1. 34 35ISSUE 16.6 HRMASIA.COM ISSUE 16.6 HRMASIA.COM
A CAREER IN HR A CAREER IN HR
While the profession itself comprises of many career
options, HR often demands practitioners choose between
becoming either a generalist or a function-specific
specialist. Should HR professionals be deeply immersed
in one niche function, or should they become a jack of all
trades? HRM looks deeper
After starting out in sales and then moving into marketing,
Michelle Phipps, HR Director, Asia-Pacific, Brown-Forman,
later moved into HR projects which she says gave her a “business
dialect” that would eventually help her throughout her HR career.
“I moved into HR projects where I could watch HR generalists
and specialists work together to deliver business results and
growth,” Phipps explains.
She then made the switch to a role that was heavily specialised
in education, training and development before finally settling
down to build a longer-term career as a generalist.
“As a generalist, I’ve worked with some brilliant specialists
including organisational psychologists who have built
transformational leadership programmes and astute diversity
experts who have been right on point,” says Phipps.
“My studies are varied, from a Master of Arts in HR, to a PhD in
Communications and a keen interest in psychology and economics.
I prefer the ‘helicopter view’ of the generalist, but also greatly value
the expertise and focus of the specialist.”
Meanwhile, Ravi Bhogaraju, Head of HR in Asia for Archroma, says
he began his career as a management trainee before moving onto
specialist roles and then shuttling back to a generalist position.
“This movement between generalist and specialist roles in
my career has developed my knowledge and perspective from a
number of different viewpoints. A holistic viewpoint is critical
to creating sustainable impact and ultimately gaining credibility
with your stakeholders,” he shares.
Tarun Gulrajani, Head of HR – Asia-Pacific at Rehau Corporation,
says his HR journey has “definitely evolved”.
“I consider myself now to be a businessman first and a HR leader
second. If I don’t understand the business or if I’m not able to grasp
the challenges or pain points that a business is experiencing, I’m
not going to be truly effective as a HR leader,” he explains.
Gulrajani reveals he commenced his career as an HR specialist
in talent acquisition and mobility, then took on roles in learning
and development. Later, he moved on to become a HR specialist
in compensation and benefits.
He is now on the move again, this time to an HR generalist role.
“However, it’s a full circle now as I consider myself to
be a HR specialist focusing on being a strategic HR Leader
influencing organisational development and organisational
transformation,” says Gulrajani.
Where is the value?
So while both HR generalist and specialist roles are required
in today’s HR scene, which HR function adds more value, or is
more significant?
Phipps says this is a difficult question, as both generalists
and specialists add value in their own ways using the knowledge
they possess.
“In my experience, smaller companies will start with a generalist
who will get to know the business, build the organisation
strategy, and then contract or hire the specialists as necessary
to help the business deliver on its people plan,” she cites.
SPECIALIST?
HR GENERALIST
OR Sham Majid
sham@hrmasia.com.sg

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A CAREER IN HR
36 ISSUE 16.6 HRMASIA.COM
A CAREER IN HR
Personal observations
Although Bhogaraju stresses that it is
important for HR professionals to amass
as much knowledge as possible whether
they are HR generalists or specialists,
he says generalists can become lazier
in knowledge acquisition as there are a
number of different areas they need to
cover. They also know that specialists
are there to back them up.
“In that sense, they carry the risk of
developing blind spots of knowledge and
will eventually provide subpar advice to
their businesses,” Bhogaraju warns.
Specialists on the other hand, he says,
are great in their field but struggle with
a broader view of the business and this
impacts other aspects of the people agenda.
“They carry the risk of ‘tunnel vision’
and may also eventually provide subpar
advice. Irrespective of where their starting
point is – professionals have to make a
constant effort to be well-versed in their
thinking and advice,” Bhogaraju states.
Gulrajani says there are no limiting
factors whether one chooses to be an HR
generalist or specialist.
“It’s your attitude that can create the
pros and cons,” he says.
Phipps meanwhile, says she loves
being a generalist because she gets
to drive the overall organisational
capability strategy of the business.
“The ‘con’ about this is that the
generalist can be ‘a jack of all trades and
master of none’, particularly if there is
no specialist around to provide in-depth
analysis,” she shares.
However, she says a downside to being
a specialist is that unless the company
is big enough so that there is a full
department of specialists, control over
strategy is limited.
Is pay a factor?
Does salary play a key role as to
designed to add value as an expertise centre.
In a relatively smaller or medium-sized
organisation, generalists are more common
as they need to assist the business on a
number of different topics,” he explains.
Which is in demand?
According to Morgan McKinley, 2015 saw
a shortage of experienced HR specialists,
with many positions left unoccupied in
Singapore.
Nevertheless, Gulrajani says whether
an HR generalist or specialist is more
appealing for hire, depends entirely on
an organisation’s size and needs.
“There is no cookie-cutter solution,”
he says.
“For some organisations with a large
employee base, complex matrix structure
and personnel in multiple geographies, a
hybrid solution of having HR generalists
in every location and HR specialists in a
centralised location may work well.”
Phipps says businesses usually start
with a generalist who has the capacity
and experience to know the HR tools
and practices externally, and who can
then build the people strategy from the
business strategy.
However, she believes it is imperative
that specialists are available either in
a contract, consultancy or centralised
capacity to then be able to advance
specific areas.
“It’s difficult to say which one is
more appealing unless the strategy and
business direction is clear,” says Phipps.
“Some generalists are great strategists
for instance, while I’ve also seen great
specialists transform a business’
leadership and culture with the right
tools and programmes.”
Bhogaraju says what’s increasingly
important is that HR professionals
understand the business they are working
with and how it makes money. Only then,
can they use that understanding to create
effective initiatives and solutions that
plug in well to create impact.
“It is becoming less important what label
you have. What is more important is how
you can add value to the business,” he says.
In that sense, Bhogaraju feels that a
well-rounded generalist has a shorter
learning curve.
He says Singapore has a rich talent pool
and organisations can find candidates of
different levels of expertise and skills.
“That’s very positive,” he says.
“In general, HR professionals at most
levels struggle with business acumen,
keeping pace with the needs of the
business, and creating simpler and effective
solutions that create impact here and now.”
While Gulrajani notes that Singapore is
a regional hub for many organisations, he
says this can foster an unconscious bias
towards HR specialists that understand
the Asia-Pacific region being based
there, with HR generalists being based in
remote or regional offices.
Phipps also feels that HR has evolved
to the point where specialists richly
complement the work of generalists.
“Instead of payroll, training or
recruitment, generalists are now much
more immersed in the business as a
‘commercial’ function. Specialists too
have evolved so that they are required to
know best practice externally and partner
with generalists and the business to build
growth,” she adds.
Phipps stresses that in today’s HR field,
both generalists and specialists must have
business partnership skills, influencing
expertise, and commercial acumen in
order to challenges and build productive
relationships within the business.
“I believe it is competency, and
building productive relationships
that will differentiate between a good
generalist or specialist and a not-so-
good generalist or specialist,” she says.
Gulrajani feels that adding value to
any business and providing true business
partnering is a “mindset” and not merely
a “function”.
“It’s like asking a sales team whether
business development personnel or
customer service personnel are more
important,” he says.
“To truly wow the customer, both have
a role to play and are equally important.”
On the other hand, Bhogaraju believes
the value of a generalist or specialist
comes from how they are deployed
within the context of the organisation
and its own HR function.
“In a large organisation that has a
number of resources that can be organised
and deployed, a specialist function can be
What are the chief differences between
HR generalists and specialists?
While it is hard to ascertain which role is more important, there is no doubt there is a clear distinction
when it comes to the job functions of an HR generalist or specialist.
AccordingtoTarunGulrajani,HeadofHR,Asia-PacificatRehauCorporation,HRspecialistsgenerallyhaveagreater
depthofknowledgeintheirareaofexpertise,suchasincompensationandbenefits,orlearninganddevelopment.
He says HR generalists, meanwhile, usually possess the depth and breadth of knowledge on some, but
not all aspects of HR.
“A HR generalist could be doing payroll, while also assisting in hiring of certain talent, in addition to
conducting employee orientation or certain training sessions,” states Gulrajani.
Based on the experience of Michelle Phipps, HR Director, Asia-Pacific, Brown-Forman, generalists have
broader HR experience and are usually the first people that the business connects with for advice and
consultation on people initiatives.
She says the specialists on the other hand have deeper and often rich data and external best practice
expertise in specific areas.
“In the past, for me, specialists largely dealt with the business via the generalists. Now, I think it is more
common for both generalists and specialists to blur the lines of each other’s areas and each represent the HR
function to serve the purposes of the business,” adds Phipps.
whether an HR professional aspires to
become an HR generalist or specialist?
Gulrajani says “that may definitely
be the case”, especially in HR
analytical positions, which he says
are becoming more sought after as
organisations see the value of analysis
of HR data.
“However by the same token, I have
seen certain HR business partners
being paid equally well as they
have both the depth and breadth of
experience of various HR functions and
can truly value-add to the departments
they partner with,” he adds.
Bhogaraju feels that compensation
is a factor that plays into decision-
making more than it actually should.
Phipps says compensation is not a
crucial consideration for her.
“Every generalist or specialist I’ve
known does it to fuel their passion; not
because of the money,” she says.