Who Is Better in Human Resources? Men vs. Women…

Since there’s a timeless dispute between men and women concerning who is better at something, I decided to fuel it as well by asking the challenging question of “Who is a better HR person – men or women?”  Tough one…

Well, to be able to decide upon that, let’s see what a real HR person should be like:

• Should be sociable since work involves people every day;
• Must like working with people;
• Must be patient and understanding of others’ problems;
• Must be empathetic and must easily sense people’s feelings;
• Must see below the surface and by that I mean being able to read hidden body language, gestures, expressions below standard verbal language – people don’t always say what they mean – an HR person must be able to get that;
• Must be well organized since the volume of work is quite high in all areas of HR;
• Must be a good mediator quite often; since a lot of people have trouble communicating, HR must help them do that;
• Must be a good listener;
• Must be always ready to help;
• Must be a good diplomat – do the job even if you don’t like the people you work with;
• Must understand that inside the company, the employees are your clients and that clients’ needs come first – I really dislike this one, but it’s true unfortunately so you must deal with it; you know –client is king, client is always right and all that;

That’s more or less all there is to it. Foreign language skills or PC skills are useful, but not always top priority in this job. There are people who can help you with reporting or translations. Working with people is your main job.

And to make it more interesting, I would like to tell you about men and women from Alan Pease’s perspective. This is a fragment from one of my articles on www.lady-driver.com:

“Allan Peasein Why men don't listen and women can't read maps (very smart and funny video showing years of experience in the field - you can find it on YouTube):
Women:

• focus more on relationships and feelings rather than on facts; better social skills than men;
• can't point North;
• have a brain that is more complex;
• are multitasking - can perform more simultaneous non-related tasks because their brain has more connections;
• have poor sense of direction;
• can't read maps; have the tendency to rotate them to face the direction they are traveling;
• estimate distances poorly and need great exercise to improve; 
• have parking issues and speed and distance estimation problems;
• can use both hands simultaneously without much difficulty;
• sometimes have difficulties telling left hand from right hand;
• see better at short distances rather than long distances;
• have good peripheral eye sight ranging up to 60 degrees;
• can't look at information three-dimensionally - poor visual skills;
• prefer to park in a large space and walk rather than squeeze the car in small dangerous spots.”

Some are not relevant, but I preferred to include all just for you to understand women better and look for Alan’s video.

Now, coming back, since there aren’t so many men in the field, women must be better, right? In all the companies I have worked for, I had only 2 men colleagues in HR out of around 20. Also, I have never been at a workshop or conference where there were more than 10% HR men. Well?

Women must be better since they have better communication and social skills. This however doesn’t mean that man should completely stay out. A lot of HR men are very good at what they do. But women rule in HR as men rule in jobs like air traffic controller, pilot or aerospace engineer. 

Just to make it fun, I have placed a small survey on the left of the article. Please reply with your opinion concerning this debate. Who do you think is better in HR? Men or women?

July 8th: Survey is closed - please find results below:

 

Thanks and take care,

Geo