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Author name: amy@recruithuman.co.uk

HR leadership with Martin Blackburn, UK People Director at KPMG. Martin talks to us about HR, his career trajectory and how Cilla Black helped him get his start in the HR arena.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited HR Leaders across the UK to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Martin Blackburn, UK People Director at KPMG. Martin’s career in HR began in Graduate Recruitment for Ernst & Young. From there he developed a career within Professional Services with Proctor and Gamble, Baker & Mackenzie before joining KPMG in 2014. I asked Martin how he got started in HR and his answer did not disappoint. Were you always interested in an HR career from the start? “Do you remember Blind Date, Amy?” I answered ‘yes’ tentatively. You might remember that there was a widely reported wedding, Cilla wore a big hat. It was big news at the time. The groom was Alex Tatham. He was an auditor at Ernst & Young. They recognised that he had a lot of profile, everyone knew who he was. They sent him on a 12-month secondment to visit all the universities at Freshers Fairs to represent the company and promote their graduate scheme. Alex did that for a year then went back into audit practice. I’d done really well in my accountancy exams and came top in the country, there was lots of profile around that and EY asked me to take over Alex’s role. I spent 12 months going around all the universities speaking to students about a career at Ernst & Young. I enjoyed it, but eventually went back to audit with EY before leaving for a career in Finance with Proctor and Gamble. After a year in Finance, I realised I missed Graduate Recruitment, so I returned to Ernst and Young. “People is really the reason HR stuck. I had a brilliant experience at Ernst & Young, running business games and doing presentations. It can be naive to sometimes to say that HR is helping people, but I enjoyed helping people. After 14 years with EY I left in 2007 to become HR Director for the London office of Baker & Mackenzie. For Martin there are two things that really drive his enjoyment; who he’s working with, and what he’s trying to achieve. At that time, the Legal arena was changing and was relatively untouched by modern day HR.  Martin believes that around this time, the legal sector had a realisation that they were fundamentally a people business. He worked with the Managing Partner to transform the organisation. The business was operating in a very volatile market when he joined in 2007, just before the financial crash. We couldn’t recruit fast enough, and 1 year on we were managing redundancies. When I left Baker & Mackenzie I hadn’t intended a return to the Big 4, but they had really changed. Some of the leading edge thinking was coming from the big four. What key themes and challenges are you seeing in the HR sector at the moment? The changing nature of HR is a key topic. The type of things we’re doing now weren’t conceived of in HR previously. ‘Is Culture aligned to Strategy?’ That wasn’t discussed 10 years ago. Back then they talked about values but if we don’t have an aligned structure and values, you won’t achieve. Obviously, Brexit is on people’s minds. Aside from that, technology has made a huge impact and is changing at a very rapid pace. We just rolled out the first module of SuccessFactors, which is Employee Central, at KPMG. Two or three years ago, we were thinking about moving to a cloud-based system globally. But we’re realising how much the world of work has changed. You have to move quickly and implement shorter term projects that are more flexible and can quickly plug in to your existing system. Being able to use data and analytics for forecasting HR needs is another challenging area that we have to quickly adapt to. We’re also seeing that the workforce of the future is transforming into a more contingent one. You often have people from five to six generations co-existing in the same workplace. People want more control over their career and have individual experiences. They don’t expect to be told stuff. They get what they want and move on.  We’re also seeing more and more that the next generation, generation Z, are very tech savvy and are used to instantaneous feedback. Organisations like KPMG are more relationship driven. Some people believe, we’re creating a generation that doesn’t have as strong relationship building skills. The question we need to ask is “Will that matter to our clients who might be expecting something different?” What career advice would you give to someone who is starting their career who wants to follow in your footsteps? HR is such a wide area and it’s getting wider. Therefore, it’s important to get experience of different areas. I find it amazing how still today I call on skills I learned during my time in graduate recruitment back at the start of my career. Other advice I would offer is to remember that HR isn’t an industry; it’s there to support business to achieve its strategy and to understand what’s getting in the way. If you don’t have that natural interest you’ve constrained yourself. Initiatives that are just pushed onto the business often don’t work. If you just shove stuff into it a business that it doesn’t want, it will reject it. The final piece of advice would be to get a range of experience. When I started HR was HR and Recruitment since then there has been a massive proliferation into health & wellbeing, engagement, culture. You could choose to specialise but early in your career I believe it’s good to get as much exposure as you can. Martin has been UK People Director for KPMG since 2014 and leads a team of over 300 people across 22 offices. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how

HR leadership with Martin Blackburn, UK People Director at KPMG. Martin talks to us about HR, his career trajectory and how Cilla Black helped him get his start in the HR arena. Read More »

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I believe you need to look through both a finance and HR lens. If the HR strategies aren’t supporting commercial improvements across the business, what are you doing them for?”. Shakil Butt, HR Hero for Hire speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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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 Shakil Butt, HR Hero for Hire. Shakil began his career as an finance professional with an accounting practice before moving to IR Wolrdwide in 1995 as Head of Accounts. From there he fell into HR and hasn’t looked back. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I came into HR by accident, it wasn’t by design. I’d been in Finance for 20 years at that point. In 2009 the business had a role that needed babysitting while the business went out to market to find a new Director of HR and OD. They sold it to me as a short term interim assignment that would really stretch me in different directions and give me a new challenge. I hadn’t realised it at the time, but I’d become sort of complacent. I was doing the same role year in, year out. So, I thought to myself, why not. You never know, I might learn something. I was a bit clueless at first, so I did probably the best thing I could’ve done, which was to reach out to my peer HR directors in my sector to understand how they’d achieved success in their roles. So, I met with the HR director of Christian aid, HR director of CAFOD, the Catholic relief agency and the HR director of World Vision. So, one after the other, I went around and met them for coffee and I just picked their brains and asked questions to develop my understanding. This interim role went on for another three months which became six months and then nine months became 18. The organisation had gone to market about three times trying to recruit for this particular role. At the 18 month point they asked me if I wanted to take on the role permanently, they gave me a caveat that I had to go back to university to become qualified to be a credible HR professional. That was scary because I was roughly about the age of 40 and I hadn’t studied since 1996.  It was an exciting challenge to re skill myself and was frightening at the time but also one of the best things I could have done. It was enjoyable because I went to university with a different mindset than when I was studying for my professional qualification as a young 20 year old. Back then studying was a chore, to please my family, to make myself employable. It wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed and at that time in my life, in my twenties, studying the ACCA felt like pulling teeth! Once I was in the classroom, I realised what I thought I knew about HR was actually very limited.  I thought I understood HR because I’d been involved with recruitment, ER cases and transactional HR (attendance, contracts etc.) But once I got into the classroom, I realised I had a massive gap in my understanding, but I also had a big advantage over my fellow students. In my role as HRD I had the authority and the autonomy to actually take the classroom learning and actually implement in the workplace. When I joined IR Worldwide in 1995 it was a 3 million pound organisation, by the time in 2017 I left at its peak it was a ÂŁ180 million organisation. It grew rapidly. In 1998 I was thinking of leaving but they sent me to Sudan and Palestine. There I saw people literally on the cusp of life and death and saw the difference we were making. It was then I decided to stay on and continue helping them to make a difference to the world. In 2017 after 22 years in the business my role was made redundant. I had got to a point where the HR team had achieved HR team of the year, received a commendation for Best ER initiative and been shortlisted for an employee engagement award. I had also been shortlisted for HRD of the year and been given the accolade of HR’s Most Influential for my sector. We’d hit a peak. At the time I was disappointed, but it was one of the best things that could have happened. The occasions I have learnt the most is when I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone. I decided to become self-employed in 2017 and it turned out to be a great decision. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? There is a lack of understanding in HR as to what HR is really capable of. When I was in finance, I believed that because finance saw the money coming in and the money going out, that made finance the most important department and that’s the ethos that is sold to us by our finance professional bodies. As soon as I moved into HR, I realised just how important HR was and how blinkered I had been. HR needs to consider the impact HR can make to a business. To understand a business, you have to get your hands dirty. To really make a difference you need to understand what your organisation is struggling with. Doing a sickness absence or a well-being project is great in itself but it won’t necessarily put you at the heart of the organisation, get real results or gain you credibility if you’re not solving the pain points the business is facing. I believe you need to look through both a finance and HR lens. If the HR strategies aren’t supporting commercial improvements across the business, what are you doing them for? Every business decision has those two dimensions. It has a financial dimension and a people dimension and in many companies the recent focus has been purely on finance. If you think about the way the world is right

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I believe you need to look through both a finance and HR lens. If the HR strategies aren’t supporting commercial improvements across the business, what are you doing them for?”. Shakil Butt, HR Hero for Hire speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

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seize the opportunities. People will very rarely stop you”. Alison O’Connor, Director Corporate Affairs at Arriva Group speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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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 Alison O’Connor. Alison began her career in the Retail sector as a Management Trainee before progressing into a variety of HR and Change Management roles within Boots. Alison is now responsible for Human Resources, Communications, Safety, Environment, CSR and Transport Policy within the Arriva Group, one of the largest European passenger transport providers; a business with a ÂŁ5bn turnover and over 50,000 colleagues. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I did a degree in sociology. In the 80s when you did sociology, everybody thought you were going to be a social worker. I knew social work wouldn’t give me the commercial decision making I was interested in. My Dad had lots of contacts, so he sent me off going to talk to lots of people; captains of industry. And that’s when I started to understand my career path. I graduated at the height of the recession in the 80s. So graduate places were at an all time low, particularly graduate places in HR. I realised I had two choices. One to join a company and try to work my way into HR that way or go and do my IPD qualification and then apply for jobs. But I recognised that then I would have more qualifications than experience and that might make things difficult. I decided to do my IPD and then went out into the world of work and I was offered two jobs in the same week. One was with a local authority the other was with Fine Fare, a food retailer. I felt the retailing world would be better for me than local authority. So, I took the job and I’ve never looked back. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? The biggest challenge of public transport is getting people out of private cars. How do we make our offer strong enough that it’s compelling enough for people to choose to use the bus or train rather than drive themselves? And it’s a tough market for talent, not everybody gets out of bed to work in public transport. So, although our brand is very strong in the market, we’re in an increasingly competitive market for talent. Diversity is a big challenge for us. How do we recruit from the widest pools? How do we change the image of the industry, which is traditionally male, to an industry that attracts the widest range of talent? We face a situation of relatively high employment across Europe. As of today more people are employed than ever before across Europe, so there’s labour shortages. For us in terms of employment that’s probably manifesting itself more right now in central and eastern Europe. Finally, there’s a real focus on diversity, particularly older workers and women. Research shows they hold the greatest scope for increased participation in the employment market. And so we must be able to adapt our employment offer to the needs of different employee groups. 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 think for anybody at any stage of their career in HR or any other, I’d say two things. Firstly, don’t wait for someone to ask you. My mantra is to seek forgiveness, not permission. Look for those opportunities and seize them. Don’t be precious about whether you should be doing it. Whether it befits your status. One of my other mantras is the day you stop learning, you’re dead. So, seize opportunities where you learn and do new things that stretch and develop you. People will very rarely stop you. I fully recognize that the organisation has a role to play in providing development, career paths and the like. But at the end of the day we each have a responsibility to develop ourselves and our career if that’s what we want. The other valuable insight that has served me well is to start with the needs of the business and work back from there. HR isn’t about following an HR textbook. It’s about what’s good for the business. Understanding the needs of the business and developing people solutions that meet those needs and contribute to the bottom line. I have yet to meet a manager who doesn’t want that support! Just do it and see what impact it has, for me, more doors have opened than have ever closed. Alison joined Arriva in 2001 as Director for HR Change and is now Director Corporate Affairs. If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

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seize the opportunities. People will very rarely stop you”. Alison O’Connor, Director Corporate Affairs at Arriva Group speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

“In much the same way an FD would look at a P&L before making a decision so should HR review the data before making a change”. Jill Kay, HR Officer at ASD Lighting and Rotherham United Football Club speaks to us about her career in HR.

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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 Jill Kay, HR Officer at ASD Lighting & Rotherham United FC.  Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? “I started my career in Hospitality Management and had been running my own pub since I was 18.  I climbed the hospitality career ladder to become a General Manager for Pizza Hut before moving into Retail with Asda and BHS. At both Asda and BHS, I carried out return to work meetings, disciplinary and grievance meetings and underwent training and really gained a passion for all things people. It was when I was working as an Operations Manager at BHS that I began to think about a career in a dedicated HR role. I started speaking to recruiters and decided the time was right and went on to gain my CIPD with Chrysos in Doncaster. I became qualified and then got experience and I’ve never looked back. Can you tell me about the challenges you currently face? Making sure you work strategically and operationally is a fine balance to strike in HR. I also think keeping up with legislation alongside managing the daily workload is a challenge.  Brexit is in the news and the pending legislation changes as a result of Brexit is a distraction because we still don’t know the impact. For employees the problem across a lot of companies I talk to is management capability and communication. All managers are generally technicians, operationally focused, so enhancing and developing management capability whilst building strong communication links is a key theme at the moment. What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? “Try and get as much exposure as possible because confidence comes from knowledge. Having someone to sanity check with is always useful. I’m very lucky here my direct line manager, Karen has been a great support. The other thing I can’t recommend highly enough is getting a mentor and building a network. My CIPD network has been invaluable to my career. To be able to send an email and ask a question about an HR system or a new piece of legislation makes keeping up to date so much easier. Increasingly the ability to interpret and manipulate data is key along with Excel or Google sheets knowledge. HR is now more evidence based than before. In much the same way an FD would look at a P&L before making a decision so should HR review the data before making a change. Finally, Jill recommends supplementing formal study with work experience. “Even if you come straight out of university with a CIPD Level 7, it’s helpful to be able to apply context. Make sure you gather as much work experience as you can along the way”. Jill joined ASD Lighting & Rotherham United FC in 2016 as HR Officer. Jill works in a stand-alone HR role supporting both ASD Lighting, a specialist lighting manufacturer, Rotherham United Football Club and Rotherham United Community Sports Trust.  Jill is also the Membership Engagement Coordinator for CIPD South Yorkshire and District Branch. If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

“In much the same way an FD would look at a P&L before making a decision so should HR review the data before making a change”. Jill Kay, HR Officer at ASD Lighting and Rotherham United Football Club speaks to us about her career in HR. Read More »

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Say yes more times than no”. Jaime Rivero, Regional HR Director at DJO speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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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 Jaime Rivero, Regional HR Director at DJO. Jaime began his career as a Recruitment Intern with El Corte Ingles, Spain’s largest Retailer before moving into Generalist HR leadership roles. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? Towards the end of my Psychology degree I realised I wanted to redirect my studies towards a business perspective. At the time a psychology degree in Spain was five years. So, the last two years of my studies, I decided to specialise in business because I thought that was more useful. When I finished the degree. I did a one year internship with a consultancy that works with the government. During that internship I realised that my knowledge at that time was quite limited. But at the same time it also sparked my interest in HR and Business. It was at this point I decided to study my master’s in human resources. After completing my Masters, I started my HR career as an HR Intern with El Corte Ingles, the biggest retailer in Spain.  They told me that they had a place available in the Recruitment team.  I think it was a very good experience, it gave me a good grounding. You can learn a lot about HR in Recruitment. It’s like the beginning of an employee’s journey with a company, so it gave me a great overview. From there I moved to a Spanish consultancy that was basically recruitment and selection. Working in a consultancy at that time in my career was great. It gave me a sense of working hard in a high demand, fast paced business. I went from Recruitment into Internal Communications and soon after I had the opportunity to move to Ernst and Young and became HR Business Partner for their Barcelona office. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? For me in a global role, the key thing is to combine the global approach with the local scope. You have to have a very similar approach across all the different countries. For multinational companies, you need the same type of procedures, but at the same time you have to be able to flex and adapt to every country because every country will have it’s own peculiarities. Not only in terms of employment law but also in terms of culture and even the history of the company in that country can have an impact as well. So, I think that for me is the most difficult part; to be able to combine our global approach, to set up a standard procedure and be able to move the whole organisation in the same direction whilst also adapting to those local ways of doing things. It can also be challenging to create the same employee experience in all of the different countries. From the recruitment process to the exit interview, you need to be consistent in what you are setting up across the different countries. “What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? “Say yes more times than no. Sometimes you have to say no, but normally if you have an opportunity, if you have a project, even if you’d don’t really know how to do it 100%. What matters is that you are motivated, and you will learn through the process. You always learn through the process. Jaime joined DJO in January 2019 as Regional HR Director for the APAC region and is responsible for driving forward the Talent Management initiatives for the International Business of DJO. If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

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Say yes more times than no”. Jaime Rivero, Regional HR Director at DJO speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

HR Leadership with Sharon Frost, HR Director at Gateway Education – “HR has a real role to play in pushing the boundaries”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates in developing fulfilling careers, we’ve invited HR Leaders from across the UK to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Sharon Frost, HR Director at Gateway Education.  Sharon’s first HR leadership role was at The Entertainment Network, a joint venture of Sony Music and Warner Music, where she was Head of HR for four years after spending her first nine months there as an HR Manager. How did you get started in your HR career? ‘I completed a Business Administration degree, which could have either led to a financial or an HR route. I quickly realised HR is all about the grey areas and the intricacies.  You could have two very similar disciplinary cases and the outcomes would be completely different, for valid reasons.  I loved that aspect of HR. I think it made me more curious about people and motivations, etc., as well as understanding that things aren’t always quite what they first seem to be.’ ‘I joined a 12-month Graduate Trainee program at Sainsbury’s straight from University and completed it in nine months.  I then moved into a Recruitment and Admin role, and eventually became a Regional Training Officer.  So I progressed quickly and had three roles in the four and a half years I was there.  Sainsbury’s definitely taught me that when you want something, to go for it.’ After Sainsbury’s Sharon worked in a more generalist role as HR Manager at The Entertainment Network.  I asked her to describe that first HR leadership role.  ‘It was very generalist. Back in those days, I had a checklist of all of the things I wanted to cover to be a fully-fledged HR practitioner, and I had no experience with unions, so that was a big attraction.  The other reason I was attracted to that role was that it had the brand names of Sony Music and Warner Music behind it, it certainly was a very interesting and exciting business to be part of.  I got to go to all of the awards ceremonies, which introduced me to the concept of having great fun at work too.’ ‘The Entertainment Network was a distribution centre, but it had manufactured media products in the past, which meant it had a formal recognition agreement with the T&G union, which I thought was great exposure.’ ‘It was more of a start-up than I realised.  I joined on a Monday and the business stopped being Sony Music on the previous Friday, so we had to start from scratch with all of the policies and procedures etc.  I properly cut my teeth in that role and within nine months, I replaced my boss and became Head of HR.  It was a truly exciting time and a great business to be part of.’ ‘Then I joined Cognita, which was a true start-up.  I remember turning the computer on and it literally had no documents, literally just the Microsoft icons!’ What skills do you think are important for someone taking that step up into an HRD position? ‘I think relationship management is key.  Being able to talk to the cleaner, but still be able to be the CEO’s confidant is vital as an HRD.  If you want to lead a truly approachable, two-way, flexible function, you need to be able to have your ear to the ground and be that trusted advisor of the CEO at the same time, and know when and how to do that.  You can’t be overly consumed by strategy or the minutiae at any one time.  Both need to be able to relate to each other, and the HR function is a conduit of that.  Therefore, the HRD has to lead by example.’ ‘Being able to push a business to be outwardly focused is important as well, because it’s really easy for people to become very insular.  I think that slows down the pace of change of the organisation.  When I look at Cognita now, it’s doing that brilliantly.’ ‘Ultimately, these things make a business more attractive, especially to millennials for example.  So when you’re thinking about your recruitment pipeline, the organisation needs to be topical and it needs to have something meaningful to say, as well as add value to its employees.  So HR being a champion of that is really important.’ ‘You also have to be trailblazing new things and making the odd mistake along the way.  I think HR has a real role to play in pushing the boundaries.  It has a massive role in helping a business keep current, think differently, believing that anything is possible, and that it’s good and okay to think that way.’ ‘Finally, anyone that wants to progress in HR needs to have got the basics in place and get those things right first, so they can use that as a springboard.  So I would always say to cut your teeth on the compliance part first, and then get into the exciting and interesting things to ensure your professional credibility.’ Are there any key themes and challenges in HR that you or your peers are seeing at the moment? ‘Clearly there’s a growing focus on diversity and inclusion nowadays especially with the #metoo campaign, I see more and more organisations starting to say “We need someone to drive this, because if we have issues, we need a trusted person to be skilled and resourceful enough to positively deal with it.” ‘It’s very interesting to me, because if I took on a role and looked at diversity and inclusion, I would want to knock it out of the park and not just look at what the government says we should be focusing on, or respond to the ‘issue of the moment’, I would want to find out where are the unconscious biases across the whole piece and look at it from a much more holistic perspective.’ ‘When I was working at Cognita, out of the seven Executive business leaders,

HR Leadership with Sharon Frost, HR Director at Gateway Education – “HR has a real role to play in pushing the boundaries”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Emma Canter, “I think we can get stuck in thinking that the only way is up”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited HR Leaders across the UK to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Emma Canter, Executive Coach and Owner of Valueship Consulting, which provides organisations with Leadership and Performance coaching, as well as Culture Development support. Prior to running her own consulting firm, Emma spent over 16 years working for British Gas and its subsidiaries in various HR leadership roles. She served as HR Director for both Business and Residential Energy divisions, and also spent four years in the US as Head of HR and Talent Development for Direct Energy. Can you tell us how you got into HR? “Looking back, I would say, I fell into HR. It was sort of a conscious decision, but a lot of it was unconscious. When I did my business degree, I really enjoyed two elements of it: marketing and HR.” “In my last year, I got a part time role in an energy organisation, which was Enron. I was working as an analyst, which was very different to HR. And I knew very, very clearly that that wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was a way of paying off debts. So I was looking for a new HR or marketing role, and the HR one came up first.” “And then, the Enron crisis happened. That was probably the moment I became more conscious of my career in HR, and the impact of a business going under and how people emotionally responded to it. I was fascinated by it. The massive people side of it is just not predictable. That got me hooked and not wanting to move out of HR. You can find yourself getting really surprised and really curious about why people do what they do, and the impact that it has on the business.” “British Gas bought Enron out, and it was a fascinating experience. At the time it felt like the grey suits arrived to take us over. I had this sense of dread of, “Oh. I’m not sure I want to work for this organisation.” But look at what happened 16 years later. So, don’t judge a book by its cover is probably a big lesson that I learned from that period.” “Ultimately, we ended up joining a part of the business that had very little HR support, which gave me a massive opportunity to learn as much as I possibly could across the HR spectrum. At that time, which was early in my career, I was really ambitious, and thirsty, and just wanted to learn, learn, learn. I kept asking for projects. It was probably the best foundation for my HR career that I could have possibly asked for.” What key themes and challenges are you seeing in HR at the moment? “The world is in quite an ambiguous and uncertain place right now, and I’m not just talking about the UK perspective. Some of my clients are global, and there’s a lot of policy or decisions and/or politics that make doing business uncertain and unpredictable. The biggest question that I get is, ‘How can you help leaders lead in that ambiguity and in that constant change and unknown?’ It’s not that we haven’t done it before. But it seems to be bigger, greater, and more pressing than it’s ever been felt. So that’s quite an interesting challenge and dynamic.” “The topic of leadership always seems to come up too. There are always questions like, ‘How do I get people to step up? What can leadership do in order to be more high performing as an organisation? What’s the tone that we’re setting? What’s the shadow that that creates that we’re not aware of?’ And then, sort of a spin off but still linked is, ‘What kind of culture is going to enable our people to be as successful as they can possibly be, and how can you help us lead from that position of culture?’”. What career advice would you offer someone who is either developing a career in HR or is thinking about taking that next step into an HRD role? The first place I always start with is to follow your heart and follow your gut. I fought against that advice a few years ago when I had a conversation with someone about going out on my own. I found myself with a belief that the classic hierarchical structure was the way I needed to go. But actually, from a true happiness perspective, it really wasn’t. Because now, I’m much happier. I enjoy my work more, and I’m able to give it more than I ever did the HRD role, because every day, I’m doing something I love. So, I think follow your heart and follow your gut is something I wish I had done a better job of for myself. Secondly, I think we can get stuck in thinking that the only way is up. You can always be a bit more creative by looking laterally and getting different perspectives. You may be surprised at what you find and how it better fits you. I’m also fascinated by the transition from HRD to CEO. Based on my experiences of leadership and a lot of the things that I currently do, if more HRDs made that transition, I truly believe we would have more higher performing organisations. Ultimately, because most organisations rely on people to deliver whatever the service is that they deliver to their clients and that service delivers profits. If the people aren’t engaged, you’re automatically weakening your position of being able to create the client satisfaction that creates the profit, and an HRD knows that piece around people. I would love a world, in the not too distant future, where we see way more of that happening. My instinct tells me that the chairman of a company and all the decision makers around that transition really need

HR Leadership with Emma Canter, “I think we can get stuck in thinking that the only way is up”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Frances Lees, HR Director at Melia Hotels International. “As the person on the HR side you must keep bringing it back to the people”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Frances Lees, UK Talent and Projects Manager for MeliĂĄ Hotels International. Frances got her start in HR at MeliĂĄ and served as HR Manager for her first two years there, and then moved up to HR Director. Frances was Deputy General Manager at Firmdale Hotels for three years before moving to MeliĂĄ. Your career started in PR. How do you go from PR to HR? Was that a conscious decision or was it an organic process? ‘It was definitely an organic process. I got into PR straight out of university. I literally graduated one day and walked into my first job a PR agency the next day. I’d done a Photography degree and I was looking for something where I would be working with people. I realised by the end of my degree that I wasn’t really the type of person that wanted to work on my own. And being a photographer, I think there’s a fair amount of working alone. I was also looking for the stability of being in an organisation rather than working freelance.’ ‘At the bottom rung of the ladder in a PR agency, you are like a sales person. You’re selling stories to journalists and some of them are stories that they’re just not interested in. I didn’t get enough exposure to the creative side of PR to override the sales nature of it which definitely didn’t suit me!’ ‘It was at that point that I thought of doing something else. It was really obvious to me even at university that I was good at team leading. I always ended up as the team leader of things even without asking. Even in the PR agency I became the mentor of all of the interns without anybody formally suggesting to do so. I knew it was about leading people and I enjoyed the training side of things. So that was how I ended in the hotel industry, because hotels seemed like a really obvious choice if you wanted something that involved people management, being hands on, and always being busy with lots to do.’ ‘I was lucky to get into a fantastic company that really supported me and helped me progress into a senior management position. That was how I discovered HR, because in small hotels, there isn’t an HR department onsite. In more senior management roles, you take on more and more HR responsibility without really realising that’s what you’re doing. And when I realised I didn’t want to be a General Manager anymore, it was in conjunction with realising that I wasn’t really enjoying my job because of the customers. I was enjoying it because I was managing the team. I loved the people and it was important for me to keep them motivated. That was how I discovered HR.’ Did you set your sights on HR Leadership from that point? ‘Most of these things just happened organically. I’m quite open minded about my future and where I go. You can see from what I’ve done so far that I want to try lots of things. I like learning, and I like developing my knowledge and my skills. So I’ll take most opportunities that are presented to me.’ ‘I took a pretty significant pay cut to go in as HR manager, although, I was prepared to take an even bigger one. I thought at the time I was probably going to have to go to HR Advisor level. And I think I was probably being a bit unfair on myself, luckily MeliĂĄ thought so as well. Because, I had a lot of leadership skills and I’ve been part of the senior leadership team. Going in as HR Manager was still quite a big step back for me, and I had an HR director above me at the time. So when I became HR director that was just after her departure from the business and I took over the position from her.’ Are there any key themes and challenges that you are facing in your role, or you see your peers dealing with?   ‘I would say one big thing at the moment is well-being. I think hospitality is probably a long way behind. And obviously, hospitality is one of those industries that comes with a lot of challenges in terms of well-being. Even more so if you’re operating in central London because of the nature of living in London is so expensive, and doing the very basic hospitality jobs really makes it very hard for you to live reasonably comfortably in London. You’re often working very long hours, or very extreme hours, and I think that combination can damage well-being.’ ‘We also attract a lot of people from abroad. The majority of our workforce is mostly European. They come to London, which seems like a city of opportunity and it seems really exciting, and then you live in a room in a shared house sharing a bathroom with eight strangers, and you don’t know anybody. London can be an incredibly isolating place to live. People don’t talk to one another – you sit on the tube and nobody talks to you and people just ignore you. I think that that comes as a bit of a shock, particularly for our Spanish employees (our Head office is in Palma), it’s just so different from their own culture.’ What career advice can you offer someone who wants to build a career in HR? ‘There are two things that I would say that I live by. One is, don’t keep your mouth shut. If you don’t agree with something, and if you have a different perspective, then you have to say so. And learn to say it in a way that is assertive, but it’s not going to make people feel uncomfortable, and don’t

HR Leadership with Frances Lees, HR Director at Melia Hotels International. “As the person on the HR side you must keep bringing it back to the people”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Hannah Atack, HR Director at Alamy. “Don’t be afraid to be creative. Some of the best ideas come from stepping out of your comfort zone”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Hannah Atack, HR Director at Alamy. Hannah was Head of HR at Volo Commerce, and also served as HR Manager at Barnett Waddingham. She started her HR career at Cheltenham and Gloucester upon finishing her CIPD qualification soon after finishing a degree in Marine Geography. How did you get into HR? ‘I did my degree in Marine Geography, which I loved but the career options weren’t really a fit with what I was looking for from a career on graduation. Whilst deciding on what I wanted from a career I got a temporary role straight after university, and I happened to be sat next to the HR department. I got to hear what they were saying and learned more about it, and it all seemed really interesting. So I investigated how I could get into it, and got my Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources Management.’ ‘After receiving my CIPD qualification, I interviewed for a role as a Compensation and Benefits Officer and got hired. It wasn’t really where I intended to start, but I took the opportunity and having that experience has proved very beneficial throughout my career. I did that for a year, but was keen to try different areas of HR. There was a Personnel Advisor opening within the branch network, so I went for that role and got it.’ ‘I think from the get go, right after finishing my post graduate qualification, I knew HR was the career for me. I’ve always been fascinated with how organisations can enable people to achieve the most that they can and how businesses can structure themselves to ensure that they’re gaining the most from their workforce.’ Did starting in such a corporate environment help you in your career? ‘I definitely think so. I don’t work in a corporate environment now. It’s a smaller, albeit global, entrepreneurial organisation. But the skills gained from the experience and training that I got from Cheltenham and Gloucester and HSBC has been helpful throughout my career.’ ‘I think having diversity in your career is important. I’ve always made sure to be involved in several different areas. I would say my HR experience now is robust and well-rounded. I’ve learned something in every single role I’ve done. It’s either I’ve built a new skill or tried something new. For every role that I’ve gone for, I’ve always looked at what I can gain from that role and what I can offer.’ What do you think is important in terms of key skills to be successful in an HR leadership role? ‘I think it’s a mixture of having a very commercial focus and using data to achieve the best outcome, but equally being really creative and innovative about the way you think about things whilst ensuring that your product is relevant, and adds value, to the business.  These are some of the things I encourage my team to focus on.’ ‘Leading from a position of trust has also been something I’ve always naturally done. It’s really important to me and I think it’s good organisational practice and enables you to lead an empowered and successful team.’ What key themes and challenges are you or your peers facing at the moment? ‘It’s a really interesting time in HR. I think the idea of moving away from annual appraisals and ensuring you have a continuous performance approach is an important factor in enabling high performing teams. We are focused instead on moving to quarterly objectives and making sure we have regular conversations, feedback and check-ins. One question that I consistently hear from people with regard to removing the annual appraisal and rating system is, “How do you ensure that you maintain a fair assessment of performance, for example in terms of how to pay out on a bonus?” This is a question we are trying to answer at the moment. ‘Another thing I’m focused on increasingly revolves around the employer brand. You have to make sure that you are utilizing all the resources at your fingertips to get your employer brand out there from a candidate point of view, as well as from a customer perspective.’ ‘Employer brand and company culture should naturally feed through everything because that’s what makes it authentic. If you have to protect it or if you have to try too hard, something is misaligned. It should be there naturally because you’ve enabled it to develop over time. It’s also critical that the external employer brand matches the internal one. That’s what I mean by being authentic. What you’re saying externally shouldn’t be too hard because it’s what you’re living internally; it’s genuine.’ Do you have any advice for someone hoping to step up to HRD?  Learn from things that didn’t go as expected and focus on continually developing your technical, business and leadership skills.  Consider what the skills and attributes are of a great HRD and identify any gaps in your own experience and proactively seeks ways to gain those skills. ‘It’s important to know your topic, no matter what role you’re in. Make sure that in every step you’re building credibility and that you’re delivering value add people initiatives and ideas. You should also be actively listening to what the business needs at that point in time, and thinking about the future. Don’t be afraid to be creative. Some of the best ideas come from stepping out of your comfort zone.’ Hannah has been HR Director at Alamy since July 2018 and leads the HR function. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how Human can support you in growing your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Hannah Atack, HR Director at Alamy. “Don’t be afraid to be creative. Some of the best ideas come from stepping out of your comfort zone”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Giorgio Jones: “Emotional intelligence is paramount” Giorgio Jones, Group CFO & HR Director talks to us about the skills needed to succeed in HR Leadership.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Giorgio Jones, Group CFO and HR Director at PM Holding Group. Giorgio has been in the pharmaceutical space for almost 30 years, working primarily with Clinical Research Organisations like Quintiles, Profiad and Quanticate.  Can you tell us how you started your career in HR?  ‘It’s unusual because I started off as a Management Accountant, and eventually rose up to Finance Director and then CFO. At that point and up until now, I’ve always worked with SMEs or within SMEs, and invariably you’re given either IT or HR to look after as well. I think it was about 2003 when I got my first Finance Director role, I became responsible for HR.’ ‘I’ve always had an interest in HR because I’ve worked for companies in the services sector where the people are your asset. What we sell is people’s expertise and time, and they’re knowledge workers. So, I’ve always had an interest and understood the connection between commercial success and how those people operated and how you looked after them.’ ‘When I turned 50, I decided to formalise my HR understanding and I did the CIPD. And I found that very interesting, because whilst I had quite a lot of practical experience by then of running HR departments, albeit it in SMEs, it just gave me more insight into the theory.’ ‘One of the first things that struck me when I started was the importance of good HR admin. It seems obvious, but when you don’t think about it and you’re always focused on strategy, engagement, retention, and recruitment, you forget the basics. If your HR admin is poor, people will have a poor opinion of HR as a function within the company. From then on, I focused on making sure my team were really good on the admin side before we even started thinking about people development, and so on.’ What core skills do you think are important to be a successful leader in 2019?  “Emotional intelligence is paramount. You can define that in different ways I suppose, but for it’s all about understanding people’s motivations. And I think sometimes it’s far too easy to put how we are as individuals on to others, and think their behaviour is driven by this and that because that’s what I would do. And maybe it’s not even a conscious thing, but rather a subconscious reaction. We need to break that and actually reflect and look at individuals individually, and why they do certain things when their behaviour is not what you expect.’ ‘I think it is very hard now to engage people. And, of course, working predominantly with a younger workforce, they’re quite different to myself in their aspirations and how they view work. So, for me, the first thing you’ve got to do is put yourself in other people’s shoes. Why are they coming to work every day? What is it they’re looking for from their job?’ ‘And of course, culture plays a key part in it all. I’ve worked with owner managed businesses for a long time now, and the culture of the company absolutely reflects the personality of that one individual. And HR has to be there to try and soften it, change it, or whatever. And they may even be asking you to change it on their behalf. But in the end, it’s very difficult to do because if they themselves don’t live it and set that example as the ultimate leader in the company, you’re fighting a losing battle. You can work hard to get people to a certain level of satisfaction and contentment, and then the leader can say one thing in a meeting and it all goes down the drain.’ What career advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in their HR career?  ‘Well, it’s interesting because I’ve got grown up sons and a grown up daughter who are all embarking on their careers now. I think it’s hard because you have to really think about what you want to do longer term, because it is difficult to switch. I was able to do it. But I was still younger than some of my kids are now. And I can see that one of them would like a change, but he perceives it as too late, and it probably is. Unless he’s prepared to take a step back financially, which is difficult to do. So, I was lucky in that sense that I was able to make that change.’ ‘So I think my advice would be to do what you enjoy, and perhaps don’t think too much about the financial side because that will come if you really enjoy something. You know, I never thought I would get to the CFO level and be on boards. When I started doing management accounting, that didn’t figure in my thinking at all. ‘I think you just have to get on with things really and not be too concerned what the impact is on you. That will take care of itself at some point in the future. I’ve not ever pushed for pay rises, but they’ve come my way quite naturally over time.’ Giorgio has been with PM Holding Group since May 2016. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how Human can support you in growing your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Giorgio Jones: “Emotional intelligence is paramount” Giorgio Jones, Group CFO & HR Director talks to us about the skills needed to succeed in HR Leadership. Read More »

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