Dear colleague,
You want to know how to become effective and successful HR in a company having active Union.
First and foremost, you try to understand thoroughly the business of the company, technology used , competition and financial health to know it's bearing on the critical HR functions like talent acquisition, compensation , performance standards, learning and development etc.
Apart from good grounding in mastering nuts and bolts of HR functions in critical areas stated above, you should have good grasp of job descriptions of key personnel in important cross functional roles, the standards of performance required to out perform competition and the compensation trends in the industry etc.
You should be a HR professional on whom both managment and employees depend for advice, guidance when in challenging situations.
You should be computer saavy, good networker, empathetic listener , catalyst, Mind reader and go- getter.
You may gain lot of insight if you get to interact face to face with the successful HR professionals and learn from them the ropes of HR.
Well, above is not exhaustive list but are some trigger thoughts for you to build on.
Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR-Consultant