As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success.
This week, we had a great conversation with Jaime Rivero, Regional HR Director at DJO. Jaime began his career as a Recruitment Intern with El Corte Ingles, Spain’s largest Retailer before moving into Generalist HR leadership roles.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
Towards the end of my Psychology degree I realised I wanted to redirect my studies towards a business perspective. At the time a psychology degree in Spain was five years. So, the last two years of my studies, I decided to specialise in business because I thought that was more useful.
When I finished the degree. I did a one year internship with a consultancy that works with the government. During that internship I realised that my knowledge at that time was quite limited. But at the same time it also sparked my interest in HR and Business. It was at this point I decided to study my master’s in human resources.
After completing my Masters, I started my HR career as an HR Intern with El Corte Ingles, the biggest retailer in Spain. They told me that they had a place available in the Recruitment team. I think it was a very good experience, it gave me a good grounding. You can learn a lot about HR in Recruitment. It’s like the beginning of an employee’s journey with a company, so it gave me a great overview.
From there I moved to a Spanish consultancy that was basically recruitment and selection. Working in a consultancy at that time in my career was great. It gave me a sense of working hard in a high demand, fast paced business.
I went from Recruitment into Internal Communications and soon after I had the opportunity to move to Ernst and Young and became HR Business Partner for their Barcelona office.
Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
For me in a global role, the key thing is to combine the global approach with the local scope. You have to have a very similar approach across all the different countries. For multinational companies, you need the same type of procedures, but at the same time you have to be able to flex and adapt to every country because every country will have it’s own peculiarities. Not only in terms of employment law but also in terms of culture and even the history of the company in that country can have an impact as well. So, I think that for me is the most difficult part; to be able to combine our global approach, to set up a standard procedure and be able to move the whole organisation in the same direction whilst also adapting to those local ways of doing things.
It can also be challenging to create the same employee experience in all of the different countries. From the recruitment process to the exit interview, you need to be consistent in what you are setting up across the different countries.
“What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
“Say yes more times than no. Sometimes you have to say no, but normally if you have an opportunity, if you have a project, even if you’d don’t really know how to do it 100%. What matters is that you are motivated, and you will learn through the process. You always learn through the process.
Jaime joined DJO in January 2019 as Regional HR Director for the APAC region and is responsible for driving forward the Talent Management initiatives for the International Business of DJO.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.