“What the evidence tells us is that if you, as a manager, check in with your people, talk to them about their careers, and give them feedback regularly, consistently, and in an actionable way, your people will stay.” – Jayde Tipper, Chief People Officer of Temenos, speaks up on how having quantifiable data is essential in HR Functions.
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 Jayde Tipper, a passionate and knowledge-hungry all-rounder in the HR and recruitment field. She did not stop at having a Sociology undergrad degree and a Master’s degree in Global Human Resource Management. She gained her MBA, the learnings from that taught her to look at issues from the business angle first and foremost
Jayde has been honing her skills in the IT industry for more than a decade. She led Talent Acquisition for the Middle East and Africa for Hewlett-Packard and was Acer’s HR Manager for MEA as well. Currently, Jayde is with the fintech firm, Temenos as its Chief People Officer.
Can you tell us how you got started with your HR career?
My first proper job was IT sales recruitment, which was quite a theme for my career and I even do a lot of recruiting until now, actually.
So I was doing IT sales recruitment, and then I moved to Dubai. I rejoined an old boss of mine who ran a tech search firm and set up an international business from a hotel room in Abu Dhabi during the financial crash of 2009. One of the first clients that I was working with was Hewlett-Packard. They called me one day and said, ‘Hey, do you wanna come across?’ I took a big leap of faith and went across from working in a 10-person company to HP, which was massive. I was a really small fish in a massive pond, but I loved every moment of it. I learnt so much there.
Then out of the blue, one day I got a LinkedIn ping actually from a former leader from HP. He moved to another tech company and said he wanted an HR person, did I want to come across. And I said, ‘I’m not an HR person. I’m a recruiter.’ He said, ‘I know how you operate. I’ve spoken to people. You can do it.’
I’ve never done performance management. I’ve never done workforce reduction programs, all this tactical HR stuff. I’d never done it. But I thought, let me have a go with it. So that changed the trajectory of my career. Someone took a chance on me to do HR business partnering.
Can you tell us what challenges are you facing as a CPO (Chief People Officer) of a global organisation?
I think COVID has really changed the expectation with HR. We are expected to have data like our colleagues in finance and marketing have not only data but insights are able to tell the story.
By being more connected and closer to commercial outcomes. We should be able to quantify why we are doing stuff and not just because HR says it’s good for you. It’s just not going to cut it anymore in the new world.
I’ll give you an example. Like a lot of companies, we’re going through a performance review process and managers must provide people with feedback, which HR has been preaching about forever. Let’s reframe that. What the evidence tells us is that if you, as a manager, check in with your people, talk to them about their careers, and give them feedback regularly, consistently, and in an actionable way, your people are more likely to stay.
People start talking about the Great Resignation, I see it as a great recruiting problem.great recruiting problem. Let’s look at our top talent. We’ve got a fairly low attrition rate amongst our top talent grouping. There has been a huge market shift, we’ve also been able to acquire talent in the last 12 months that we would never have been able to acquire before. So I think that it depends on the lens that we use. Let’s double down on our brand and candidate experience and upskilling managers and let’s keep the people growing when they’re here. When you just double click once or twice on the attrition data, it’s a completely different story from the headline
What advice would you offer to someone that was looking to follow in your footsteps in the HR field?
I’ve got two main pieces of advice. One is to be super curious and learn about the business, whatever business you are in, you’ve got to be interested in it.
But my main piece of advice would be to have a coach, whether that’s formal or informal. No athlete that goes to the Olympics or any at any level or any sport does not have a coach.
I think it’s the best investment of your time and energy wherever you are in your career to help you, in terms of self-realisation, feedback, presence, whatever it might be.
I spent a lot of time having coaching conversations at all levels, now, I don’t sit down and go, ‘Hey, we’re having a coaching session now’. Coaching is really asking a series of questions and listening very intently and challenging your thinking. I’m their coach but they coach me as well. We do a lot of peer coaching as well within the HR leadership team.
It’s a great opportunity to get out of the weeds and look out at what’s going on.
Jayde has worked up the ranks in Temenos these past six years. She started as its Senior HR Business Partner for MEA, and then became the Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Executive Search. In August 2021, she took on the reins as the fintech’s Chief People Officer.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.