Soft Skills & Leadership

H.R. Insight for Managers

Soft Skills & Leadership – HR Insight for Managers is written as an open letter and offers provocative ideas and solutions for HR practitioners assisting business managers with growth, development and diplomacy. It's a journey through the traditional HR disciplines and meant to inspire and motivate business managers to gain personal value and strength in current roles. Mike Boissonneault provides a comprehensive and thought provoking essay on the various HR disciplines and written in standard business language. It is a bridge to connect and bond HR professionals with their business managers. In fact, the book can also be a refresher for HR practitioners. For managers who can't afford to go off site for developmental training, they can learn about HR specialization, and will immediately create a better respect for, and support of, their HR partnerships. Also, for aspiring HR staff, this book can whet their appetite and inspire them to see the depth and breadth of what HR is about and how the business community can embrace their best practices. Written by an HR executive, who worked on both sides of this business relationship in a large corporation, Mike gives a fresh and diplomatic review of the soft skills necessary for best management practices. This book is a virtual tour of HR disciplines, explained with a business manager's purview. It's written to inspire business leaders to embrace the collaborative efforts and support of the HR industry while creating a valuable knowledge base and tool for themselves. There are numerous HR organizations and consulting companies who offer thought leadership for the HR communities. Reference sites are current, relevant and inspiring with case studies and other information debated, negotiated and resolved. It's a great environment for HR to share with their business managers, to help find common respect for each other's roles and responsibilities. Blogs, articles and podcasts are important pieces of content to support many decisions in today's business climate. Many of these sites, as Mike points out, are free of charge. The book sets the table by presenting the current gap in soft skill or HR leadership within the business manager's early years. Those formative manager years are typically shaped by poor time management and over-burdened schedules. The book covers some of the reality of being an early manager and the personal changes and commitment associated with the role. Each of the various HR disciplines is explained and correlated between the HR terminology and normal business administrative language. Starting with business design, (org charting) the book shows how a company balances roles, titles and training alignment. The soft skills are evident in areas such as Performance Management, Diversity and Talent Acquisition, for example. The book deals with the various systems, programs and guidelines of how to gather, store and delete sensitive employee data. The employee life cycle starts in organizational design and discussed. Managers can learn from HR leaders in how to create an annual calendar of business events to attend to, featuring performance cycles. Today's talent acquisition is thoroughly reviewed and in step by step fashion. In the book, Mike explains the stages of activity required to hire as this is a very expensive undertaking and more expensive problem if there is a bad hire. Another significant discussion in the book is the discerning between the terms management and leadership. The soft skills and competencies of a leader are so important to note. There is a strong sentiment for creating more leadership and recognizing those qualities as important as any of the organizational skills. Technology and systems will shape the roles in the future as HR and business managers communicate differently. These HR professionals are there explicitly to support business, programs, growth and development and need management support for success. This book opens the mind to