“I don’t think a senior HR job is a job. It’s really about where you fill the strategic gaps in the organisation for the benefit of the organisation and its workforce, which aren’t necessarily the same thing.” – RoseMarie Loft – Head of People Services at The National Gallery, 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 RoseMare Loft at The National Gallery, who began her HR career as a HR and Training & Development Executive at National Grid. RoseMarie worked as a HR and Training Consultant for Look Ahead Housing and a Leadership and Development Manager at Remploy Ltd before becoming HR Manager at Millward Brown. In 2002 she became National Manager, Leadership and Development at HM Prison Service, later transitioning  to Service Director, HR and Equalities at Solihull MBC.

From 2005-2013 RoseMarie took a decision to go independent, providing interim executive and senior HR leadership to multiple clients. Unexpectedly, she says, she joined The National Gallery in 2013 as Head of HR, which has variously developed over the years through Director of Change and is now leading on a broader function of ‘People Services’.

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

Like many great HR professionals, there was no structured career plan and I never had any intention of working in HR. My first job was in public relations as a press officer. I did PR for a number of years but it really takes over your life. My role was 24/7: I remember I gave a live interview to Radio 4 at one point, while in the bath!

I decided I needed to do something else and since the part of my role I enjoyed the most was training other people to do interviews, I took a teaching diploma, expecting to go into teaching or training. At that time, I was temping at National Grid, and they asked me to stay and take on a training role, which I did.

I worked as a training consultant and leadership development manager. A few years into my experience, my employer, Remploy Ltd, paid for me to do my Masters in Occupational Psychology and my career grew from there. To me, training and development is a very natural thing.

In my career I’ve been mobile, moving between organisations regularly, effecting change and developing new ways of working for HR teams and organisations. I spent around ten years as an interim, doing projects at senior level. I’ve been with The National Gallery for over eight years now. I never expected to be there this long but it’s one of the most complex and challenging areas to work in. People think that if you work for an art gallery of a museum, particularly one with a level of guaranteed funding, it can’t be that challenging. However, as an organisation we are both private, public and charitable – it’s very complex.

At a leadership level, I don’t think a senior HR job is a job. It’s really about where you fill the strategic gaps in the organisation for the benefit of the organisation and its workforce, which aren’t necessarily the same thing.

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

Our sector has been very conservative and change resistant. Over the last 10-15 years organisations have started to find things more difficult; funding is a challenge, as is the changing workforce. In the past, this sector has been led by personal relationships, but that doesn’t work anymore, a lot of changes have been happening.

The National Gallery is a phenomenally complex entity. We have over 1,000 people working on the gallery site and we are managing a multi-faceted organisational design. As well as the gallery, my team also provides HR to a separate commercial entity that does retail, marketing and publishing.

A few years ago I led a project to outsource a lot of our standard services. We were one of the first within the sector to outsource areas like front of house and visitor information as well as the more typical areas like catering and cleaning. The plan was hugely contentious, but ultimately we outsourced around 50% of our workforce and it’s been phenomenally successful. Even those who were against it at the time have come to realise that it was the right thing to do.   

One of the unexpected outcomes of this was an incredible degree of agility when the pandemic hit. The organisational model we chose put us in a strong position and we didn’t have to furlough a single member of staff. We were the first gallery to reopen in July 2020, and – I believe – are still the only similar national organisation that is fully open. All that is credit to our operating model and our expert partners who were able to manage their parts of the business for us. 

As with many organisations, we’re looking at what flexible working means for us going forwards. Prior to the pandemic we were already building new office accommodation and when COVID hit, we were at the stage of designing the interiors. We made the decision to make them fully agile workspaces, purpose designed to support hybrid working. A lot of credit needs to go to our IT department who, even before the pandemic, had been working to replace our equipment and implement a cloud-based system so we could work remotely in the case of a major incident like a fire, for example. When the pandemic came along, we felt quite well prepared.

With the new agile office spaces, a lot of people won’t have to commute into central London every day. It’s a well thought out shared space. Each floor in the office has been themed based on a painting in the Gallery’s collection and we have an app that allows people to book a desk ahead of going to the office. They can see where other colleagues will be sitting and choose where they want to be located.

I did a recent employee survey that suggested 70-80% don’t want to come back on site five days a week. However, many of our younger employees want to come back to the office, the social interaction of being at work is very important.

Our approach to flexible working is output based. People are focused on what they need to deliver and the best way to deliver it. I’m working with our managers to give them the freedom to establish their own routines within their departments. Most managers are welcoming the choice, but some would prefer a more prescriptive approach.

I think the definition of flexible working has changed. It used to be about formal arrangements, but now it is informal arrangements. There are reservations from some people about whether giving freedom is a good thing, but I think that’s fairly standard in any organisation.

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

Be flexible, work hard, and deliver above expectations. That last part sounds unfair, but the precursor is you have to set expectations, because people don’t really understand what we do in HR.

People have an idea of what they think HR is capable of, typically around recruitment and payroll, but we can have valuable input into so many more areas: company culture, diversity and strategic future direction to name a few.

When I say set expectations, I mean tell people what you can do and how you will do it. Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to be strategic, put your foot in the door and say, this is what I’m going to do for you. That’s how you deliver above expectations. It’s about having the confidence to say” I can do so much more, let me show you”. In my experience, the more you do that, the more people are willing to engage with HR as part of the organisation.

RoseMarie has been working as Head of People Services at The National Gallery since July 2013. In her spare time, she is passionate about ancient Egypt and has just completed a Masters in Egyptology at Manchester University.

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