We recently supported the HR team at United Response on a consultancy and hiring project. After gaining a deeper understanding of the business, we supported them to develop a powerful EVP and organisational values which we then used to support hiring for a number of Recruiting roles. Hereâs what Janet Sutcliffe, Head of HR had to say about working with Human:
Case Study: Retained Search United Response Read More »
âI donât think a senior HR job is a job. Itâs really about where you fill the strategic gaps in the organisation for the benefit of the organisation and its workforce, which arenât necessarily the same thing.â â 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, weâve 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 âPeople Servicesâ. 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 Iâve 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. Iâve been with The National Gallery for over eight years now. I never expected to be there this long but itâs 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 canât be that challenging. However, as an organisation we are both private, public and charitable – itâs very complex. At a leadership level, I donât think a senior HR job is a job. Itâs really about where you fill the strategic gaps in the organisation for the benefit of the organisation and its workforce, which arenât necessarily the same thing. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre 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 doesnât 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 itâs 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 didnât 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, weâre 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 wonât have to commute into central London every day. Itâs a well thought out shared space. Each floor in the office has been themed based on a painting in
On October 20th we hosted our seventh Human HR Hackathon, joined by:Â Nick Holmes, Global Head of Professional Development at Fishawack Health Samantha Lewis, HR Director (People & Culture) at NMITE and Toria McCahill, Chief People Officer at Comparison Technologies Ltd During this successful event, we had the pleasure of discussing about: What does the Future of Work look like post-pandemic? What can you offer when you canât offer remote-working? You can watch the recording here. The next Human HR Hackathon will take place on Wednesday, January 26th at 1pm, if youâd like to join us, please register here.
Human: HR Hackathon #7 Read More »
âEmployees are the core of a blue collar business. Finance and operations look at money and bums on seats, but from the HR perspective you need to understand what drives employees, and how to recognise and reward them.â â Emily Gardiner, HR Director at T Brown Group, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Emily Gardiner, who began her career in hospitality before discovering her love of HR. Emily completed a HNC in Business Management followed by a PGD in Human Resource Management. In 2007 she worked as HR Advisor at Maersk before moving to Balfour Beatty Rail in 2008. After three years, she took a role as Head of Group HR at T Brown Group, where she built the HR Department. Emily has been with T Brown Group since 2011 and transitioned to her current role as HR Director in 2016. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? HR was never my ambition, I wanted to be a restaurant manager. I dropped out of university after the first year and adored bar work and waitressing. A pivotal career moment for me was when my then-partner completed their degree. It motivated me to restart studying, with a view to getting the academic grounding Iâd need to run a restaurant. I started a HNC in Business Management course part-time, and to fund it I moved out of hospitality – temporarily I thought at the time – and took a job at Goldman Sachs. That gave me the ability to concentrate on the HNC and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed working in the corporate environment. After graduation, my tutor recommended a post grad in HR, which I did for another two years part-time. My interest in HR progressed naturally from my studies. I found employment law fascinating and I decided it would be a good idea to get some practical HR experience, still with a view to opening a restaurant. Thatâs when I moved into my first HR role where I fell in love with the work. My HR career really spiralled from there. I never lost the ambition to run a bar and restaurant, in fact Iâd still love to do it now, but at the same time I love HR. For me, itâs the fact that you’re dealing with humans. You’re dealing with people who are so complex, thereâs never two people the same and the challenges you have on a daily basis are fascinating, thereâs never a dull day! Early in my career I didnât want to pigeonhole myself. I wanted to understand what HR is like in different industries, so I changed roles roughly every three years and worked in the public sector, private sector, and third sector. That was until I found T Brown Group in 2011, where Iâve been since. Itâs a large, family run company, and I had the opportunity to build a HR department from scratch. In a HR Director role you need quite significant leadership skills. You need to be able to manage not only your employees, but also your peers in terms of what they do and how they do it. For me, one of the joys of HR is how transferable it is. There arenât many other roles where you can work in any industry and hit the ground running. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? T Brown Groupâs business is around property maintenance. We remained operational during the COVID period because our primary clients are housing associations and local authorities, which are essential services, so everything for us continued, with the only difference being remote working. What we are facing is a talent shortage shared with the whole gas industry. Thereâs a real push driven by the government to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. What that means for us is that gas boilers are going to be replaced with more renewable heating systems in all new builds, and eventually replaced in current builds. While the target is 2050, the impact is happening right now, because there are less people choosing to go into this field of work, thinking that why would I want to get a domestic or commercial gas qualification if everything’s turning to renewable energy? Additionally, many of those who are in this field of work now are choosing to go self-employed. Our biggest challenge is trying to gear our organisation up to move in the renewable energy direction, whilst also being able to sustain our current contracts for the old gas boilers. The shortage of gas engineers is industry wide, so to tackle this we need to grow our own qualified people internally. Weâve set up a zero carbon division and weâre training our engineers in the new water powered boilers. Weâre setting up a training pathway for ex-forces individuals and we are relooking at our apprenticeship program. Weâre also up-skilling internally, giving people who are interested the opportunity to take new qualifications. 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 often get asked for advice so I have a few tips. First, get qualifications as early as you can in your career. If you can, find a company that will invest in you and support you through a qualification or apprenticeship. Second, there are many different aspects to HR, donât pigeonhole yourself too early. Experience the variety, move between industries if possible and develop a broad knowledge base. Doing this has served me so well, both in terms of being a better HR manager, and climbing the career ladder. Third, donât necessarily do âtextbookâ HR, initiative is really important. Use your initiative
âEmployees are the core of a blue collar business.” – Interview with Emily Gardiner Read More »
âStick to your core values and beliefs at all times. If you really love people and the value they can bring to the business, keep that with you because there will be times when others in leadership challenge it.â â Anthony Green, Head of Global HR Processes at LSG Group speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Anthony Green, who began his career in Operations at DHL Aviation, before moving into the HR side of the business in 1999. Inspired by his desire to make the workplace better for people, Anthony developed broad HR experience including comp & ben, L&D, strategy, policy and processes. In 2003 Anthony became HR Director Europe, DHL Aviation, based in Brussels. Then in 2005, after 20 years with DHL, he moved to LSG Group as VP Human Resources UK where he stayed for 7 years before moving back into the operations side of the business as the Managing Director, Brussels. In 2014 Anthony returned to HR as Vice President Global People Development, based in Germany, before transitioning into his current role as Head of Global HR Processes in 2018. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? It wasnât my plan to enter into HR, in fact, when I left school I wanted to go into sport and be a PE teacher. At the time, I was working part time at DHL and since my A Level results didnât come out the way I hoped I decided to pursue my career within operations at DHL. After a while I had the opportunity to move to one of DHLâs European hubs, but I didnât take it because of how poorly the transfer opportunity was handled by HR. It was incredibly rushed and I remember stepping back and thinking, wow, if I got the chance Iâd change the way things are done. In 1995 I started working as the Operations Manager, DHL Aviation UK, responsible for the hub at East Midlands Airport. My style as a manager was highly concerned with people aspects; I was involved with training, interviews and I chaired the employee consultation committee. When my then boss asked me how I wanted to develop professionally, I realised that Iâd grown up within the company getting involved in so many people focussed aspects, so I should probably consider HR. To cut a long story short, I started working towards my CIPD Diploma part-time and absolutely loved it. Iâd found my niche. After a few months of studying our HR Director announced she was leaving. She recommended me to replace her and thatâs where my full time HR career really began. I wanted to do everything within my power to make DHL better in terms of its people, introducing best practices, and I was lucky because I had a great boss who let me get on with it. After four years, I was promoted to take on the European Director role for DHL Aviation and I relocated to Brussels. My main project in that role was to take what Iâd achieved with the management restructuring program in the UK and implement it on a wider scale across Europe. I did that for two years and then in 2005, after 20 years with DHL, I left to join LSG Group as VP of HR, back in the UK. I think of all my roles that was the one Iâve enjoyed the most. It was a greenfield site with nothing in place and my job was to build the HR team and processes from scratch. It was really rewarding, but there were also challenges like working with unions for the first time. When I joined LSG Group I thought, Iâm never going to work at a company for as long as I did at DHL again, but 16 years later Iâm still with them. Around 2012, the UK business was put into a joint venture with one of our competitors. There werenât any senior HR roles available internally at the time, so I took the opportunity to go back to the operations side of the business and became Managing Director for Belgium. The size of the business there meant it was a great opportunity for learning and I developed new skills in procurement and finance. In my two and a half years in that role a lot happened. There were strikes that went on for six months, we moved into a new area of business for LSG, and we acquired a competitor and had to overcome cultural differences, including which language was going to be spoken on the shop floor. As much as I enjoyed going back to the operations side, my love was still HR and in 2014 I became the VP Global People Development based in Germany. This was a classic L&D role in charge of all learning, development, engagement and performance management. After four years, it was time for another change and I became Head of Global HR Processes. A frequent frustration for me had been the lack of processes and SOPs, so when this opportunity came up I saw a real opportunity to make a positive impact. For the last three years Iâve been mapping the processes, policies and working closely with the legal team to create a governance structure. I also drive the strategic direction of our HR corporate team and itâs been really enjoyable looking at sustainability and other new aspects. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? Thereâs been major challenges over the last 18 months. The aviation and hospitality industry has probably been hit by the pandemic more than any other, weâve had to lay off a lot of people globally. Weâve also had recruitment challenges, particularly in North America where
âStick to your core values and beliefs at all times.” – Interview with Anthony Green Read More »
âThe value from our function comes not only from supporting others, but from the leadership we show. That could be innovation, industry-leading initiatives, or leadership in terms of challenging the business leaders, who ultimately own the people. Finding the balance between challenging and supporting is where the magic happens.â – Donald MacRae, HR Director, EMEA at Starbucks speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Donald MacRae at Starbucks, who began his career in computer programming before discovering his love of HR. Donald worked at Logica in various business partnering roles in the Netherlands before becoming HR Manager at Nokia in 2001. Then after two years in Director level roles with European responsibility, he was promoted to VP, moved to Finland, and held roles with global responsibility for different business units. In 2012 he expanded his international exposure with a move to Beijing as HR Director, Nokia China where he led a team supporting all businesses represented in China. Following Microsoftâs integration of Nokia, Donald joined Microsoft and relocated again, this time to the U.S. to take on a HR Director role, focussed on strategic talent and workforce planning.  In 2018, Donald joined Starbucks where he worked in Seattle as Director, Global Supply Chains before transitioning to Director, EMEA, based in the UK in May 2021 where he leads teams of business partners, learning & development, and talent acquisition. Can you tell us how you got into HR and how your career has developed? I graduated from Aberdeen University with a Computer Science degree and originally joined Logica (now CGI), a software company, as part of their programming team. I was based in their Netherlands office and after a few years I was asked to take part in the University Milk rounds and to represent the company as a careers advisor to new graduates. I then joined the companyâs rotation scheme to get experience as a HR Manager with a view to returning to the software side as a Project Manager – but I never went back. After four years gaining exposure, I realised HR was my calling. I stayed at Logica for a decade longer, moving around multiple roles, but my core was HR Business Partnering for various divisions and regions. Around 2001, I began to feel an itch to experience something different and joined Nokia as HR Manager at a boom time for the company. I loved the culture and was in my element there. I moved to Finland with the company, was promoted several times and became a VP by 2005. One of those roles was looking after 13 European countries, which was such a rich mixture of culture and countries. After six years in European roles, I transitioned into Global VP HR roles in Corporate Functions, Devices R&D and Mobile Phones, working with the companyâs top management. Moving internationally again was a very intentional decision for me and China seemed really interesting. At the time, Nokia was moving elements of my business area to China, but also downsizing the mobile phone business. To get the development opportunity I wanted, I accepted a role moving from VP to Director. To this day I have absolutely no regrets about doing that because the years that I spent in China were one of my best experiences. I spent three years in Beijing as Head of HR for Nokia China. Halfway through, Microsoft acquired part of Nokia so I did a lot of integration work and downsizing. It was particularly satisfying helping the local team to build capacity and confidence. Out of that integration came the opportunity to join Microsoft in the U.S. and having done a lot of work in Europe and Asia, I thought, why not? I arrived in the U.S. in 2015 and got involved with projects around strategic workforce planning as part of Microsoftâs talent center of expertise. This wasnât my favourite role; it was remote from the business and strategic planning wasnât a priority focus for the wider business. The experience made me realise that what I loved was general business partnering, leading a team and working as part of a business leadership team. Though I did gain invaluable industry insights to strategic talent planning and have used the learnings. Large companies with a history and heritage have always appealed to me and in 2018 I moved to Starbucks as HR Director, Global Supply Chain. I love the culture here, itâs welcoming, humble and with a focus on human connection. I was based in Seattle for three years before moving back to the UK in May 2021, as HR Director, EMEA. Most of my learnings throughout the years have come from working with great leaders, in business and in HR. Theyâve taught me the importance of authenticity, vulnerability, presence, and recognising the mastery of others. Iâve tried to incorporate these learnings into my own style and what I often say to others in HR is that while we help leaders, we sometimes put ourselves in the support bucket. Our role certainly includes support, but thereâs a fine balance in coaching and expecting people leaders to take ownership for their people. The value from our function comes not only from supporting others, but from the leadership we show. That could be innovation, industry-leading initiatives, or leadership in terms of challenging the business leaders, who ultimately own the people. Finding the balance between challenging and supporting is where the magic happens. What are the key challenges that youâre seeing in your sector at the moment? One of the main challenges is prioritisation and pacing. At Starbucks we have a well intended tendency to want to do too much, so remaining focussed on what will have the most impact, and being mindful of resources is a challenge across the business, including
âThe credibility of the HR profession is in being the moral compass of an organisation, but we do that by finding solutions, not by being a blocker to what the business wants and needs to achieve.â â Heather Waterhouse, HR Director for GEOAmey, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Heather Waterhouse, HRD at GEOAmey, who has developed a HR Leadership career within the manufacturing sector. Heather worked as HR Operations Manager at Airbus, where she led a team of 12 HR Business Partners before becoming Head of HR at a mental health organisation building the function from no HR to a functioning HR team. In 2003, she joined JCB in a HR Operations Manager role before transitioning into Group HRM Development and Performance Manager with strategic global responsibility for Organisational Development for 13,000 employees worldwide. After almost 12 years at JCB, Heather moved on to a HRD role at Unipart Manufacturing Group followed by a Global HRD Operations role at RICS. She also worked as HRD at NHS Supply Chain before taking up her current role with GEOAmey in August 2020. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I didnât intend my career to be in HR. In fact, I worked in several different jobs, including a role I hated at a life insurance company before I requested to transfer into the HR department. I was quite late to the party – I got my HR qualifications around the age of 30. At that time the HR landscape wasnât specialised, you had to be able to do everything â law, resourcing, development, relations, the whole kit and kaboodle . Iâve always been outgoing and enjoyed interacting with people and I was attracted by the idea of HR as a role where your time is spent developing and helping people. In hindsight, that was a little naive, I didnât realise the level of administration and challenge that also comes with the job. After getting my qualifications, I moved into the manufacturing sector. At the time, Iâd never been into a factory, never dealt with unions and didnât know what a shift pattern was. Happily, I discovered that my heart lies in that kind of gritty industry, and the manufacturing sector is where Iâve spent the majority of my time since. As I progressed my career, I moved into more generalist roles. In my current role as HRD for GEOAmey Iâm part of the executive board so itâs a very generalist position. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? Recruitment is a nightmare at the moment. I see all these news reports about drivers going back to Europe and the number of vacancies there are , but itâs a bit of a mystery to me where all the labour is. Trying to access the talent pool and get the right people at the right level is really hard, I think thatâs the case for every sector. Another challenge is trying to ensure that diversity and inclusion are embedded in practice, and they are not just listed as company values. I think there is a generational element to this, in that some people want to continue doing what theyâre always been doing, even if itâs not acceptable, so part of this involves winning over people’s hearts and minds. The pandemic is obviously a challenge, and in my current and recent roles our people are key workers so thatâs been really hard going for people. As we begin to come out of it, itâs almost no different because our work never stopped. A related challenge is the responsibility of organizations to proactively support people with their mental health. People arenât only dealing with their mental health; in many industries, like mine, theyâre dealing with other peopleâs mental health challenges as well. The pandemic and the various stresses that came with it have massively impacted most industries, either by slowing them down or stopping them or by significantly increasing demand its been a feast or a famine. . Linking that back to recruitment, people are valuing their time more, which means that the additional benefits a role offers – especially flexible working – are increasingly important, and if your industry isnât able to offer that, itâs an added snag to hiring. Lastly, Iâll add digitization. Historically, the HR profession wasnât overly digital and now we are trying to guide other people and other departments to do things digitally. At GEOAmey we are doing our first digital engagement survey this year. Theyâve always been on paper before, so that will be an interesting test to see how people respond. I think it will be a challenge for some people, but digital is the way the world is quickly going. 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 honest, because thatâs what people want to hear. If something is wrong, then you need to say it is wrong – respectfully. Build really good relationships with people so you can be honest with them, and develop the skills to help others to see different perspectives. I think the credibility of our profession is in being the moral compass of an organisation, but we do that by finding solutions, not by being a blocker to what the business needs or wants to achieve. Itâs about finding a pragmatic, and commercially viable way to do the right thing. Secondly, be brave. I often use the phrase âput on your brave pantsâ and tell my team to take a breath, then do it. As a leader, being brave also means acknowledging that you donât know everything, I think HR bosses –
Recently we were introduced to Sally Roberts-Dennis, HR Manager at SEF part of the Stanley Black and Decker Group. Sally had been working with another provider on a contingent basis to recruit an HR professional for her team but hadnât found who she was looking for. We talked to Sally about the way we partner with our clients to deliver a shortlist of 3 qualified candidates. As a new client, our way of working can feel like a leap of faith. But Sally only spent time interviewing 2 candidates and was pleased to find she would have considered them both. Here’s what else Sally had to say about working with Human. Please get in touch if youâd like to learn more about how we can help you to grow your HR team. Â
Retained Search: Case Study with Stanley Black & Decker Group Read More »
We are excited to announce that on September 29th at 1pm we will be hosting our second Talent Acquisition Hackathon. In this session, we are planning to discuss how to engage with passive talent and how to attract people when you canât offer flexible working or working from home. If you have someone in mind that could join us as a panelist or another topic that you would like to be discussed, please feel free to get in touch. You can find the registration link below. Looking forward to seeing you there! Where? Zoom (Click here to register) When? Wednesday, September 29th at 1pm London
Talent Acquisition Hackathon #2 Read More »
On September 8th we had a great webinar co-hosting with John Franklin-Hackett, Founder and Chief Game Changer at Franklin-Hackett Ltd and The GC Index. During the session we discussed the impact of HR Directors and also about the importance of understanding, utilising and rewarding the natural energies of individuals in our workplaces. You can find the link to the recording here. Enjoy listening!
Human HR Hackathon: The power of The GC Index Read More »