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

Denise Carissimo, a senior agent with placement firm Randstad North America, says the temp-to-hire approach is common among her clients, including automotive-industry companies in the Cleveland area. This approach allows "a testdrive, because they want to find the right fit with the culture." In other instances, the job is temporary because it responds to an uptick in the workload that may not reflect permanent demand.

Look Inside, or Go Outside?

There are no hard-and-fast rules about whether to hire from within or go outside for candidates for an HR assistant post. "If you've got the talent within the organization, I would favor promoting from within," says Simon of CarrAmerica Realty. "They know the organization; they know where the bodies are buried."

Yet the confidential nature of HR work can raise issues when hiring an assistant from within. "If they've already developed friendships and alliances, you have to be really clear when you're in the interview process" about the need to safeguard sensitive information, Stinson says. "We know how employees kibitz together, and, once you move into an HR position, you can't do that."

Simon agrees that the time to deal with the confidentiality issue is in the interview process. If the candidate has not handled sensitive information, Simon suggests posing scenarios to the candidate and asking how he or she would handle each situation. "You can really judge a person's effectiveness" in this way, he says. Preserving confidentiality has become an even bigger challenge as workspaces continue to evolve into less-private "modular spaces," he adds.

An approach that has worked for Melanson combines insider knowledge with a track record of keeping secrets. In her years as an HR executive, she has hired two internal candidates as HR assistants, both of whom had been executive secretaries and had HR-like experience in handling confidential information. "I was lucky," Melanson says, because in each instance she was new to the company, and the assistants had credibility within the company, knew its informal systems and had the confidence of employees.

Looking Ahead

HR managers can provide their assistants with valuable experience that will serve them well even if the position does not lead to a higher-level job. "My more valuable assistants showed great initiative," Simon says. "As a manager, I would seek out opportunities to give them some professional or even quasi-managerial role in my organization."

At dj Orthopedics, a successful HR assistant can move up into a position on the company's HR help desk and could advance further to become an HR rep and then an HR manager. HR assistant Sanderson, an hourly full-time employee, says her goal is to become a manager. Shea, the company's HR director, says there's no formal succession plan within HR, but the possibilities for advancement have been communicated to all in the five-member department.

Says Melanson: "Even though I might not be able to provide the next step in someone's career, I feel as a manager you can enable someone to grow." She says she is "a big believer in sending people to certificate programs." For example, her long-term HR assistant--who went on maternity leave and was replaced for that time by McDaniel--had moved to the United States from Peru and enrolled in an HR certificate program to familiarize herself with the business environment in California and with issues throughout the country, Melanson says. In addition, HR assistants themselves can help make their own opportunities, particularly by showing interest in learning more, whether formally or informally. For example, they should look for opportunities to volunteer both on the job and outside the workplace, Melanson says. "You can grow outside the job and show some leadership," she says. "All of those things are resume-enhancing and skill-enhancing, especially for someone without much work experience."