“These are tricky times for everyone, so having a higher level of communication and greater empathy towards others is key at the moment.” – Jason Waterman, Director of Talent at 11:FS, 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 Jason Waterman at 11:FS, who began his HR career in the Recruitment sector as a Recruitment Consultant at Matchtech, where he later ascended to the role of Senior Recruitment Consultant before going on to found his own venture, Seek Technical. In December 2012, Jason joined the team at Advanced Resource Managers as a Senior Recruitment Consultant, later transitioning to Badenoch + Clark to take on the role of Principal Recruitment Consultant ahead of becoming Recruitment Manager there.

In September 2016, Jason became Lead Recruiter at BCG Digital Ventures, moving to the role of Talent Acquisition Manager in September 2017, and becoming Head of Venture Talent in November 2018. After taking on the role of Global Talent Acquisition Manager at 11:FS in September 2019, Jason moved to the Head of Talent role in July 2020 ahead of transitioning to his current role in October 2020.

Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?

I’ve been doing People-related roles in some form or another for 12 and a half years now, a big chunk of which was in Recruitment. I worked in agency recruitment for about eight years, mainly in the technology space, and then I joined BCG Digital Ventures to help them build start-ups in partnership with Blue Chip firms. The teams at BCGDV create digital products and I then recruited the founding teams for the start-ups, as well as setting them up from a cultural perspective. We covered everything from interview processes to establishing policies suited to that particular company, and built their culture, vision, mission, and values. Nothing was one-size-fits-all, which made the job really interesting.

When I joined 11:FS in September of last year, my initial focus was more on the Recruitment side of things. We did a lot of recruiting in a lot of different areas, and it was a lot of fun. It was also incredibly fast-paced—as you can imagine when you’re a company doubling in size in a really short space of time—but COVID-19 put the brakes on that quite rapidly.

During the pandemic, my role shifted from being weighted more towards the Recruitment side of things to the People side of things. I’ve spent the last six months creating a career development pathway and progression frameworks for our entire business, defining the technical skills and values expected at each level all the way from graduate to C Suite, and focusing on diversity and inclusion within our candidate pipeline as well.

Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?

COVID-19 has definitely posed challenges in terms of needing to adjust the weighting of what we do within the People function. Before the pandemic, we spent a lot of time and money on the Talent Acquisition side of things, but that has balanced out with Talent Development, which actually proved to be slightly behind in comparison until the pandemic hit.

When I came into the business, we had to change our onboarding process entirely to facilitate bringing in 30 people a month into a system that was built for 5 people a month. Since COVID, we’ve had to change how we onboard and the number of new starters has obviously dropped, but we’ve put a lot of work into this so that any new starters don’t feel lost at sea, as well as giving them an immediate network of peers. We’re currently recruiting across areas like Engineering, Products, Social Media, and Sales, and we’re seeing some fantastic results from our new approaches.

COVID has been extremely difficult, and has seen us having to go through unpleasant processes such as making redundancies, but it has also allowed us to spend more time developing our talent. Making our people feel well looked-after, happy, and safe in their jobs while ensuring that they still feel able to progress in the current climate is definitely a priority for us.

In terms of remote working, we’ve been fully remote and out of the office since March, although we have opened up a COVID-secure communal space for people who wish to use it. That also means that any communication with anyone who has started with or left us has all been over Zoom calls and Google Hangouts, which is very new and also difficult at times. 

We’ve always been a flexible company who have made it possible for people to work from wherever they want, but I think that we’ll get to a point now where people will be in the office a lot less. I think London will always be our ‘home’ as such, but I would imagine people will only visit the office one or two days a week once we do open its doors again. It will be totally flexible, but totally different. 

We’ve reduced our office space from 250 seats to about 100, and our plan is to be hot-desk focused in the future. That way, people can come and go as they please, but still have a space to come together and be social and creative when they need to as well.

Looking to the future, I think that the flexible approach will definitely make things easier for us from a Talent Acquisition point of view. It will allow us to identify talent from within a wider radius, attract individuals who we may otherwise have missed out on because they weren’t looking to relocate to London, and potentially even broaden our reach across the UK and Europe.

I hope companies don’t slip back into old habits on flexibility and how people work once the current crisis ends. I hope that flexibility sticks, because lots of candidates we speak to aren’t looking to work five days a week, for instance, and need that flexibility. I’m sure other companies will be seeing the same.

In addition to flexible working, I think the diversity and inclusion piece is more central for us now than ever. The Black Lives Matter movement has been incredible for bringing diversity and inclusion issues to the front of people’s minds. Of course, it has always been important from a People perspective, but everyone within the organisation is actively thinking about it now, and that may not have always been the case. I think people are definitely educating themselves on privilege and the importance of diversity and inclusion in ways they weren’t before, which is great.

The job market has also fundamentally changed in the wake of the pandemic, and some recruiters’ lack of empathy towards the higher volumes of applicants businesses are seeing for each job is a huge source of frustration for me. When it comes to our own teams at 11:FS, we’re really trying to impress upon them that they need to have a level of empathy towards anyone who is looking for a job, coming into the hiring process, or asking for advice. These are tricky times for everyone, so having a higher level of communication and greater empathy towards others is key at the moment.

What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?

Adaptability and attitude are two of the biggest things to think about, whether you’re starting out in HR or looking to transition. If you’re open to learning new things, willing to ask the right questions, and you push yourself to engage with projects, you have the critical elements to succeed in HR. Lots of companies will be looking to change the shape of their Recruitment functions, which provides anyone looking to make the jump with the perfect opportunity to get involved in HR projects. HR professionals have lots on their plate at the moment, so it’s important to offer your help and get involved where you can.

From a soft skills point of view, being able to influence has always been really important, but is perhaps more important now than ever. Now that you can’t just walk up to someone’s desk and ask for feedback on CVs or a quick chat about someone’s performance, for example, you need to do more to engage and influence your client groups and colleagues at a distance over something like Zoom or email.

I do think employers need to pay more attention to softer skills; influence, empathy, and understanding go further than just having a CIPD qualification or taking a bunch of online courses alone. Once you can have conversations and demonstrate those skills, you’ll draw more attention to the fact that you’re engaging in projects that are People-related rather than just Recruitment-related. If you can get stuck into those and show that you’re really good at what you do, wider opportunities will start to come up as well. Taking opportunities with crossover between different areas of your business will give you initial experience before you transition, but you need to be flexible and adaptable enough to excel in those opportunities.

From a Recruitment perspective, as we move into the future, companies will be looking to get as much as they can out of their Talent team. That will mean recruiters covering lots of different roles, and good recruiters are those who are able to identify that they enjoy a certain area of recruitment, but can recruit in a whole range of different ones. Doing so will allow you to build relationships across your business, which will hopefully open doors in other areas as well.

Jason has been working as Director of Talent since October 2020, and provides leadership for the Talent Acquisition, Diversity and Inclusion, and Career Development functions across 11:FS.

For more information on 11:FS and their values, recruitment process, and current vacancies, visit: 11fs.com/careers.

If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.