THE NEW

CORPORATE
HR DIRECTOR
20 tips and
20 key skills

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What makes a good corporate HR director? The answer is not simple, we could talk about
leadership, strategic vision, flexibility...but in reality it entails a set of many different skills,
being skilled in different contexts and times, having a global and local vision, knowing what
makes an excellent professional. The Human Capital manager in a multinational must have
different skills, as complex as their own profession. Of course, all of these can worked at
and developed. In this regard, it is important that these professionals be vigilant, because
your post today is highly strategic; good talent management marks the difference between
excellent organizations and those that are left behind. Especially at a moment when it’s
commonly known that it’s so hard to find the right people for each position, and even more
to retain them. In this paper we have collected twenty tips and skills that we consider very
important for a corporate HR director, to guide him or her through developing and improving
skills, on the job day to day, although we could cite many more, of course. Let’s take a look
at them.
THE NEW CORPORATE HR DIRECTOR:
20 TIPS AND 20 KEY SKILLS

STRATEGY MANAGEMENT

PERSONAL COMMUNICATION
SKILLS

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 STRATEGY
1. Manage transformation
Adaptability
SKILL
We live in a changing world; we have gone from
local to global, from the physical to the virtual,
from certainty to uncertainty. A “liquid time”,
quoting the words of the sociologist, Zygmut
Bauman. The key competence to work in this
context is the “ability to adapt to change”. If
the only certainty these days is that everything
changes; then it’s useless to turn a blind eye
to the new emerging realities, instead we must
grab and embrace each new scenario fearlessly.

2. Predict the future

Vision SKILL
This isn’t about the art of prediction. Forecasting the
future is also about managing change, detecting
emerging trends before they take root, and anticipating
any situation. It’s about going that one step further.
There’s no perfect formula on how. Just be constantly
curious, forever alert to the local and global reality,
read different media, study trends, analyze different
indicators; and travel, travel and walk a lot. As Don
Quixote said, “He, who reads a lot and walk a lot, sees
a lot and knows a lot.”

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 SKILL

3. Strengthen continual learning

Constant learning
None of this makes sense if one doesn’t train
up competencies, and promote global learning
throughout your organization. In the current
“liquid” context we speak of, a key responsibility
of corporate HR management is to make sure
that there is no gap between the employees’
tasks and their level of training to perform them.
It’s interesting to combine traditional training
styles with new trends (MOOCs, e-learning,
webinars, wikis, etc.) in order to build a “global
learning environment”, ideally on a single
platform that is always accessible and nurtures
collective intelligence.

4. Align strategically with management

SKILL Business vision

Behind are the times when each department

worked in isolation. Today, everyone is aware
that the HR department works together with all
other departments and with management. Not
only are they aligned, but also their indicators
have become critical to business management.
And talent management is considered one of
the top three priorities for CEOs worldwide. Stay
alert, because this is how predictive analytics
will play a key role.

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 5. Strengthen HR within the organization

SKILL
Involvement
Good talent management will unquestionably
lead to a positive perception of HR held by
the entire organization. This is the best way to
promote our department internally. However,
the corporate HR director must be astute and
know how to promote his department’s actions,
among both employees and management,
to get them to adopt policies as their own
throughout the entire organization. In this case,
the analytical indicators we spoke of earlier may
be very useful in demonstrating ROI internally.

MANAGEMENT

6. Integrate global with local

SKILL Flexibility

Today more than ever, “glocal” (global-local) has

become the new panacea of any organization.
It’s about having global HR policies, while
integrating local and regional peculiarities. That’s
why a good corporate human resources policy
must be the result of efforts to dialogue and
share business best practices internationally,
without losing sight of the need to promote a
common and inclusive HR culture.

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7. Manage GLOBAL COMPLEXITY

SKILL International vision

Our world is global, so HR managers must
sidestep tactics based on border differences,
and think of their organization as a whole.
International talent management raises
very important and diverse challenges.
One is the great challenge of “talent gap”
or the distance between the skills required
and those found in employees today. This
requires tools for searching the best talent
worldwide, and also knowing how to train
and find the best internal talent. Another key
challenge is talent retention, when we have
very low numbers of truly loyal staff today.

8. Manage diversity

Integration SKILL

It then goes to follow that there’s a need to work

with very diverse teams. Different generations—
milennials bring in a new approach to the current
labor model, demanding greater flexibility on the
job and greater corporate responsibility. Different
nationalities and cultural contexts—this calls for
a different approach to the traditional “expat”
and how employees should receive training for
international mobility very early on, turning this
into a plus for career development rather than an
experience to be compensated with fat benefit
packages.

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9. COUNT ON THE BEST TECHNOLOGY

Technological innovation
SKILL

One of the trump cards for achieving integrated

HR management is to have the technological
tools that facilitate it. A global HR solution—with
one unique record per employee worldwide for
global management throughout the working lives
of employees, from the recruitment process to
full-blown development within the organization—
will greatly facilitate this undertaking. A solution,
which also allows for the different local needs
and integrates these so that we can find out
what is happening in our organization worldwide
in real time and obtain the analytical indicators
required to improve our day to day activities.

10. Boost EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE MANAGER SKILL

One of the things to bear in mind today is the

importance of the “experience” gained both at
the internal and external levels. It’s no longer just
about selling a product, but also the engaging
experience that comes with it. It’s no longer
about only rewarding employees, but also
making their days in the company a pleasurable
activity, satisfying and motivating them. Good
steps towards work-life balance, strengthening
initiative, innovation and creativity in employees
and work flexibility, among others, will help to
create this state of well-being.

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 COMMUNICATION
11. Be a global information and communication source

SKILL Communication
The HR department must not be isolated.
It must also be a source of information for
the entire company and the central hub of
communication. This way, the organization
becomes open with information flowing
freely and boosting communication between
employees. Internal social networks,
communities and shared knowledge centers
are essential, and also help us to reinforce
the improvement of internal skills, the
search for the best talent or mutual support
networks.

12. Keep a marketing focus

brand management SKILL

Nowadays marketing has to be developed
globally across the entire company. A corporate
brand strategy involves the entire organization at
all levels. To a large extent, this requires a much
more multi-functional collaboration than ever.
Setting up close links between the marketing
and HR departments amplifies communication
towards the (respective) customers. A corporate
HR director can play a key role in helping to
develop this chain of brand enhancement that
starts with the organization’s internal values and
culminates with the perception of the values
the company wants customers to experience.
This way marketing techniques also help foster
the development of the strategies of the HR
department itself.

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13. Transmit the corporate identity

SKILL VALUE BROADCASTER

Since one of the fundamental tasks of
the corporate HR director is to transmit
corporate values, this person must reflect
these and be an example of trustworthiness
for the entire organization. Personal skills
are covered in the next point, but with
regards to communication, this especially
involves improving corporate channels, and
give voice to the varied differences from a
global and inclusive perspective.

14. Prioritize the search for the best talent

Employer branding ambassador SKILL

There is still a long way to go in creating a

compelling brand and a strong company
culture. As mentioned earlier, marketing and
HR collaboration is again evident in employer
branding. Collaborating as a whole on brand
strategy, while ensuring the company meets its
commitment, together with how the company
culture breathes daily will enhance talent
recruitment and retention—one of the top priorities
of HR leaders today. It is therefore important to
develop a strategy for selecting global talent with
all the tools for innovation at our disposal (social
recruiting, big data, predictive analytics, etc...).

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15. Manage change in communication
SKILL
In our era we have lived through the last major Social focus
change in communication, we have moved
from mass media to interactive communication
through internet. Communication is a facet added
to every area of our lives through mobile devices.
We cannot just talk of social networks, but rather
a social, multi-channel, multimedia and constant
communication. Our organization must not stay
stuck in the old one-way communication and it
should enhance interaction in all directions and
senses. This is especially critical in a multinational
organization: the corporate HR department must
work to break down the physical barriers that
block these communication modes from taking
place, and enhancing access for all employees
to the same organization-wide resources for
engagement.

PERSONAL SKILLS
16. Exemplify integrity

SKILL
Integrity

As we said earlier, the corporate HR leader

must be an example of the kind of corporate
management he wants to promote. Such that
his actions and decisions must of necessity
be aligned with this management without
contradictions. This implies cultivating an
upright and determined personality. That’s not
to say that one cannot make mistakes, but one
must be capable of rectifying and returning to
the right path when it happens.

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 17. Inspire the entire organization

Leadership SKILL

There’s been much talk about the most important

qualities of a good leader, but it is important
to stress here the relevance of this quality in a
multinational company. Leading all parts of the
organization towards a common goal; managing
diversity and integrating the differences require
a high degree of commitment and charisma.
Inspiring the entire organization, regardless of
geography or cultural circumstances is no easy
task and will require a combination of what we
talked about earlier: stronger communication, the
right technology tools and good management.

18. Be influential

SKILL Persuasion

These days it not enough to be a strategist or

manager, the HR leader at the corporate level
has to be an agent of global change. We are
living in late post-modernity, in which the only
constant is endless change, although this sounds
contradictory. In this context, the HR leader
must be able to influence strategic decisions in
the company for human capital management
to advance in the right direction, and not miss
the boat for transformation. In turn, he must
persuasively sell the need for change across to
all departmental levels of the company.

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19. Inspire trust

SKILL Trustworthiness

More than ever in uncertain times, it is

crucial for the corporate HR leader to build
trust throughout the organization. This is
achieved with a set of different skills, such
as coherence, responsibility, dedication and
strong leadership. It is not easy to manage
uncertainty. Not knowing what will happen in
times of constant change can cause stress,
anxiety or fear in many employees. That’s
why trust in the company must be above all
reinforced at the corporate level.

20. Be flexible and reconcile

Open mindED
SKILL

Today it is vital to be open to change, because as

we have been saying, the remedy is uncertainty.
This forces us to improvise, adapt to new
situations, and always seek to improve on the
current state. All this is impossible if the HR
leader is not open to new ideas, flexible in the
face of circumstances for transformation, and
willing to reconcile all aspects of diversity that
we have been discussing from the start. And as
we mentioned, the keys to this open mind are
insatiable curiosity and constant learning.

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AUTHORS
María José Fraile is the Meta4 Corporate HR
Director with extensive experience in the people
management field, adjusting the HR function to
the different developmental stages of a company:
hyper-growth, mergers and acquisitions,
restructuring, crisis management, among others.
She has also had the opportunity to work directly in
the product line, supporting software application
design, consulting and pre-sales solutions for HR
management and knowledge management.

Bettina Rodríguez graduated in Foreign Trade

and Marketing, and holds an MBA from the
Instituto de Empresa. She has held various
positions in training, pre-sales and marketing. Her
professional career has always developed in the
international environment of B2B companies in
the HR technology sector. She currently manages
the Meta4 Corporate Marketing department.

EDITOR
Carolina Reynoso develops the Meta4 social
media and marketing content strategy for the
Corporate Marketing Department. Her interest
in continuous learning has led her to train in
different disciplines at universities in Madrid,
Paris and Salamanca. She holds a BA in History,
Communication, and a MA in Multimedia
Journalism. In addition to his strong interest in
sociological and communication phenomena, she
is very fond of music and scenical arts.

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