HR's pivotal multi-taskers: design the post of HR assistant for flexibility so that it can draw on the particular talents of the person in the job

HR Magazine, June, 2004 by Charlotte Garvey

Over the past 20 years, HR executive Mona Melanson, SPHR, has had various HR assistants helping her while she managed positions with insurance and financial-service companies in the United States and Asia. She came to prefer those assistants who bring more to their job than administrative skills. "You can train for skills," Melanson says, "but not for attitude."

Placement specialist Judith Enns says HR assistants need to have a feel for a multitude of HR intangibles. It's difficult, she says, to develop in a person the important strengths that the job requires--qualities such as "interest in people, regard for confidentiality, experience in customer service, desire to serve, ability to be flexible, to deal with gray areas," as well as "the understanding that people problems are perennial and persistent."

Melanson heads HR at a 160-employee facility in San Diego for the Powerware Corp., a Raleigh, N.C.-based manufacturer of uninterruptible power supplies. Enns, also in San Diego, is managing director of HR Solutions, a placement firm whose client companies range from financial services to retail to entertainment. Both say that a person coming into the job of HR assistant should have at least some HR experience or should possess an instinct for the profession's special requirements; administrative skills, which many job candidates learn in high school, can be developed on the job.

The HR assistant post can be structured to lead toward full-time professional HR positions, experts say, or it can be designed as a long-term, largely administrative job supporting senior HR executives. Neither path needs to be set in stone, however, and commonly the job contains elements of both approaches. An assistant whose job is tilted toward clerical responsibilities may still handle HR-oriented functions such as resume screening, employment verifications, setting up pre-employment exams, and maintaining files on employees' performance evaluations and attendance. Moreover, the job can be reshaped to conform to the experience, skills and aspirations of the person holding it.

"I don't think there is a cookie-cutter approach," says Darryl Simon, SPHR, senior vice president of HR and risk management with CarrAmerica Realty Corp. in Washington, D.C. Simon has had an HR assistant in every management position he has held over the past two decades. His assistant now is "almost an HR generalist" in the range of her duties, he says. In addition to supporting him with recruiting and employee relations, she helps other managers--specialists in recruiting, training and compensation--who report to him.

"I've seen the gamut," Simon says. "But clearly what is emerging now is that you need assistants who have business savvy."

Making the Most of It

Often, a person who becomes an HR assistant shapes the position along the lines of his or her strengths and goals. For example, at Watkins Manufacturing, a spa and hot tub manufacturer in Vista, Calif., HR assistant Maria Vasquez has become "a jack-of-all-trades" in a position that emphasizes clerical responsibilities, says HR Operations Manager Kim Schaefer. Vasquez, who works part time, has been in the position for about 10 years and does not have a college degree. Her duties include filing personnel records, entering performance reviews into the computer and selling discounted entertainment tickets to employees.

But Vasquez brings a special skill to the job: She speaks Spanish as well as English, which is especially valuable in a company where most of the 700 employees speak Spanish. She sets up classes in English as a second language for workers, and she also fills a "triage" role when she greets employees in the seven-member HR department's offices, Schaefer says. "She's there to assist them and guide them if they have a simple question."

Cathy Sanderson, the HR assistant at another company in Vista, medical device manufacturer dj Orthopedics Inc., has an associate's degree in HR management and five years of experience in the field. But what has proved crucial to her success is that "she's very intuitive," says Collete Shea, SPHR, director of HR. "She's not afraid to question things," Shea adds. "She doesn't just process paperwork."

Leanne McDaniel, who until recently worked for Melanson at Powerware, says that in the assistant position she did "a little bit of everything." She had recruitment duties such as screening phone calls and reviewing resumes, and she was "the first person in line" when employees had questions. She usually handled payroll and benefit inquiries herself, she explains, but some questions involved serious employee relations situations. At that point, she would decide if Melanson needed to get involved.

McDaniel took a "very administrative" HR assistant job after high school, and later she moved to a non-HR job at another company, doing accounts payable work in the finance department. She then found a job as an HR representative in the health care industry. Along the way, she earned a bachelor's degree in public administration.