Cornerstone of Successful HR Foundation...

As an HR professional, our key job is to attract, retain and grow human capital. However, to do that, it would be an added advantage if we have an exposure to other functions i.e. Finance, Sales, Marketing, Quality etc.

There are 4 key part of HR value chain as outlined in the picture i.e. Talent Acquisition, Organizational Development, Employee Engagement and HR Service Delivery which includes entire spectrum of HR transaction including compliance with law of the land.

To build successful career in HR, it is imperative that we build depth and breadth in each of these and subset of these strands and deliver consistently on defined CTQ's (Critical to Quality).

If we skip any of these and somehow manage to reach to leadership positions in HR, we will find it difficult to strategize and even if we strategize, it would be difficult to visualize the entire execution phase.

Most of strategies fail not because they lack perspicacity and sound judgement on the part of strategist, however, they fail as it is difficult to execute them and the person who strategize without going through the rigmarole, fails to anticipate the bottlenecks in execution. 

I have seen HR People more willing to do employee engagement / Organizational development related roles and shy away from gettting their hands around transcational spectrum of HR which is a backbone of any HR organization. 

In my view, aspiring HR professipnals must build the efficiencies, depth and breadth around all these strands. This will help them in the long run and catapult them into "hands on" HR leaders where they will not demand, however, command the respect of their staff.