“For me, the power of HR is in connecting the right people to each other and harnessing their passions and motivations to achieve goals. We have a bird’s eye view across our businesses, and to add the most value, we need to be able to connect the dots and bring people together with it. Building relationships is crucial.” – Natasha Giles, Regional People and Culture Director for the UK and Europe at Les Mills, 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 Natasha Giles at Les Mills, who began her HR career as an HR Consultant with Forthright Projects, later transitioning to the role of Dream Manager for Employee Engagement and Retention at AllLife alongside her work as a Life Coach. In 2012, Natasha became Recruitment Assistant Manager at PwC South Africa, later transitioning to the role of PwC Exordia Recruitment and Human Capital Manager.
In April 2015, Natasha took on responsibilities for Onboarding, Engagement, and Career Mobility in the South Market territories of Africa for PwC, and in February 2016, she became Head of Human Capital for Uprise Markets. In June 2017, Natasha joined the team at Bravura Solutions as HR Business Partner for the South Africa office ahead of ascending the ranks to Global Learning & Development Specialist and HR Business Partner for Wealth Management across the UK and South Africa respectively. Natasha transitioned to her current role in July 2020.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
I came to HR in a bit of a roundabout way, really. After school, I studied Psychology and Communications at university, then went travelling for a couple of years before transitioning to HR admin work within a family business with a legal advisory focus. I then decided I wanted to focus on coaching, so I left that role to set up a coaching business of my own.
At the same time, I decided to go for a role working on a sales coaching app for a company called AllLife, who were very much on the cutting edge of insurance. As part of the hiring process, I had an initial call with the director during which I happened to mention reading about the ‘Dream Manager’ programme in the US which helped employees achieve their personal goals as well as professional ones to increase engagement and retention. After a further conversation, we implemented it at AllLife, doing everything from providing lessons on how to ride a bike to setting up training contracts for the people who wanted to study further.
After a year there, I was approached by someone I knew at PwC who had a role open in their HR team within the Recruitment space. Although I had helped with recruitment at AllLife, I had never really focused on it heavily, and I thought that the role would be a great opportunity to do so. While the contract was originally set for six months, I ended up staying for about four years. It was very intense, as the business had large teams that were constantly growing. We had huge recruitment drives—not only for PwC itself, but for their software arm, Exordia.
When one of the business partners working within my advisory team moved over to Exordia, he reached out to me to see if I had any interest in joining the team there. I agreed, and it turned out to be a fantastic role for me. I got involved not only in Recruitment, but also Human Capital and Engagement work.
I was then approached by the leader of the South Market territories to interview join their team, which I later accepted an offer for. I started working in Onboarding, Engagement, and Career Mobility within our Centre of Excellence, running engagement surveys across the whole of Africa to report on our offboarding and relationships with alumni as well as developing and implementing onboarding action plans in the South Market. I also hosted our onboarding welcome days and helped implement some technology to support the onboarding process. After some time, PwC went through some changes in the Human Capital space, and it was time to look for something new.
I enjoyed working in the start-up like environment at PwC Exordia, so when I came across a start-up trading platform called Uprise Markets, I knew I had to go for the HR role. The challenge of managing Retail spaces was very new and exciting for me. I worked right across the Human Capital chain reporting directly to the CEO, and we made some great strides in terms of implementing gamified performance management and training. Unfortunately, some instability in the future of the business meant I had to look for something new after almost a year and a half. The role at Uprise Markets was generalist, so it was daunting to come to with purely specialist experience at first, but I quickly found that when I put those roles together, I’d pretty much worked across the whole of HR anyway.
My next role at Bravura Solutions was also quite generalist. As a UK-based company growing their South Africa office, they had a start-up feel while also having the security of being part of a bigger business, just like PwC Exordia. In that role, I worked across the HR function with a heavy focus on Recruitment. I also got involved with a lot of our global projects, which ultimately resulted in me moving into a global Learning and Development role, then relocating to the UK office as the HR Business Partner for their Wealth Management business.
After just over three years there, I was approached by Les Mills, and it was an exciting opportunity I knew I just had to say yes to. Taking on an international role right in the middle of COVID has been challenging, but it was a great decision. We’ve been able to work together very well digitally, and my previous experience has helped a lot with overcoming barriers in terms of legislature, language, and geography.
When I was at AllLife, I thought my career would stay along the lines of training and coaching, but once I joined PwC, I really started to see the value of understanding a business, the strengths of its employees, and how it all comes together to produce results.
I knew then that HR was about more than legality; it has a real focus on unlocking the best in people once you move away from the administrative side, and that that was something I could build a long, sustainable career in. The best HR practice breaks down the silos within a business, and I’m very proud of my ability to do so.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
I think everyone is facing the challenge of determining what the future of work is going to look like and how we maintain all the positive pivots and changes we have made in response to COVID in the post-pandemic world. For us, it’s about working out how best to maintain the momentum of change and keep some of the flexibility without sacrificing our personal connections and culture.
The other common challenge we are all facing is around wellness. Les Mills partner with many businesses, and we’re helping with the wellness of their teams through our on-demand platform and livestreaming, but also ensuring that we focus that internally so we’re well-positioned in the Wellbeing space. Technology has been amazing for ensuring that our teams all feel connected to each other not only regionally, but globally, and we’re focused on using what we do to maintain that while also boosting employee engagement and passion. Our Wellbeing strategy isn’t a secret we’re keeping—it’s amazing to be able to share our offerings with our clients and teams alike.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
One common misconception is that HR is either a function that purely advises on either the legislation involved in employment or the fluffy stuff. For me, you do need to know the legislation well, but if you really understand the business and what makes it tick and take the time to see yourself as someone who drives business results, you can really make a difference.
Whenever you come into a business, make a point to understand how they operate, what drives them, how they make money and achieve goals. That will allow you to begin to implement the tools the business needs to drive that goal, as well as win over the sceptics and show the commercial value of HR. In turn, that will help broaden your own opportunities and ensure you understand the legislative or Employee Relations spaces but aren’t boxed into them. To that end, make sure you are focused on your own goals and what you’d like to do and learn throughout your career, but also try to learn what keeps your business leaders up at night and what you can do to address those things.
Remember that people are people. We’re always at risk of focusing too much on targets and seeing people as commodities, when really, they have their own challenges and desires—try not to fall into that trap. Unlocking what drives your people will ensure you can get the very best for them as individuals and your wider business.
For me, the power of HR is in connecting the right people to each other and harnessing their passions and motivations to achieve goals. We have a bird’s eye view across our businesses, and to add the most value, we need to be able to connect the dots and bring people together with it. Building relationships is crucial.
Natasha has been working as Regional People and Culture Director for the UK and Europe since July 2020, and provides support and leadership for Les Mills’ People and Culture function across the territory.