The Crossover of HR and Project Management: 4 Easy Lessons

The success of a business not only relies on its plans and strategies, but also on its people and the projects they accomplish together. To ensure this success, the right people with the right skill set should be designated the right project. More importantly, applying effective human resource and project management tools and techniques will help motivate employees to accomplish their tasks and be properly compensated for their efforts.

Human resource management, a branch of project management, is concerned not only about employees but also about their performance, in terms of project completion within an allotted time. This type of management incorporates both human resource and project management skills. These two functions have similarities; and understanding the roles of both human resource personnel and project managers will help you get the best out of both worlds, to better equip you as a HR manager.

If you're involved in HR management, what lessons can you learn from project management to be effective in your role?

1. Think about needs

A project manager’s motivation when starting a project is the desire to address the client's needs. In the same way, instead of treating a new project merely as a requirement, HR personnel should implement them based on real needs.

To find out the real needs of employees, it would be wise to conduct a company survey from time to time. Or just talk to individuals in person. This will help provide a clear picture of their challenges and needs. Based on the survey results, HR can then plan a solution that will work best for the problems they've found.

2. Delegate properly

One project management strategy to a successful project is proper delegation. Project managers are smart delegators; based on the skills of each member of their team, managers give them different tasks.

Human Resources, though dealing primarily with employee needs, also assign different tasks within the company. To be able to work on all these tasks, HR managers should learn to efficiently delegate tasks to their personnel based on skill. Delegating this way is also a very effective way to train personnel to develop their skills and expertise one the job.

3. Adopt a holistic perspective

When project managers are doing resource planning, they not only try to estimate the time and budget for the project, but also align the project’s deliverables with the available resources to hand. Part of these available resources is knowing the specific skill set of people needed for the project.

This holistic perspective means they can apply resource allocation methods and resource levelling to realistically analyze how the project can be properly scheduled to meet deadlines without overworking the team.
When different tasks overlap and resources are going to be compromised, project managers wisely decide what needs to be prioritized. They also analyze the threats and risks of the project and employ precautionary measures to avoid them.

Moreover, when project managers implement resource scheduling methods, this teaches all team members to adhere to deadlines by implementing the right methodologies to accomplish tasks while using resources efficiently.

If HR can adopt a holistic view as project managers do, they’ll have a clear view of what kind of employees to hire for the company and will also be able to provide more useful training for them.

Because project managers have a holistic view of the project and its scope, HR can consult with them to be able to formulate a clear job description and a proper performance review process. These will ensure employees know exactly what is expected of them, with respect to the project they are assigned to.

At the end of the day, if HR takes time to understand the basics of a project, they’ll be more effective when they’re assigning people to project teams.

4. Never stop learning

Project managers are avid learners, and you should be too. To become more competitive in the business, most project managers acquire a PMP certification. While having this certification won’t make them the best, it will certainly equip them with the right knowledge.

The same goes for HR Managers; there are different Human Resource certifications you can get to show your expertise in the field and industry.