Spend time on self development

The single best thing an employee can do for themselves is investing in their own development, according to a human resources expert.
Milton Steven Owor, an HR consultant with Miphad Business and Human Resources believes that for employees to succeed they must take control of their destiny.

During a training of HR practitioners in Kampala recently, Owor said self development can best be done on the job through seeking knowledge from colleagues and training.

“On any job, there will be colleagues who are more skilled than you are. Learn from them, engage them to help you grow and practically get yourself involved in other projects,” he said.

Owor, who has more than three decades of experience in human resources management, said employees should spend about 30 minutes every day on personal growth.

Miphad works with different HR teams to ensure that HR functions deliver exceptional results for their organisations. “There are people who have jobs that keep them busy from 8am to 7pm but cannot afford 30 minutes of their time on themselves.

Allowing yourself to be busy with a job is like someone who drives a car without fuelling it because they are in a hurry to stop by a fuel station. At one point you will run out of fuel,” he said.

Owor believes that it is for reasons such as lack of personal development that some employees feel frustrated that they are not growing at the workplace or are not getting promotions as fast as they should.

Doing the usual
Many an employee, he says, only think about the day-to-dayjob such as getting to office in the morning, answer a few emails, have lunch and leave in the evening, year-in-year out.

That means the same profile you have today is the same profile you will have at the end of the five years.

“Other people who take more ownership of the profile they have today will have improved after five years. It is not because the manager doesn’t like you but because you have not taken 30 minutes of your time to try and develop yourself,” Owor, who recently left the position of HR director at Africa - General Electric, says.

The HR function
After traversing the globe first as an HR manager for British American Tobacco (Equatorial Africa as well as West and Central Africa) and Royal Dutch Shell (Anglophone) among others, Mr Owor now believes that the HR profession occupies a very strategic point in any organisation.

Often some HR practitioners lack some of the required skills to do their job and take a back seat and wait to communicate what the CEO wants to say something.
However Owor says, “HR managers have to be in a driver’s seat and to be on it comfortably is by having the requisite skills and competence to do it. Because some people do not have these skills they kind of shy away from being on the frontline.” He advises them to understand the pivotal role they play and get the requisite skills and competence to play that role.

“We do not want to hear that HR is about signing sacking letters. The HR role is a lot more strategic than just signing appointment letters,” he adds.

Leadership development
Sometimes people underestimate the impact that leadership can have on the progress of a company. How do you manage your people so that they feel valued, engaged and part of an organisation? How do you manage your people so that they feel that your success is organisation’s success?