Industry Research: The State of HR Skills and Education in 2021

Adapt to a new era by elevating HR’s capabilities

Covid-19 has turned out to be an accelerator of workplace transformation for many organizations. From how we work, to where we work and even when we work, all of these have undergone drastic changes over the past twenty months. Many of these changes could become the “new normal” in work arrangements. 

We believe that the HR function has been resilient in managing changes. In fact, without the speed with which HR reacted to enabling new ways of working, more organizations would have suffered a serious loss of business continuity during the pandemic period. However, more tests lie ahead. Previous HR challenges have not disappeared, and new ones constantly show up on HR’s doorstep. HR must achieve many key objectives, such as improving the use of analytics to enable more precise workforce data-driven decisions, balancing the myriad of issues of working from home, coming back to the workplace, or something in between, and upskilling and reskilling workforce as business models change, among others.
 

What are HR professionals doing to stay on top of their game? How are they improving their own capabilities?

HR.com's “The State of HR Skills and Education” study takes an in-depth look at HR professionals' education and capabilities that are critical to their role and how they can keep these skills up to date.

Here are the key findings from the study:

Finding #1: Most HR professionals have one or more certifications

More than half (60%) of the responding HR professionals have at least one HR-related certification. Among those who say they have at least one certification, the most commonly acquired certifications are the Professional in Human Resource Management (PHR), which is offered by the HR Certification Institute (HRCI), and the Certified HR Professional (SHRM-CP) certification, offered by the Society for Human Resource Management. Forty percent have the SHRM-CP and 35% have the PHR.

Finding #2: Few believe that their current skill sets will keep them successful in HR indefinitely

The fear of skill and knowledge obsolescence is real. In fact, about half of respondents feel that their current levels of HR knowledge will keep them successful for no more than four years. And, only 23% feel their current knowledge levels will last indefinitely.

Finding #3: Other than general HR, performance management is the most mentioned area of expertise

Given the many roles HR professionals tend to play in today’s organizations, it makes sense that 80% of the respondents selected “general HR” as an area of expertise. On the other hand, we could argue that general HR is not truly a field of expertise at all. A competent generalist can potentially cover many bases well, but few HR professionals can be experts in all areas.

There are, however, four HR specialties chosen by 50% or more of the respondents:

1. performance management (58%)
2. management (55%)
3. talent acquisition and retention (52%)
4. employee engagement/experience (51%) To learn more about The State of HR Skills and Education 2021 survey and to get strategic outcomes and 12 key takeaways from this exclusive HR.com Research Institute research, please read the complete report here:  

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