Risk is an inevitable part of any organisation. Every decision or activity a business engages in attracts some form of risk, and it is the job of a Risk Manager to navigate the company around these financial and operational obstacles. As a result, excellent risk management is now a necessity for every successful business. Risk manager career benefits include a great salary, with lengthy retention time and strong potential for promotion.
Discover the skills necessary to work in risk management, and how your established Human Resources skills could set you up for a successful career in risk management.
What does a risk manager do?
The role of a risk management team is to supply sections of the organisation with in-depth analysis, reports, and advice on risk policies and models regarding operational risk, marketing strategies, and external risks to the business. Broken down on a practical level, risk managers are required to evaluate, research and then recommend suitable strategies on how businesses can overcome risk. Risk managers must also advise the amount of risk a company should be willing to take.
Tasks that make for sound risk management include maintaining insurance records for policies and claims, reviewing new contracts, creating continuity plans to limit risk and implementing health and safety methods. If you are a methodical person who likes to tick all the boxes and go above and beyond in your research, you will be well suited to carrying out these tasks.
Reporting on risk can occur across a multitude of levels within an organisation; therefore, it’s often necessary for a risk manager to adapt their reports or research to their audience. From educating the board of directors, to changes in the law or marketplace or educating individual employees on their workplace risk, risk management is a role that will embed you into the company culture and allow you to build relationships with team members from every level of an organisation.
HR skills in risk management
One of the best reasons to leap from Human Resources to risk management is the transferrable core skills across each career. Common attributes between the two roles include excellent organisational skills, analytical skills, commercial awareness, the ability to understand broader business issues and importantly, outstanding communication skills. All these skills guide the stages of successful HR risk management, including research, evaluation and presentation of what risk is and how to overcome it for the betterment of the company.
Another overlap between human resources and risk management is the ability to operate imperially to question the organisations internal and external systems of operation, ss both jobs help to ensure the ongoing smooth sailing of any business.
Training and learning:
Upskilling the organisation’s employees is a key factor in both roles. Risk managers must inform and educate so prior experience in training employees can be crucial.
Recruiting and staffing:
There is numerous risk involving the personnel within an organisation. HR experience in understanding what kinds of people are best suited to a particular role will put you in good stead for considering staff behaviour from a risk management angle.
Labour and employee relations:
Both roles place a high emphasis on the safety of workers as well as the ethical output of the business. Not only in the product or service that workers deliver, but the internal workplace environment too.
Career benefits in risk management
Exploring a career in risk management is a rewarding pathway with the potential for longer-term success. A report from indeed.com states that the average salary for a risk manager in Australia sits at $120,000 per annum. Risk managers also take comfort in the stability their career offers with the average tenure for a risk manager lasting 4-6 years at a business, well above the average length of employment in Australia in recent years.
Average salary for a risk manager in Australia sits at $120,000 per annum. Click To TweetOpportunities for promotion are readily available, and large Australian companies employ senior risk managers on a salary of $160,000 per annum. The US Bureau of Statistics indicates that risk management is a growing career worldwide, predicting a 19% growth over the next six years, meaning that overseas opportunities exist for ambitious risk managers.
Risk management is a skill that is well valued within a business. If you enjoy the tasks outlined above, then a risk manager career logical pathway is a sensible choice from an existing position in Human Resources. A risk manager career in full of daily variety and perfect for anyone who wants to use a unique skill set on new challenges. Choose this role if you enjoy responsibility, are willing to gain excellent communication skills, have an aptitude for analysis and like working with a wide range of people to achieve a common goal. Use your human resources skills to take your career to the next level with a Diploma of Human Resources Management (BSB50618) which includes crucial risk management units.