A top business institute asked 779 executives what they wanted from an HR manager. And they had answers. Boy, did they have answers.

In a 28-page report, the Human Capital Institute issued the results of its survey, in which executives were asked to rate the proficiency of HR managers in key business and leadership skills and what they’d like to see HR take responsibility for. Here are the highlights:

• On HR’s ability at reporting, measuring and analyzing data, only 26% of the execs said their HR managers were at the “expert” level. Some 30% described HR as “novice” in those skills. The rest said HR was “intermediate.”
• For talent management and mastering HR technology, only 22% gave a rating of “expert” to HR. “Novice” came in at 20% and “intermediate” made up the rest of the reponses.
• In the important category of financial acumen, HR got the following ratings: “expert,” 24%; “novice,” 21%; “intermediate,” 55%.
• Overall rating of HR in terms of proficiency and knowledge: “expert,” 21%; “novice,” 24%; “intermediate,” 55%.

Given that the “expert” rating consistently hit a range of 22% to 26% in the execs’ rating, clearly they saw room for improvement in HR’s performance.

The good news is that you now know what top managers want in their HR people - and what desirable, and rare, skills will get you noticed. The top dogs are looking for HR managers who understand money, technology and data analysis.

See a PDF of the full report (free registration required).

Tags: hr technology, human capital institute, leadership, performance