. Even if you don't have a business mind, you need to grasp what's happening within the company.
Read some business books and listen to the information coming from your organization. Understand what they're communicating so you can align strategy.
In addition to that, you need to be someone who can work across teams. You're essentially a separate entity, but your job is to get support from everyone else.
This could be for a specific bonus program you're introducing or a change in how a certain group of people are compensated. You have to gain support for these initiatives.
You're not in an executive role, unless you're the CEO, where you can simply dictate what happens. In HR, you must collaborate with everyone.
If you don't have support, your initiatives won't progress. That's what I would say is essential.