“An experienced HR manager is confident, personable and creates a climate where candid expression is permissible,” wrote Donald Olson, HRM project manager at Strategix.

Like being a know-it-all, the tendency to oversimplify complex issues often arises from not knowing enough, which can be a real blind spot for those starting out in any endeavor. We don’t know what we don’t know, as the saying goes. As a result, people can sometimes suggest Band-Aid solutions to problems more akin to gushing wounds.

For example, “you can’t successfully recruit and retain employees if you don’t understand what their role is and what impact they have on the organization,” wrote Jessica Taylor, SHRM-CP, an HR generalist at ITW Deltar Components in Lakeville, Conn. “The further you dig to understand your business and its pain points, the better you can support the organization.”

That may be why “new HR professionals tend to not be as proactive in solving complex employee relations issues,” commented Jonathan Flickinger, J.D., chief human capital officer at Quality Life Services in the Pittsburgh area. “They sometimes let [the problem] go, and it can spiral out of control quickly—affecting culture, legal liability and/or employee morale.” 

​Seasoned HR leaders can help less-experienced colleagues to settle into their roles by providing insight into the things beginners might not know—and then giving them the time and space to learn. “We need to remember they are new professionals, and we cannot expect them to solve complex issues,” said Michael Smith, an HR manager with Greenstone in Sydney, Australia. “The first thing they need to learn … is to build relationships, find a rapport with senior management, to understand how they think.” 

Spending time fostering relationships and learning will pay dividends down the line. In the near term, though, “we cannot expect results from them,” Smith said. “Once they have cemented their relationships and know how to handle conversations with management, they will then be able to influence—which I don’t expect in the first year.”

Believing a Degree = Experience

As important as an HR education is, it’s also critical to realize that the real world is considerably more nuanced than the classroom. Failure to grasp that “has resulted in making uninformed decisions that involve people without understanding the context and having overconfidence,” said Christine E. Rowe, SHRM-SCP, an HR leader based in Washington, D.C. 

“For example, I worked with a new benefits administrator (who I later found out did not want to be in benefits)... . [She partnered with] a manager to terminate an employee without discussing it with me first. This caused many issues because one, she didn’t know the context and two, she gave inaccurate information.”

Underestimating the Importance of Compliance

It’s great when HR professionals have the luxury of time to assimilate to their roles, but for many departments of one or small teams, that’s not an option. Ready or not, many practitioners must hit the ground running. 

Millennial Marlena Wesh bravely described her greatest struggle. “I find the biggest mistake I make as a new HR professional is not employee relations, but with benefits as they relate to legal infrastructure,” said Wesh, an HR generalist for Florida Credit Union in Gainesville, Fla. “Understanding the time constraints and how important [they are] under Affordable Care Act (ACA) rules and regulations is something that should not be taken lightly. I sometimes have so much to do that I forget about the legal deadlines.”

Chris, a practitioner from a New Jersey-based printing company who asked that his last name not be used, also had some difficulty wading into the weeds. “I think the biggest mistake I made was not knowing to do a full audit of what the payroll department has accomplished prior to HR starting,” he wrote. “Paired with that was not knowing which forms the government required for ACA purposes and assuming all was in order. … I since learned … a great deal from the communities on your SHRM site.” 

Not Thinking Beyond HR

As in many fields of endeavor, excelling in human resources means doing more than just those tasks that are listed on your job description. “You are already being paid to do the operational stuff, but the question is what … is needed to elevate you to sit at the same table as the other business units,” wrote Ramlan Ahmad, managing director and CEO of Global Business Transformation Consulting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “This is the question that HR professionals worldwide … continue to struggle with.” 

He says that “the biggest mistake is the assumption that if you do the operations portion of HR well, you automatically become a business partner.” Many other commenters, both within and outside the profession, agreed that this was a big trouble spot. HR practitioners are “responsible for compliance, but not at the expense of the businesses goals,” wrote Tony Benjamin, founder of HR consulting firm The Grange LLC in South Jordan, Utah. 

“They need to think strategically, but they have to earn the right to be heard by gaining experience first,” he said. It’s a problem, for example, if “they can’t read a budget or a [profit and loss statement]; if they don’t understand the motivations of their management ‘partners’ and therefore only focus on compliance; or if they get so touchy-feely about employee happiness that they lose track of the important bottom-line factors.” 

​A good point, Tony, but let’s not throw the “touchy-feely” baby out with the business bathwater. At the end of the day, a major theme from the community is that HR professionals at all levels should hold on to their humanity—and making mistakes is integral to that, as is having empathy for yourself and others. 

As amateurs grow into experts, they often realize that knowing everything isn’t an option (and never was). The best anyone can do is ask the right questions, learn from victories and defeats, and build on their strengths. “An experienced HR manager is confident, personable and creates a climate where candid expression is permissible,” wrote Donald Olson, HRM project manager at Strategix.xyz in Sarasota, Fla. “It’s OK to be yourself.”