“It can be quite easy to take on emotional burdens when we’re dealing with issues, so it’s always important to talk to our colleagues about how we feel. I find HR teams sometimes run on tea and quiet swearing!”– Emma Cannon, Head of People at Duco Technology, 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 Emma Cannon at Duco Technology, who began her HR career by taking on a number of HR responsibilities—both in her role as Assistant Newsroom Manager for EFDEX and as PA to the Managing Director at the Level 5 Group—before transitioning to HR full-time. In 2003, Emma embarked on an HR Consultancy path, becoming an HR Consultant for various companies including Pfizer and Aventis Pharmaceuticals.
In May 2004, Emma became HR Manager at ABgene Ltd, later joining the team at Gullivers Travel Associates Ltd in a continuation of her HR Manager role in August 2007. Emma then became Head of HR at AXA Assistance UK Ltd before transitioning to an HR Business Partner role at C. Hoare & Co. In November 2014, she became Employee Relations Specialist at Causeway Technologies, carrying that focus through to her next role as Employee Relations Manager at Norton Rose Fulbright, before transitioning to her current role in October 2019.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
It wasn’t intentional! When I left university, I wanted to be a journalist, and I was lucky enough to get a job in the newsroom at EFDEX (Electronic Food and Drink Exchange.) After a year of working in planning and writing stories for live news feeds, I got promoted to Assistant Newsroom Manager, which had a heavy Personnel element to it. I worked closely with the Personnel team, and ultimately developed an interest in and an aptitude for the work they were doing.
When EFDEX closed, I took a role with the Level 5 Group as PA to the Managing Director. As a tiny start-up, they had no HR function, so I took that on as well. It turned out that the PA role was not the best fit for me, but I was kept on to work on the HR function. I built it from scratch, and that experience proved to be incredibly useful for my career. It allowed me to get exposure to absolutely everything HR-related and solve problems independently, as well as building on a wide range of skills. Even at a very junior level, in those kinds of roles you find yourself writing policies, making compensation decisions, dealing with employee relations matters, and even defending at tribunals. It’s not a comfortable learning curve for everyone, but it is a very steep one. If you like learning, it’s an incredible experience.
I think the reason that HR stood out to me initially and has stayed with me ever since is that it allows me to make a tangible impact; not just at a company level, but at an individual one too. It’s important to me to be able to see the impact of my work. The sheer variety of HR has always appealed to me as well, as you have to be competent in so many different areas. I find it very intellectually stretching in that way, but of course the human element of it drives me as well. It’s the interaction of the two that I enjoy so much.
As I built experience, I was lucky enough to reach the role of Head of HR for AXA Insurance. After four years, I was then offered the role of Associate HR Director reporting into the Global HR Director, but decided to turn it down. I knew that if I took it, I would lose the interaction with colleagues and the day-to-day hands-on HR work which I loved and was really good at, and instead I would be almost exclusively focussed on strategy and planning. For me, seniority and status aren’t everything. You’ve got to love what you do, and I knew that I wouldn’t love what I would’ve been doing there.
So after leaving AXA, I moved to C. Hoare & Co. bank as an interim HRBP while I thought about where I wanted my career path to go. I finally decided to specialise in employee relations, as I think ER underpins just about everything else in HR. A company can offer a really sophisticated compensation and benefits provision, or great training and development programmes, but without a solid trusting relationship between employer and employer underpinning it all, things will always be an uphill struggle. If you can just get that core relationship right, everything else naturally succeeds.
I also love the challenge of working out how to achieve goals within legal constraints and getting the business to where we need to be, while keeping people at the centre of everything I do. I keep a small file of notes and cards I’ve received from employees and colleagues over the years, and I take it out to look at on blue days to remind myself of the importance of what I’m doing.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
One of the challenges I’ve noticed for us as HR professionals, especially during the COVID19 pandemic, is that we tend to put everybody else first, and don’t always focus enough on our own needs. HR can be a very hard and gritty job at times and it’s all too easy to take on the emotional burdens of the people we’re dealing with, so it’s important to talk to our own colleagues about how we’re feeling. I’ve noticed that HR teams sometimes seem to run on tea and quiet swearing!
Now more than ever, we need to be mindful of our own wellness. The People team at Duco has spent a lot of time, effort, and energy to look after the employee population, but we also feel unhappy, exhausted or stressed-out ourselves sometimes. I will openly admit that I make use of some of the measures we’ve put in place for people so that I’m looking after my own health and wellbeing too. No one is invulnerable, so we have to be kind and give ourselves space to address our own needs.
For Duco specifically, the people challenges I see ahead are mainly around how the company will evolve over the next few years. We’ve seen some very successful sales quarters recently and we’re in a high-growth period right now, but we need to have a clear view of the longer-term horizon and ensure we’re putting the right elements in place now for that. We still have a lot of work to do to map out how we get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ over the next few years, and how we take everyone at Duco on that journey.
We’re also facing similar challenges to other organisations in a emerging-post-COVID world. People have very much discovered the freedom of working flexible hours, not facing long commutes, and spending more time with their families. However, we’ll need to set out what that will look like as a long-term strategy. We’re in the process of re-styling our offices away from ‘banks of desks’ and towards attractive ‘meeting and collaboration space’, for example, and we’ll continue to offer remote flexible working.
We’re also looking much more intensively at engagement and employee relations. I think this is going to be absolutely critical in future, because employees—whether prospective or current—will be comparing how companies are actually supporting their employees during tough times, rather than at the values companies claim to have. My view is that ‘authenticity and ‘humanity’ will be critical going forward.
Fortunately, our CEO is a very strong People champion (as is our entire Executive Committee), so throughout the pandemic, we’ve been united in putting people first. That approach has been reflected in the feedback we’ve received from our employees, for example we received this from one of our Engineering managers, after we introduced extra wellness and support measures in early January:
“While my family are, luckily, currently unaffected by the new lockdown, I’d just like to say how important and appreciated steps like this are to me, and I imagine others in the company.
Our response to the first lockdown was already significantly better than anything I’ve heard about from friends and family – it’s awesome that we are going harder for the second time around.
My wife’s employer (global $12bn company) has been good to her but it’s all been quite unofficial – understandings between manager and reports – very little from the top of the company. A friend who works for a global $200bn company has had nothing from her employer at all – informal or formal. It’s been really hard for her. This is from a company that is very keen to brag about how good their benefits, diversity, maternity cover etc. are, but it seems when the chips are really down they won’t do anything to support their employees.
Both these companies, and others besides, have deeper pockets and more resilience than we do and yet we make them look like idiots. I think that’s something we can be really proud of.”
I think what has struck a chord with our people is that, above all, we’ve tried to identify and respond to the particular difficulties they’re experiencing (this is why I mentioned ‘authenticity and humanity’ before).
For example, we realised that our working parents were finding it really tough trying to balance home-schooling with work commitments, so we encouraged them all to block out periods for schooling and other family needs during work time. Then we wondered if parents actually had enough IT equipment for their children’s home-schooling, as not all schools provided it. They didn’t, so we bought them whatever stuff they needed. We’ll donate it to a local school or charity when it’s no longer required.
I think HR professionals need to ensure that their practice reflects genuine care for employees. Sometimes that can involve expenditure, but more often it’s just about being open, available, transparent, and considering what people might need before they even have to ask. Nothing says ‘you’re valued’ to an employee more than their employer putting real thought and care into looking after them.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
I think the best service we can give as HR leaders is finding a good balance between achieving what the business needs to happen while managing risks sensibly and treating people with respect. Managers and leaders need to hear ‘OK, some potential solutions are…’, not ‘You can’t do that’. Sometimes that can result in really challenging conversations, but you need to be brave enough to tackle them, stand your ground, and come up with viable pathways through difficulties.
I think taking time to consider career paths to see whether they’re actually a good fit for you is very helpful, particularly if you’re at an early stage and everyone’s encouraging you to climb the ladder as quickly as possible. Stop and ask yourself, ‘What gets me excited about going to work in the morning? Is it what I’m doing right now, or should I think about doing something else?’ Of course, there will always be situations where your circumstances mean that you just need a job, any job! But when you do have the luxury of being able to choose, choose wisely and do what you love. And that might not always be the ‘top job’. You can make piles of money or hold a very senior title, but if you dread going to work on Monday mornings and you’re so stressed you can’t enjoy your home life, it’s rather hard to enjoy those rewards.
Try not to pin yourself down to one HR specialism too early. Generalist roles are really useful, especially in the early days. I would also recommend getting some SME experience as well as working in larger HR departments. In an SME, you’ll get exposure to a lot of things a lot sooner than you would otherwise, which can really build your career. Equally, there is no substitute for being around fellow HR professionals in a bigger team and benefitting from their knowledge, feedback and experience. Do both if you can.
Recognise the value in what you know and do. It’s probably much greater than you think it is! On that basis, don’t be afraid to speak up and share your opinions, even if they seem controversial. What you’re doing really is important and it is going to have an impact. Have faith in that.
Finally, no matter what stage you are at in your career, it’s also important to remember that you can always make changes, and that the process of finding a new role or career path is something to be enjoyed. A lot of the time, you have more freedom to make career decisions than you might think, so never worry that you are permanently stuck in a job you’re not enjoying.
Emma has been working as Head of People since October 2019, and provides executive leadership across all aspects of Duco Technology’s HR function, driving change as the organisation continues to evolve.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.