An Exploratory Study on the Personal Qualities/Characteristics expected by the Organisations for Key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study explores a gap in the empirical knowledge with regard to the personal qualities/characteristics expected by the organisations for key HRM jobs in the field of HRM in Sri Lanka. The research questions of this exploratory study were: What are the personal qualities/characteristics needed or expected by the organizations which are operating in Sri Lanka for key HRM jobs? And is it possible to develop a sort of illustration to understand personal qualities/characteristics expected for key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka? In order to answer the research questions systematically, an exploratory study was conducted by using eight key HRM job related employment advertisements appeared in the Sunday Observer newspaper for the period of 5 years (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010). Time horizon of the study was longitudinal and HRM related job advertisement was the unit of analysis of the study. Comprehensive and systematic content analysis along with descriptive statistics was applied to generate results and findings. The results of the study revealed that the personal qualities/characteristics are one of the very important requirements in selecting people for key HRM jobs in Sri Lanka. At the same time it differs from key job to another key job. When considering the personal qualities for the selected key HRM jobs, the findings revealed that there are 39 personal qualities related to the post of HR Director, 29 personal qualities related to the Group HR Manager, 41 personal qualities related to Head of HRM, 98 personal qualities related to the HR Manager, 81 personal qualities related to the HR Executive, 50 personal qualities related to the HR Officer, 32 personal qualities related to the Training Manager, and 15 personal qualities related to the post of Recruitment Manager. With regard to the personal qualities eleven (11) key dimensions of personal qualities were identified in addition to the number of personal qualities including attitude related, personality related, good character related, team related, professional related, business related, people related, performance related, physical appearance related, leadership traits related and HR/HRM related aspects. The implications of these findings are useful to all Sri Lankan Journal of Human Resource Management An Exploratory Study on the Personal… 33 stakeholders and professionals of HRM especially in developing good professionalism among current HR professionals in Sri Lanka and prospective personnel who wish to establish a career in HRM.