“Never seek hierarchical growth because you’ll be seeking it for the wrong reasons. Once you get to a senior level, if you’re not passionate about it you’ll quickly get found out. Instead, seek out what you love to do and roles that will use your strengths and talents.” – Rob Peacock, Head of Learning, Leadership and Performance at The Very Group, 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 Rob Peacock at The Very Group, who began his HR career after working in retail banking. Rob joined Tesco Stores Ltd in 2010 as a Recruitment Manager responsible for Central Europe, later becoming HR Business Partner for Global Food Sourcing. Rob continued his career progression at Tesco, taking on the role of Learning Partner for Global Food Sourcing in 2013.
In April 2015 Rob joined Virgin Media as Senior Learning and Development Partner, transitioning after a year to Personal and Professional Development Academy Lead. In 2018, Rob moved to Samsung Electronics as Head of Learning and Development, UK and Europe. He remained in that role for two and a half years before joining his current company, The Very Group, as Head of Learning, Leadership and Performance in January 2021.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
Throughout university and the years before I’d always gravitated towards roles with people. My part-time jobs were at shops and restaurants and after university I worked at Little Chef. I remember the night I met my wife and she asked me what I did. I wasn’t very proud of my answer and I thought to myself I want to start building a career for myself. So I applied for what was pretty much the first thing I came across; a retail programme for graduates at Lloyds TSB.
I worked in their retail scheme, initially selling personal loans and insurance products. I then took on a role coaching and supporting other team members in customer and sales roles, which I loved. Then I became a Branch Manager with my own branch and a team of 20+ people. I thought things were going really well and I had visions of vertical growth but things began to stall for me. I was doing okay, but not brilliantly and I remember thinking to myself, I don’t enjoy going into work. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t that.
Driving to work one day there was a career development interview on the radio advising people to find something that they’re passionate about and go after it. After hearing that I started to get really interested in personal development. One of my favourite books is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma and in it he says the secret to a life of happiness is simple: find out what you really love to do and then direct all of your energy towards it. That’s always stuck with me.
At the time I didn’t know what I truly wanted to do but I knew I loved certain elements of my role such as the coaching and I felt I had the capacity to spot people with talent and grow and develop them. It’s difficult to go from being a bank manager to a role in L&D so I worked in resourcing and recruitment for a while. I then got an opportunity to work at Tesco’s head office, recruiting in their commercial buying function. That’s really where my HR career began. It began with a desire to find happiness.
Working at Tesco was great because it gave me an opportunity to grow and there’s a real history there of promoting people through the ranks. They had strong processes, structures and capability plans in place. It felt like my HR school was done at Tesco. I ended up being with the company for just under 6 years with many roles in that time.
I didn’t go to Tesco thinking my end goal was talent development because back then I didn’t know what it was. Up to that point all I’d seen in the bank was operational training which is very different. I started to look for clues and identify when I was really happy, or in a flow state and I realised that I was in flow when I was with people, coaching, talking about culture, making a difference to people’s lives.
I gravitated to things that came easily to me, where I could see they required significant skills and I could also see I had the skills to meet those challenges. I found my home gradually, by doing different things: I worked in the business, in commercial roles and different areas of HR.
The opportunity at The Very Group was exciting because they were making a huge investment in their talent and it was an opportunity to build something from scratch. The team is incredible, very visionary and I’m having the best time in my career now.
A big element of the role is firing up and tapping into people’s potential and the performance piece is really exciting. I’m looking at how we can approach talent in a different way, so instead of managing numbers we’re supporting growth and social opportunity across the business. It’s a very exciting agenda.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
The top three themes are hybrid working, skills gaps, and talent development.
We moved to a hybrid model, having been a fairly office-based full-time model before. There’s a recognition that obviously COVID blew that working model away but it was also the skills shortage, the need to recruit tech people and the need to open our candidate market beyond Liverpool.
I think regardless of COVID the business was ready for that change. Now, we’ve opened up a hybrid model but we haven’t really seen it in practice yet because of lockdowns which meant people didn’t have the opportunity of coming into the office. I hear a lot about the effectiveness of the hybrid model but in some cases I think we’re jumping to conclusions because it hasn’t had a chance to succeed yet. Only now are we starting to see the impact of hybrid working.
The question is, how do we set ourselves up to get the best of both worlds? The work-life harmony that comes from being at home as well as the social connection that we create as human beings. That’s a huge challenge for everyone. The thing we’re gaining, in theory, is of course better work-life harmony but in practice that might not be the case. That one-hour commute might now be a one-hour meeting. That lunchtime walk might now be a video call. Similarly, people are coming into the office and having the same days that they would have at home. The social connection is missing.
The key thing around hybrid is to analyse, why are we coming together? Previously, we were focused on the operational question, how do we get things done remotely? Now, we need to think about, how are we as human beings working in a hybrid way? That’s a big focus for people in my type of role, helping people to spend time together in a meaningful way. Establishing purposeful rituals that people bring together.
Another related theme is how we do the work and how we set ourselves up. We’ve introduced a concept called Well Work which recognises that the work we do is the wellbeing programme. We’re looking at how we can set up our infrastructure to enable wellness. It’s a key feature of our talent strategy. Hybrid work has accentuated a focus on wellness. We can’t dip people in and out of wellness programmes and expect them to be well, we need to physically set up the infrastructure that enables wellness to take place. Processes, systems, virtual onboarding, access – the work that enables wellness.
One of the things we’ve released is the Very Playbook, how to get things done at Very. It’s everything from how do I book a room to doing a virtual onboarding. Everything should be easy to access for everyone and it’s a piece of work that we’re continuing to build and develop.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
Firstly, find out what you truly love to do and direct all of your energy to it. Keep that front and centre. Never seek hierarchical growth because you’ll be seeking it for the wrong reasons. Once you get to a senior level, if you’re not passionate about it you’ll quickly get found out. Instead, seek out what you love to do and roles that will use your strengths and talents. You’ll find that things come to you very easily and naturally when you are using your gifts.
Secondly, stretch and challenge yourself. Don’t settle. To progress you need to put yourself into situations that are outside your comfort role. Those are the situations where you learn new things and are challenged, which inevitably means you will grow.
Thirdly, have a vision or a narrative for the stories you want to tell. For example, if you want to head up a talent function because you want to be the boss you will lack credibility at interviews. But if you instead think about the stories you want to tell your networking group or your kids when you retire you will get a feeling for what you represent.
When you are clear on what you represent you get passionate about making it happen. For me, I’m passionate about social mobility, opportunity and the innate potential of humankind. I believe we all have the potential to be exceptional and we hold ourselves back with our limited beliefs. Because of that I’ve sought out opportunities where I can make a difference in organisations. Without that I’d be looking at aspects like salary and status, which are just so empty. Think about the difference you want to make in the world and go out there and make it happen.
And finally, I can’t emphasise enough the importance of networking. Go to events – lots are virtual now – find out about industry best practice, keep your eyes open, be open to what is happening in your industry and build relationships.
Rob has over ten years experience in talent and L&D. He has been Head of Learning, Leadership and Performance at The Very Group since January 2021.