Join America Back to Work, a weekly podcast, video, and blog series that covers timely and relevant topics affecting the labor market and workforce with industry experts. The series includes recruiting, hiring, retention, employee satisfaction, customer service, background screenings, and more.
The Rise of the HR Specialist (And How They Differ From the Generalist)
Most believe that the first-ever human resources department (a “personnel department” at the time) was founded in 1901 by the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio, after a series of disastrous employee strikes, lockout, and quality control issues.
From there, the formalization and standardization of HR practices gained momentum throughout the 20th century with the expansion of industrialization and the growth of large corporations. During that time, the near-simultaneous rise of trade unions and personnel management departments within companies laid the groundwork for the formal discipline of human resources.
The Birth of HR Specialists
But a lot has changed since then. Since the 20th century, human resources has transformed from a highly administrative department to a strategic function that drives organizational success. In the early days, HR professionals in personnel departments focused primarily on administrative tasks, such as payroll management, recordkeeping, training, and compliance with labor regulations, and were largely considered a support function rather than a strategic partner.
However, as organizations began to recognize the critical power that effective people management plays in achieving business goals, the HR profession underwent a significant paradigm shift. HR professionals actively help steer an organization’s strategic direction, working closely with top-level executives and managers on key business objectives.
Some of those objectives—that have grown in importance to employers over the years—include attracting and retaining talent, managing and mitigating risk, and improving organizational talent—which today’s HR professionals play an active role in. Interestingly, the heightened attention to those categories and business objectives also created a new option–a new “look”– for career paths in HR. Enter the HR specialist.
HR Specialists vs. HR Generalists
To understand the HR specialist, however, first, let’s take a look at the HR generalist.
HR Generalists
HR generalists are versatile, jack-of-all-trades human resources professionals with a wide range of HR skills and expertise across a variety of HR disciplines. Their responsibilities include recruitment and hiring, onboarding, employee relations, diversity, equity, inclusion, performance management, policy implementation, and employee engagement.
The traditional career path for an HR generalist starts with an HR assistant/coordinator position, then moves to an HR manager, HR director/VP, and ends with chief HR or people officer. More senior HR generalists likely have gained their diverse skill-set through an in-house career.
HR Specialists
Rather than working across all human resources and people management disciplines, HR specialists go deep in one discipline to help businesses go deeper (and get better in) that category too. For example, businesses that need help attracting and retaining talent can now hire a recruiting specialist to ensure they find the right person for a particular role (at scale). Employers that need help managing and mitigating risk can hire a compliance specialist or a labor relations specialist. Companies seeking to improve organizational talent can hire a learning and development specialist to upskill employees––and so on.
Specialists possess advanced skills, allowing them to develop and implement strategies that optimize HR processes and outcomes. Some of the most common HR specialties include:
- Compensation and Benefits
- Learning and Development
- Payroll
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Talent Acquisition and Hiring
- Labor and Employee Relations
- Data and Analytics
HR specialists can move up the corporate ladder within their own category. A benefits specialist might start out as a benefits coordinator and grow into a benefits manager. A recruiting specialist might grow from a recruiting coordinator into a VP of talent acquisition (and so on). Many HR specialists expand their skill sets through additional education and certifications.
Collaborative and Complementary
When it comes to HR generalists and specialists, one career path is not better than the other; they both make about the same amount of money over time, and they both unlock exciting career opportunities for HR professionals.
Interestingly, one cannot exist without the other.
Generalists and specialists normally operate in a symbiotic relationship, with each role contributing to the overall success of the HR function and working on some part of managing an organization’s most valuable asset: its people. HR generalists rely on the expertise of HR specialists to address specific challenges or complex issues, while HR specialists benefit from the broader, birds-eye-view perspective and context provided by HR generalists. HR generalists might even assume some specialist responsibilities in smaller organizations or departments with limited resources.
New trends and KPIs are always popping up in human resources, and some of them are here to stay––which means it’s likely that new HR disciplines will emerge over time, and, consequently, new HR specialties will grow in popularity. One day, there might even be an “Artificial Intelligence Specialist” role within the department––to oversee the setup and use of AI-powered human resources tools.
Whatever the specialty, moving into the future, employers should continue to ensure that specialists have access to a well-resourced HR generalist team, and–vice versa–HR generalists have access to the niche expertise of HR specialists in order to unlock the strengths of both roles and effectively support the organization’s workforce needs.