“If you can, find a mentor to support you. 9 times out of 10, the calls you make will be right, but it’s good to know for sure that you’re on the right track. Confidence is king in a lot of HR Leadership, and it will prepare you to move onto whatever your next challenge may be.” – Hannah Reid, Senior HR Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Gartner, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.
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 Hannah Reid at Gartner, who began her career as a Personnel Officer at the Employment Tribunals Office before moving to the City of London Police in 2006 to work as an HR Manager, later ascending the ranks to Head of HR. In 2014, Hannah joined the team at Allianz Insurance to work as a Regional HR Account Manager, moving to a role as Regional Head of Human Capital for the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordics at Oliver Wyman in May 2016. In April 2019, Hannah transitioned to her current role as Senior HR Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Gartner.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
I originally studied Journalism at university, but after a long placement year as part of my studies, I realised that I wanted to work with people and build relationships with them rather than stay in the siloed environment of journalism. Because of that, I started looking for HR roles after I graduated, and came across a position within the Employment Tribunals Service. I went for it, got the job, and haven’t looked back since.
I think that what made HR stick for me was the diversity. I liked journalism because I enjoyed being able to have an influence and bring people together, and I think that HR has lots of synergies with that. In that, I found that I was able to develop content that followed on from legislation and had a massive impact on people. As far as a foundation in HR goes, seeing legislation at work, being allowed to sit in the room with Chairman and Lay members as they made their judgements taught me how it all came together at the same time giving me the opportunity to work as a generalist travelling across the country. When tribunals moved from being under the Department of Trade and Industry to the Department of Constitutional Affairs, it triggered a really interesting change programme that I’m glad I got to be a part of, but also severely limited the autonomy of my role, so I decided it was time to move on shortly afterwards.
My time with the City of London Police is where the bulk of my career took shape. It solidified my passion for HR, and I found that I was able to develop myself as a practitioner whilst getting the qualifications I hadn’t felt ready to do at the Tribunals —my FCIPD, a postgraduate diploma in Human Resource Management, and a Masters in Employee Relations. My studies focused on the lack of representation of Black and Minority Ethnic people in the Police, which led me to work with the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers lead for Race and Equality as well as the National Black Police Association. That was one example of many that helped me understand my influences and where I wanted my career to go.
Although at that time they were struggling with being branded as institutionally racist, as a Black woman, that wasn’t my experience of the Police at all. It was an incredibly supportive environment; I was able to shape and influence the experience of others by being invited to have a seat at the table with the most senior Officers. It also shaped and drove my own career, which turned out to be less about traditional HR and more varied in what I was delivering. Eight years might be considered a long tenure for someone so junior in their career, but working with the City of London Police was a constantly evolving picture. I was learning and learning, and it was really challenging at times, but it gave me so much opportunity that I wouldn’t change it for anything.
I was given so much exposure as a HR Manager there that the progression to Head of HR was almost natural, but it would not have happened if I had not have proved my capability and had the support of senior leaders. No amount of deputising could have prepared me for the role, and I think that goes for any job. You might see elements that you think you can do from the outside looking in, but once you occupy the seat, you see the demands of the job in a very different way. Transitioning into that higher leadership role taught me a lot that has helped me lead ever since—I learned how to integrate change projects we’d done in the past to help us improve the ones we undertook in the present, as well as the true importance of leveraging my team to help us achieve our goals. I had the support of some amazing leaders who believed in me and gave me the confidence to be successful.
Around the time I finished a large restructuring project resulting from the Government’s comprehensive spending review, I spoke to my manager about what was next for me as I was under 30 and knew I would not spend another 8 years at the Police. I was given some other great projects to lead and she then left to work for Allianz, and a year later, she called me to see if I was still thinking of leaving and recommended some vacancies in Allianz. I trusted her opinion and really wanted to get into a more commercial environment, so I went for it. The job I secured was a step down from the Head role, but it was a great way to cut my teeth in the private sector. I had the opportunity to make a real impact very quickly, and it was fantastic to be immediately embraced by senior management. The HR team was so well respected at Allianz, and for good reason, my integration was seamless and I loved my time there.
Having the breadth of HR knowledge that I did towards the end of my time at Allianz, I initiated another career conversation about what was next for me. I had delivered so much in HR and achieved some great accolades but I wanted to branch out into a role with an international remit and learn how businesses function and perform from a HR perspective internationally. I also wanted to lead an international team and harness how you engage and motivate an international team—all of which I ultimately did in my next role at Oliver Wyman. I learned a lot of skills there that continue to have a massive impact on how I work today, and I also got to utilise an executive coach, which was life-changing for me. It gave me the opportunity to really look at what I enjoyed doing and where I wanted my career to go now I was back in a senior position. I also learned the power of recognition through awards, which boosted my brand externally but interesting internally too. I was being heavily head hunted and that only increased after the awards and I accepted a position in my role at Gartner and a voluntary role sitting on the HR committee for Ravensbourne University which I do in my spare time.
My current role has allowed me to broaden my international experience further, as well as pursue my interest in rapidly growing a company as a Senior Director. Being inspired by the leaders at Gartner, especially my current manager, this role was the natural next step in my career and it has been absolutely the right decision for me. There’s nothing more interesting for me than what I’m doing right now, which is all about generating profitable growth and moving the future forward.
Would you say your HR Leadership career has developed by design, or has it been more of an organic process?
I’d say my career is the result of opportunity meeting strategic focus. If I hadn’t shared with people what I wanted to do next, none of those opportunities they recommended to me would have materialised.
The other thing that has helped is being really clear about what I need from my next steps when changing roles rather than just chasing titles. I’ve always tried to network with people who are great at developing others and apply their philosophies to myself. I don’t chase money, I try to go for work that fulfils me, interests me, and speaks to my passions.
In any role I take on, I try and set myself goals outside my day-to-day responsibilities, then map out exactly how I’m going to achieve them. There’s a lot to be said for trying to find places where you can add value efficiently rather than just delivering what’s expected of you—it allows you to demonstrate your competency and establish a good reputation for yourself.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
My focus within Gartner at the moment is on talent development. Obviously, we share the sector-wide concern around the war for talent, but at the moment, our primary focus is on developing our talent more strategically. We recognise the importance of retention, but we’re also asking how we might be able to leverage technology to facilitate that.
For example utilising technology like Workday to navigate the talent landscape as well as more traditional end-of-year processes, we’re moving away from categorising people with rigid box grids to a more visual scatterplot that better represents where people sit and what their leadership capability is. That allows managers to have conversations about where each member of the workforce sits and what that might mean for their future development. From there, technology can come in and almost plot what someone’s career is going to look like over the next three years, then we can use that data to feed into our business metrics for designing our future workforce.
The future of AI and how we leverage it to create the kind of seamless connectivity we experience in our personal and online lives in the workplace is important for us all at the moment, and talent is an area where we’re trying to drive that forward and ensure that everyone can embrace technology as much as possible in their day-to-day operations without losing that human element.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
If you’re in a leadership role, you should be developing yourself at the same time as developing others, as we all have something to offer each other.
More broadly, it’s important to be as objective as possible about roles you might be headhunted for and what they can offer your overall development, and sometimes that means pushing past an initial desire to move role until you’re sure it’s really the right opportunity for you.
When you are in a position to step up, it’s really important to recognise that there will always be something more attractive about a new role and the new challenge that it presents. Before you think about taking a more senior role, it helps to identify where the gaps are in your own knowledge, then find people who can help you plug them proactively so you are always growing not only in business acumen but also in confidence.
While an executive coach might not be an option for everyone, it’s easier than ever to reach out to others on platforms like LinkedIn. Connect with people in senior roles and ask for 20 minutes of their time to pose questions about how you might be able to improve or handle a particular challenge you’re facing.
If you can, find a mentor to support you. 9 times out of 10, the calls you make will be right, but it’s good to know for sure that you’re on the right track. Confidence is king in HR Leadership, and it will prepare you to move onto whatever your next challenge may be.
Hannah has been working as Senior HR Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa since April 2019, and oversees HR across these regions for the consulting business.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.