Are people skills and people management skills the same thing? The question arises from a recent DPG blog that identifies “people skills” as the number one requirement for HR professionals to be outstanding, and explains this by saying. “HR spends so much time dealing with people and people issues, so good people management skills are essential.” This suggests they are, but it is definitely a premise worth challenging. In fact there are several things that bear challenging in all this.
“People skills” are more social. They suggest the ability to get on well with other people: someone who is a “people person.” That’s the term my wife always uses when she has a good shopping experience. She identifies this by the fact that the salesperson interacted with her at a personal level rather than by focusing on the product or the reason she was there. And I am sure most of us operate the same way; in fact it supports the sales adage, “People buy from people.”
“People management skills” on the other hand, implies an adeptness at getting others to do what you want . It fits in better with the age-old command and control model and perpetuates a tradition of hierarchy that, if you think about it, places the other party in an inferior position. Thus it is actually rather demeaning.
In light of this, which requirement do you think is more appropriate for an HR professional?
Even this question is perhaps deeper than you realise. That is because it opens up a probe of the HR role: to what extent does HR interact with people? And, how involved is HR in people management?
If you think about it, HR is predominantly a bureaucratic function. It is primarily concerned with rules, regulations and conformity. As such people skills are not necessarily a pre-requisite. Nor, come to that, are people management skills other than to the extent that:
- HR shapes the people management demands on others; and
- HR is required to administer its own functional activities.
The challenge posed thus provides a good starting point for the HR profession to challenge themselves. Not least because the report can be said to imply, from the very first requirements to be outstanding, that HR is itself confused and does not itself fully understand its own role.
Bay is the founder and director of Zealise, and the creator of the ‘Every Individual Matters’ organisational culture model that helps transform organisational performance and bottom-line results. Bay is also the author of several books, including “Lean Organisations Need FAT People” and “The 7 Deadly Toxins of Employee Engagement.”