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“
 it’s not just about people now. It’s understanding all the compliance and the impact on people going forward”. Jonathan Tinning Head of HR at Freeman Grattan Holding speaks to us about HR Leadership in 2019.

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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 Jonathan Tinning, Head of HR at Freemans Grattan Holdings. Jonathan also previously worked in HR consulting prior to joining Freemans and was Head of People at JD Williams where he worked for 14 years. Has HR always been your focus? Has is it always been what you wanted to do? “I actually started life as an electrician. I was an apprentice electrician and finished at the top of my class, I became a maintenance electrician in a large engineering firm. I was going to go back and do my degree in designing electrical installations, when the Personnel Manager grabbed me and said, “I need somebody to train electricians. I’ll make you a deal. Don’t do your degree for a year and go and train electricians. If you like it, you can go down that route, if you don’t, you can go back to do your degree.” “So, I got into training electricians. The next change came when the organisation was starting to have a core workforce and flexible workforce. The Personnel Manager said, “Well, you’ve been an electrician, so you can recruit electricians.” That then developed to, “You did a bit of welding. So can you recruit a welder? Can you recruit fitters?” I ended up with 150 temps and was responsible for recruitment, employee relations, and training”. During this time, I did the CTD and then I did four years of IPD “I then moved into Wall coverings manufacturing, looking after sites in the UK and a short spell in Canada all this was great experience. Then I moved into retail at JD Williams in 2001. So, it was a different way of getting into HR”. What do you think are the key skills needed in becoming a successful HR leader in 2019? “You’ve got to be adaptable as the pace of change is increasing significantly. Working in a regulated environment, compliance brings different challenges. We have the FCA, HMRC and the GDPR, it’s understanding all the compliance and the impact on people going forward. It’s important to take a flexible approach, to protect the culture to keep the people engaged in the organisation. One of the things I’ve seen is that people can lose sight of the culture. HR can also have a huge impact on damaging that culture. So that’s one of the key things when I sit down with the CEO and say, “Right, when we do things, we really need to think about the culture of the organisation because we don’t want to damage that because it’s very difficult to get it back. Commercial acumen is key, especially in retail at the moment, it’s going through a perfect storm there is an enormous amount of pressure on all angles of retail at present. It’s having that business acumen to say, “Okay, we’ve got to think about this from multiple angles. So, you’re wearing many hats, not just the HR hat”. How do you disseminate the culture across such a disparate skill set? “The culture starts with our CEO John and his approach. We always look to him to see how he does things, to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for the staff. And when we make changes, we explain why we’re doing that to the individuals as well, honesty is the key. Then it filters into the Board, and how they behave, interact, and how people see those people work together. I’ve seen that previously where I’ve had Boards that didn’t work together and the whole organisation feels the negative impact”. What are the key themes and challenges that you’re facing at the moment? “I want to say Brexit more than anybody. We ship product in from Germany. So, we need to understand the impact of Brexit on the movement of goods. We’ve also got around 70 people who are European nationals who work for us, so we’ve got issues with that as well and were working hard to support them settling in the UK and taking away any anxiety they may have. We have launched a solid interlinked performance management process and as part of that we are developing our managers which is a key issue to ensure we have the right skills for the future. Digital talent is another area where we are building our capability even further and we’re working hard on our employment brand to attract talent.” Jonathan has been Head of HR at Freemans Grattan Holdings for the past two years. He also sits on the Board of Trustees of the Tony Rampton Trust, which provides funding for charity projects and additional employee benefits for both current and former employees of FGH. If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

“
 it’s not just about people now. It’s understanding all the compliance and the impact on people going forward”. Jonathan Tinning Head of HR at Freeman Grattan Holding speaks to us about HR Leadership in 2019. Read More »

“There’s a war for talent, but the war doesn’t end once the person joins.”. Kenny Jin, Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA talks to us about HR and Talent Acquisition in 2019

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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 Kenny Jin, Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA, a venture capital firm and investment group based out of Singapore. Kenny helps REAPRA’s startups, which are located across Southeast Asia, sort out their HR and recruitment issues. Kenny got his start in HR when he joined Michael Page International as a Consultant. He then spent several years working for several recruitment companies in different roles such as Associate Director for Sales and Marketing at Profile Search and Selection, Branch Manager at Adecco Group handling Finance, HR, Sales and Marketing, and finally, as Vice President for Accounting and Finance at Charterhouse Singapore before joining REAPRA. Can you tell us how you got your start in HR and recruiting? ‘I definitely had a nontraditional journey. I started my career in investment banking. I did that for about a year or so, and I quickly found out that it was not really what I wanted to do. It wasn’t just the hours. You’re staring at a spreadsheet, building financial models, and you’re not talking to anyone. There are days when you can come in and you don’t talk to anyone. And I thought that was quite numbing in a few different ways.’ ‘So, I approached a headhunter to help me find another career in finance.  And basically, they said, “Why don’t you join us and be a recruiter for us?” And that’s how I joined Michael Page as a Consultant.’ ‘The change or the type of feeling I experienced in my first few months there was significant. I couldn’t believe I was being paid to do something where I basically just talked to people all day, which was something I really enjoyed.’ ‘I spent four or five years in Shanghai, and then four or five years in Singapore, and then I decided it was time for something a little bit different. As you and I both know, recruitment is a competitive and rewarding industry, but it can also be quite transactional. So that made me want to make the leap to in-house. And my current organisation was the perfect one to make that transition.’ ‘Right now, I’m working for a holding company or an investment company. My role involves working with our portfolio companies on HR and recruitment matters. The dynamic is a little bit different from a recruitment agency, but it’s very transferable in terms of I’m the subject matter expert that these companies go to when they have recruitment or HR issues. Since we are part owners for these companies, the working relationship is more of a true partnership and is that much more impactful’.  Can you explain to us what you’re doing now as Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA? ‘I have two roles. I do all the recruitment internally for our parent organization, and I also help with recruitment for our subsidiary companies. We have 20 companies across Southeast Asia that are majority owned by us.’ ‘And then, there’s the HR Business Partner role where I spend probably about 50% of my time in our local markets such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. I work with our companies there and help them solve HR problems, come up with HR best practices, look at the implementation of those practices, and things like that.’ Putting aside labor laws, cultural and language issues, what common themes are you seeing when you’re working and dealing with people issues across those five countries? Are there any commonalities? ‘There are definitely commonalities. There are two big parts to it. The first part is on the talent acquisition side. I would say that in Southeast Asia, there’s no shortage of talent, but there’s a shortage of good talent. There’s a huge war for talent especially in very specialised areas like UX, UI, and hot topics like blockchain developers. This is across all the different countries.’ ‘The second big part is more on the HR side. I don’t know if it’s the same in the UK, but in Southeast Asia, there are a lot of HR tech companies popping up. Every week someone will approach me and sell me a new APS or management platform. And I guess nowadays you can’t really have a high performing team or HR framework without integrating some of these technologies. And the challenge that I see for a lot of my peers and a lot of other people in the HR industry is, how do we pick the right software and tools, and how do we integrate it into our overall HR strategy.’ What key themes and challenges in terms of HR are you facing across those organisations at the moment? ‘I think talent is obviously going to be the biggest part of it. And from the regional organisation level, each country is very different. They have a lot of different regulations and other little things that you have to worry about just to be compliant. So that’s one challenge that we’re facing, because we’re operating in five markets simultaneously without necessarily having satellite offices or local teams.’ ‘I think the other main challenge is keeping people motivated. I told you that there’s a war for talent, but the war doesn’t end once the right person joins the organisation. You also have to fight to retain your talent. And I guess with lean startups you can have a very exciting startup, but the next day there’s another startup that pops up. And they have maybe higher pay or cooler perks. And that’s something that we’re always dealing with.  Because at the end of the day, our target audience is similar to a lot of other companies’ target audience.’ What career advice would you give someone who is looking to get into talent acquisition or HR? ‘I think there’s no right or

“There’s a war for talent, but the war doesn’t end once the person joins.”. Kenny Jin, Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA talks to us about HR and Talent Acquisition in 2019 Read More »

“You have to start thinking about the company almost as if it were your company”. Robert White, COO at IDC speaks to us about developing a career in Leadership.

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As part of our commitment to adding value beyond the connection, we have been speaking with CEO’s, COO’s and HR leaders. We wanted to understand more about how they developed careers, the challenges they face and how they have achieved their success. This week, we spoke with Robert White, Chief Operating Officer for Western Europe at IDC and CFO for EMEA. How did you develop a career in Leadership? “I will have been with IDC for 27 years in March 2019. Prior to that I’d go into a company, work for two, two and a half years maybe and then look for some sort of the promotion or upward movement”. “In 1992 I was working for a major computer vendor. It was a French organisation and I was looking for the next step up. Like a lot of the hardware companies at that time it was just starting to hit a wall in terms of its growth and expansion. So, I thought it was a good time to have a look around. I went to some recruitment agencies and one of them came back with this opportunity at IDC”. “As before I initially had my eye on the horizon. But I quickly realised that there was massive potential for me at IDC. Around 1997, I accepted the opportunity to take on the European finance director role. This opened up more possibilities in terms of taking on international work and managing teams distributed across western Europe. There was always something more to do. That role led on to my current role as COO, which I’ve been in for about four or five years”. Was it easy to transition to the role of Chief Operating Officer? “I would say it was a significant transition going from Group VP of Finance into Chief Operating Officer. I kept responsibility for finance. At the time we were going through a change and I was also given the extra responsibility for our publishing division.  The really big change came 10 years after that when I moved into my current role. It really gave me the opportunity to operate as a general manager and more than a head of the back-office support function”. What key skills are most important to success in a Leadership role? “Communication is definitely in the top three. When you are working with a mix of direct reports who are spread across a geography the size of western Europe, the ability to communicate is paramount.  There are different cultures, which sometimes presents a challenge, and sometimes presents opportunities. You have to recognise that people do things differently, they behave differently, they have different management styles. It’s very important as an international manager to be able to connect and communicate across those different geographies”. “Another key element to success for me is to be able to think like an owner rather than an employee at all times. You have to think about balancing shareholder interest, employee interest, and of course the client interest.  You have to come to a decision on something that you know is optimal for the organisation whilst balancing those three important constituencies”. Roberts also believes a high level of commercial acumen and a strong grasp of the numbers is key. “Coming up through the finance route, naturally gives you that philosophy because of course you’re dealing with numbers, you’re dealing with financial reports, forecasts and plans and financial plans actively. Roberts recognises that the numbers are important, but what’s behind the numbers in terms of your organisation is almost more important”. Empathy was the final of the three-skills Robert said would be key to success in a Leadership role. “You have to take into consideration things like human aspects. For example, HR decisions, you have to think about how change will be received. The numbers might look good but how do you sell this to managers who might be resistant to change. That part of the equation for me was something I had to learn on the job and often by experience, occasionally through mistakes. The Human aspect to leadership is key”. What key themes and challenges are prevalent at the moment across the Leadership function? “In our company as time moves on there’s definitely been a change and the younger generation coming through have been the catalyst. Flexible working is a key consideration. The expectation is that people come in and do eight hours, nine to five, although we have a lot of flexibility. Over the last few years, we have operated with flexible working; people can work at home for a certain amount of days a week and can come in later if they need to. So, to that extent we flexed and moved with the times. “If you are attracting top talent you want them to be productive. You want them to be optimal, but at the same time, switch them on to the long-term opportunities. People want to understand what their career will look like in four or five years’ time if they choose to stay. In that sense, the traditional employer employee relationship has changed. At the younger end of the scale the expectations are higher and there’s more choice out there in terms of newer companies who were often set up by people in that generational bracket”. What career advice would you give to someone with aspirations to develop into a C suite role? “It goes back to what I said, that you have to start thinking about the company almost as if it were your company. That’s the single best advice I would give. I’d also recommend you look at how the whole company fits together, understand the role of other support areas which often get overlooked. Who’s the sales director or sales manager? Who’s on the upward path? You can go on training courses and learn about corporate governance or HR in terms of what it means today. But I think often the best thing to do is look at the

“You have to start thinking about the company almost as if it were your company”. Robert White, COO at IDC speaks to us about developing a career in Leadership. Read More »

HR Leadership and Careers with Janine Walker, HR Manager. ‘
the most important thing is to work for an organisation that aligns with your values’.

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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 Janine Walker, HR Manager at Catalyst, a mental health charity involved in drug and alcohol addiction. Janine’s HR career spans a variety of sectors working for highly recognisable organisations such as British Rail, the Royal College of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Wetherspoons, and HelpAge. She’s also been an HR consultant and interim HR Manager for more than 10 years, and has helped numerous organisations develop their HR departments and strategies. How did you get started in HR and why has it stuck after all these years? ‘I didn’t go to university. I started off working for a pension payroll company and my boss was the Staff and Payroll Manager. I saw what she did dealing with people, and I thought, “I’d like to do that.” But they didn’t give me a chance to do it. Then I got a job at British Rail in the HR department. I was there for about seven years and they paid for me to do my IPM, which was what it was called in those days.’ “Later in my career, I set up my own business, Bloom in Work Ltd, and alongside that I got a job at Remploy on their mental health support service. I was coaching people who were either off sick or still at work but struggling with their mental health’. ‘I then started working for Catalyst as an HR Manager. They’re a drug and alcohol addiction, and mental health charity. I’m currently implementing an employee well-being group. I’m doing pulse surveys. I’m doing all the things that I think organisations should do’. What advice would you give someone who was looking to develop a career in HR? ‘To me the most important thing is to work for an organisation that aligns with your values. One of the things about HR is that you can work anywhere, because virtually everywhere has got an HR department.’ ‘I feel very strongly about justice, following due process and making sure people get a fair hearing. I’ve worked in organisations where I’ve been bullied to try and reassure a manager that I was going to sack somebody in a disciplinary case. Well that doesn’t sit well with me. So, I think the first thing for me would be to get into an organisation that lines up with your values.’ ‘I’ve got a very particular view of HR. I don’t like HR departments that work for management only. I strongly believe that HR is like the middle person. Sometimes I’m going to tell managers things they don’t want to hear, and sometimes I’ll tell employees things they don’t want to hear. But I’m working for the organisation either way.’ ‘To do that and to find out what you enjoy, maybe try working for a few different types of organisations because they’re so different. I think years ago it used to be really difficult to move from public to private or private to public. It’s much easier now. So, if you get a chance to just try working in a few different types of industries, then that would give you a really good understanding of what you enjoy.  I love working with blue collar organisations. One of my favourite jobs was working for the airline catering industry. If you like employee relations, that’s the kind of place you want to work because there’s tons of it. If you’re more about management development and that sort of thing, then you’re probably better off in a more corporate environment.’ ‘In my day, it was really good to get a generalist experience, but I think it’s moving much more towards everyone being a specialist, particularly around reward and organizational development. So, try a few different types of roles out if you’re earlier in your career to see what floats your boat.’ What key themes and challenges in HR are you and your peers facing at the moment? ‘For me at the moment one of the key challenges is recruitment. Although we’re supposed to be in a very high employment situation, because of the stagnation of salaries and the high cost of living, one of the problems we’re having at the moment is people saying, “You’re not paying enough.” If you benchmark us across the charity sector we’re not bad payers, but compared to some of our partners, like the NHS, we’re lower. And because of everything that’s going on in society, with all the cuts and all that kind of thing, it’s having a knock on effect on people’s general well-being. So that’s something employers really need to step up, because we spend so much time at work. Those are the two key things that I’m working on at Catalyst.’ ‘I think sometimes if you can make people happy at work, the money is less of a problem. Right now, only 25% of our staff are full time. So I’m having a bit of a nightmare having to type in individual work patterns for everybody, because everyone does such odd hours and compressed hours. But I think it’s good that people can work more flexibly nowadays. For a small charity, there are a lot of issues that are historic, but I think we’ve got the opportunity to make it a brilliant place to work moving forward.’ Janine has been HR Manager at Catalyst for 6 months. She’s also been developing her own company, Bloom in Work Ltd., which aims to help people deal with their mental health and well-being in the workplace, and also help employers look after their staff better. 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 and Careers with Janine Walker, HR Manager. ‘
the most important thing is to work for an organisation that aligns with your values’. Read More »

HR leadership with Dean Morley, HR Director and Founder of People Capital Ltd. Working from the ‘Outside-In’; first understand the organisation, then look at the people.

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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 Dean Morley. Dean’s HR career spans a wide range of sectors starting with Financial Services in retail banking at NatWest, Civil Service as the Head of HR for the National Offender Management Service and Deputy HR Director at Department of Work and Pensions. He later moved into to Higher Education where he served as HR Director at Kingston University and the Royal College of Art. Dean now runs his own HR consultancy, People Capital Ltd. Were you always interested in an HR career from the start? ‘I’d love to say that I had this massive career plan that saw me one day being an HR Director and doing consultancy work, but to be honest, it didn’t work out that way; the path I followed tended to be more about following my instinct when opportunities came up. ‘If you look at my career, I started off in NatWest Retail Banking. When I joined, I thought, “I’ll be at NatWest until I retire.” Then came ‘Big Bang’ and bank deregulation[1]. The whole sector was turned upside down. That was a huge learning experience for me about how you can never fully predict the future – and how organisational (and personal) agility is arguably more important than well-formulated strategic plans. So I would say it’s more about whether or not you want to take up opportunities that present themselves; if you’re focused on getting to be x in y years, then fine, but you might miss out on some interesting experiences along the way. After branch banking, I did a stint in Regional HR, and then moved across into Regional Operations as part of a drive to improve branch productivity and improve cost/ income ratios; that taught me a lot about the business side of retail banking and also developed my analytical skills. From that sense it was the ‘hard side’ of HR; not that it was more difficult, but it involved driving and leading structural and operational changes using a lot of MI, something I have found isn’t strong enough in many HR people. Have you ever come across the age-old objection of not having industry experience in any of your roles? ‘Oh yes, every single time! Even within Higher Education, if you talk to any university, every one of them is different in some way, and every sector does also have its differences. I still come across that today, but provided you obtain a core understanding of what makes a particular organisation successful, I have found good HR can take you through organisations and sectors.’ In practice, the biggest challenge I experienced was going from NatWest Retail Banking to NatWest Mortgage Services, and being Head of HR for the Sales and Marketing teams; in my experience, sales people are motivated differently from corporate individuals – so the HR priorities and focus needs to shift accordingly. What key themes and challenges are you seeing in the HR sector at the moment? ‘I’m seeing a lot of reward challenges because of increased regulation and scrutiny over senior manager’s pay. There’s also an increasing focus in all sectors about equality and fairness between pay increases for senior management and rank and file employees. Both these issues are actually a key focus of work I am helping two of my current clients address. ‘The other area that I’m seeing an increasing interest in is strategic workforce planning (SWP); whilst most organisations will have a strategy for where they want to be and what they want to do in the future, there is very rarely a connected vision for what the workforce needs to look like. ‘To give you an example, one of my clients had a strategy for where it wants to be in 2021 in terms of research, academic courses, students and international locations. But there wasn’t any parallel vision for how each School should look, even from a preliminary structural perspective that would have given them a better idea of the capabilities and capacity needed. Once you have that stake in the ground, you can then look at your workforce today and gauge how well it aligns with future goals. The subsequent SWP will involve things like L&D, talent, succession, and rewards – but it’s all very clearly and consciously connected to the broader strategic plan, not lots of isolated initiatives.’ ‘Finally, I continue to hear management debates about the need to ‘change culture’, but unfortunately this is not something I’ve generally seen done that well. The general approach seems to be to try to do it by PowerPoint; ‘..We’ll put up slides to talk about our vision, our values, the culture we want, what we expect from people, and what people can expect from us…’ But you can’t get hold of it or measure the culture now and what the culture will be like in the future – those are important things if you truly want to make an effective and sustainable change. In fact, culture and behaviours are a key part of strategic workforce planning because you need to know what the culture is you’re aiming for, where your culture is now, and be able to track where you are on the path to achieving that culture.’ As an HR leader in 2019, what key skills do you think are important for people to develop? ‘First of all you need commercial skills; you need to understand the organisation you’re working in, what makes it tick and what it’s aiming to achieve. And then from that, you can start to think about what the people implications are, and what people interventions need to be made. So it’s working from the ‘Outside-In.’ At its heart, an Outside-In approach is about how the sector, economy and society are going to influence an organisation. So agility is the key. Even

HR leadership with Dean Morley, HR Director and Founder of People Capital Ltd. Working from the ‘Outside-In’; first understand the organisation, then look at the people. Read More »

HR Leadership with Fiona Guthrie, HR Director “
if you can harness the power of your people, you will get a lot in your business right”

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates in developing fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Fiona Guthrie an experienced Group HR Director.  Fiona has worked within an HR Leadership role across several sectors including Rail, Retail and Construction. We asked Fiona about her career and what is required to build a successful career in HR. What lead you to a career in HR? Why HR? “I was attracted to HR because it offered the ability to work across the business and not just in a particular specialism. The variety and the impact HR can make was also attractive. I believe that if you can harness the power of your people, you will get a lot in your business right: That reach across all functions through its people is fairly unique to HR. In other functions you can deliver the right results but in HR you can influence across the piece. Fiona moved away from HR for four years and moved into General Management before she returned because of the impact good HR can have on a business.  “You have the ability to work at senior levels not only in a functional capacity but also as part of a team”. What makes a successful HR leader? The ability to deal with ambiguity, be flexible and have a can do attitude Understanding the business is vital. Data analysis has become increasingly crucial – you have to be able to understand and interpret data. You don’t have to be a maths whizz, but it helps to know when the numbers are right and to be able to interpret and communicate what the data is telling you.   All business is about relationships with your stakeholders – colleagues, customers, suppliers – and the ability to establish and develop good relationships is a critical success factor. Being able to coach and develop your team is also key. In my opinion investing in coaching is the best development money you’ll ever spend. If you train your people to coach, the return on investment will come threefold”. Within HR you are often needed to coach and influence others to achieve the right results – I think both are intrinsic to success in HR. You also need courage as a leader – in HR and across the wider leadership – to challenge when you might be the only one doing so, to question the status quo and to pursue the right solution to business challenges. What key themes and challenges will be prevalent in 2019? ‘AI’ is one to watch. I use inverted commas because a lot of what people are calling AI is really automation or data management. There are huge opportunities for change with the development of that type of technology. Finding a holistic way of using technology without falling into “the computer says no” scenarios will be important.”. “How to keep people engaged with the business purpose is not new but should remain a hot topic. We need to stay focussed on diversity and inclusion, and as part of that I would like to see more companies doing proper work on wellbeing:  If you can get all that right, I believe you will see an impact on the bottom line”. What do you wish someone had told you when you first started your career in HR? “Keep the bigger picture in mind – sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war; don’t take things personally; take every opportunity to learn and grow that you are offered and if you’re not offered them, go and look for them”. “You have to be brave, flexible and resilient. If you’re not those things in HR it won’t be a happy place”. Fiona has worked as an HR Director for organisations within Utilities, Construction, Retail and Logistics. If you would like a confidential conversation about your career or need help finding the next great addition for your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Fiona Guthrie, HR Director “
if you can harness the power of your people, you will get a lot in your business right” Read More »

HR Leadership in 2019 with Lisa Haggar, Group HR Director at Ascend Learning UK. Lisa spoke to us about her career in HR. “Show an interest in learning about the whole business and how it operates”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates in developing fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Lisa Haggar, Group HR Director at Ascend Learning UK. Lisa started her HR career in 2000 after acquiring her Business Management degree.  After becoming a HR and Training Services Manager, she started her own HR consultancy, where she was exposed to a range of different industries.  Lisa also received her Post Graduate Diploma in Personnel Management while working as an HR Manager at Marval Group UK. How did you get into HR and why? I think a lot of people you speak to in HR end up in it by accident. Getting involved in HR and admin, and then kind of falling in love with it. I left school at 16 and went straight to employment, in an admin role. I started my career working for a small company, whose admin department did a bit of everything, including finance, marketing and HR. After moving back to Northamptonshire, I got an HR Admin job, which was solely HR. I spent a lot of time with the HR Manager, and was the first person to ask “What do you need doing? How else can I get involved? How else can I learn?” It was apparent to me that you could either sit back and just do the admin, or put your hand up and ask for more work. , “I want to be involved with that project. How else can I help? I feel like I can do more.” So being quite vocal and flexible. I would say to anybody starting out. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be shy in asking for more work— more interesting work, if you think you’re capable. What key themes and changes do you see taking place across the sector? What is quite interesting in the HR arena is that you have a lot of people who are advertising for roles now who will say they want five years’ experience in manufacturing or in working with unions for example. However all of the skills that you’re trained at through CIPD are unilateral. It’s not sector specific. If you can motivate people, if you can see people’s potential, if you can recruit the best talent and you understand employment law, then that’s completely relevant to every company you work for.  I have never understood that mentality. I think a lot of companies, miss out on good talent, especially in HR because they’re so blinkered on having somebody who’s worked in their industry. For example, if you go from retail to a commercial industry, retail is one of the most cutthroat industries you’ll ever work in, but people are not considered because they aren’t from that sector. There are several benefits, you could bring forward by bringing somebody from outside of the industry, but I think people are just afraid of it. What would you say are your top 3 challenges? Finding the best talent is always a challenge. Especially in London, because a lot of people jump jobs very quickly and they will go to somewhere down the road for ÂŁ500 more. That’s a very sweeping statement, but I’m just saying that’s been my experience so far and the data has backed it up. When I look at CVs in the London area, it’s not uncommon to see somebody who’s had 10 or 15 jobs. In the beginning I was a bit like, “Wow,  why is it like that?” It’s terribly expensive to live in London, so it makes sense, but for me that was quite an eye opener. Some of the other challenges have been around promoting diversity within the organisation. The Fitness and Wellness industry as a whole, has a good balance between male and female, but in Sales it was prominently   male. We  now have successfully hired some of the best female talent out there. Last month alone our top three sales performers, were all female! But for me, I think the top three challenges right now are: Finding the right talent in a competitive market space Retention of that Talent is key and always a challenge. People are so transient now and they can jump between jobs quite easily. Keeping up to date with the employment law because it changes so much. I know some people are worrying terribly about Brexit.  I don’t feel that the Fitness and Wellness Industry will be that badly affected, therefore we’re quite optimistic on the outlook of that, but I know for some businesses that’s going to be huge impact, that will send waves and ripples across many industries.  But to be honest, it’s still a big unknown. We still don’t really know what it means and the true impact with lots of subjectivity and lots of chat about it.  From a pure HR standpoint,  the biggest change will be the change in employment law. You went into a self-employed consultancy role early in your career. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? I worked with Chartered Management Institute and from there went straight into consultancy. I undertook some educational courses to become a consultant. I reached out to a lot of people who were in the consulting business and said, ‘What’s going to stand in my way?’ Some early feedback I received was I was too young to go into Consulting. I believe, whole heartedly that talent doesn’t have an age. So I did encounter credibility issues to begin with. “Who is this fresh faced girl? She’s not had a lot of exposure. What companies have you worked for before?” My clients would saying they were talking quite a risk taking me on. In the beginning I said, “If you don’t believe in what I can deliver for you, I’m happy to reduce my fee now. As a leap of faith for you, I’ll reduce my fee so that you’ve got

HR Leadership in 2019 with Lisa Haggar, Group HR Director at Ascend Learning UK. Lisa spoke to us about her career in HR. “Show an interest in learning about the whole business and how it operates”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Michelle Glendinning, UK HR Lead Catalyst at Johnson Matthey. “A lack of relevant degree doesn’t have to mean you can’t transition in”.

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As part of our commitment to helping shape the careers of the people we serve, we’ve been speaking with HR Leaders across the UK to understand their career path and the key skills they believe are important to success in an HR leadership role. This week we spoke with Michelle Glendinning, UK HR Lead Catalyst Technologies Division at Johnson Matthey. Like most, Michele didn’t start her career in HR. Michelle studied Business Studies at Sunderland University before progressing to her Post Grad in Human Resource Management and Development at Northumbria University. Having begun her HR career in HR Management within the Hospitality sector Michelle quickly moved to SAGE where she stayed for 10 years, eventually leading the HR function for Technology. We asked Michelle a few questions about her career and what she felt was important to success in the role of HR Leader. In your opinion what does it take to be a successful HR Leader? “The most effective HR Leaders are aligned to the business and they become a true partner. Lots of business partners say they want to be strategic, however they are not operating as true enablers, and many still have the ‘computer says no’ mentality. The right HR leader will ask the right questions, challenge leadership team, and to seek out the solution that works for the business”. “In HR we need to seek to add value, and keep things simple, it is very easy to continue to give business leaders lots of tasks to do, but we must ask ourselves why, and what value does it bring’. Essentially being an effective HR leader is about being supportive, recognising the importance of looking after people, and making things as slick as possible to take the pain away from managers to allow them to focus on the right things”. What are the key issues you see the sector facing at the moment? “The amount of Stress and anxiety cases is on the rise, when I talk to people a lot of this is driven by social media and economic pressures that people have today. “The rapid changes in technology, is impacting markets as we need to act more quickly to remain competitive, the landscape is constantly changing so we do adjust our structures, accordingly, attract different skills and talents in to our businesses, as we are in a constant state of change’ “Brexit seems to be on everyone’s agenda too because no one really knows how it’s going to develop or impact us in reality’ also what the GDPR and Employment law changes driven by Brexit are also key themes”. What career advice would you offer to someone looking to get in to HR? Michelle says her degree was a great starting point, she wrote 2 dissertations on managing change, but doesn’t think it’s an essential criterion for getting in to the industry. “A lack of relevant degree doesn’t have to mean you can’t transition in. It really comes down to the attitude of the candidate, their willingness to learn, being passionate about people and doing the right thing, problem solving and whether they are solution focussed”. Although Michelle is accredited and achieved chartered status, she doesn’t feel gaining the CIPD is paramount to success. The CIPD is a great resource and a community to be part of as they deliver great research which she has used over her career, but it is not the only factor that would make you successful HR Leader. Michelle has been with Johnson Matthey since December 2018 and leads the UK HR team for Catalyst Technologies. If you would like a confidential conversation about your career or developing your HR team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Michelle Glendinning, UK HR Lead Catalyst at Johnson Matthey. “A lack of relevant degree doesn’t have to mean you can’t transition in”. Read More »

“You need to embrace the whole business, not just HR”. Kate Douglas, HR Director talks to us about her career in HR.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates in developing fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Kate Douglas, who until recently was the HR Director at Clear Channel UK, before which she held senior business partnering roles with a number of organisations such as Vodafone, Heathrow, BskyB, Capital Radio, as well as being the HR Manager at Panasonic’s European HQ. How did you get into HR? ‘I didn’t get straight into HR. I started work as a graduate management trainee for a logistics company and intended to work in Operations. Early on, I had an opportunity to take up an HR role and I thought I’d give it a go for a year or so, but once I started in HR, I loved it and that was it!.’ ‘My career to date has been primarily in generalist roles. Many of my roles have also had significant transformational elements to them, for example at Capital Radio where there were a lot of organisational changes at the time, as well as transforming the HR team to a full business partnering function. It was very empowering and satisfying in terms of seeing the value HR can add.’ What would you say were the three core skills that are important for HR Leaders in 2019? ‘I think being an HR director in a SME requires a balance of two elements. There’s leading the HR function,  being a team manager and representing the people agenda, but also being also part of the wider leadership team.’ “There’s a balance to strike in terms of being a member of that team leading the overall business as well as coaching, supporting, and advising them as leaders. The ability to manage those sensitivities can be critical to success”. “Flexibility, resilience and emotional intelligence are key skills necessary to be able to understand the what, the how, and the why of a business and its people.’ What key themes or challenges are you seeing the sector face? “One of the important initiatives that I was recently working on was on Diversity and Inclusion. It’s not necessarily a new subject but the current climate has created a certain amount of momentum  – think of the ‘#me too’ campaign and the gender pay gap reporting requirements.”. “We were doing a lot of work on diversity with respect to attracting different demographics into the media industry, working with other media businesses to say, “How can we attract more diversity into the whole industry, rather than just as individual companies?” We were also talking a lot about diversity of thought, – having different perspectives and opinions and enabling the different demographics from across the business to feel comfortable to contribute more.’ What career advice would give to someone is at the start of their HR career or looking for a step up? “I think at the start of their career, it’s important to be willing to muck in and get stuck into the basics, to get a breadth of knowledge. There’s been a trend where people go straight into business partnering, whereas I think getting that broad generalist background is really valuable. Knowing basic employee relations, dealing with disciplinary and grievance helps shape your future thinking on motivation and engagement. To be a strong HR leader, it’s really useful to have understanding of the whole HR life cycle”. “For a business partner stepping up, maturity of approach is always a key element. You want to make sure that you understand the business parameters and the business drivers. You need to embrace the whole business, not just HR”.  If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

“You need to embrace the whole business, not just HR”. Kate Douglas, HR Director talks to us about her career in HR. Read More »

“Use your knowledge as a blueprint”. Oliver Gant, HR Director at Arriva Rail London talks to us about HR Leadership in 2019

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to let us in on the secrets of their success. This week we had a great conversation with Oliver Gant, HR Director at Arriva Rail London. We asked Oliver a few questions about his career in HR.  Oliver’s career spans personal safety and physical training, agriculture, food manufacturing, mental health, and most recently transport. Like many HR professionals, Oliver’s journey did not start in the HR field. His journey began as a physical trainer but eventually felt his career was not progressing. So, he stepped out of his comfort zone and applied for an HR role at East Suffolk Mind, a mental health charity organisation. 70% of what the role entailed had to be self-taught. He had to take experiences from other places and apply them in his then current role. After moving into agriculture, Oliver was approached with a HR Manager’s position at Two Sisters Food Group. It was a huge step for him as he had never managed anyone before. Oliver has since developed a diverse background and understanding in a variety of sectors and life-cycles. His transition from a fast-moving consumer goods environment to an industry that took time to change exposed him to many trade unions. We were keen to speak with Oliver about his perception of the HR sector and what he feels it takes to be a strong HR leader in 2019. What do you think is the key to being successful in an HR Leadership role? “I think it’s about really stretching yourself. Get as much experience as you can because as you develop your career, your opportunity to gain experience in the fundamentals of HR practice go away. You’re never going to be the finished article. You’ve got to take responsibility for your own development. Read a lot. Reading keeps your beliefs fluid. What you know to be true today might be very, very different tomorrow. Be open to be persuaded about how you approach things because how it works in one place, may not work in another. Use your knowledge as a blueprint, as a starting point. The other bit is to work hard on you, because the hardest thing is creating that level of resilience in yourself and accept that things will go wrong, it’s how you react to them that makes the difference. When things go wrong, people turn to the HR director to be the rock; you’re the barometer for the team. What are the common themes and or challenges you are facing currently? “I think Brexit will be challenging. Certainly, around the migrant workforce.  We need to get better at understanding how the workforce is changing and how we need to respond to people.  People are also working beyond the traditional retirement age so, the workforce composition in terms of x, y, and millennials is also changing. The days of organisational loyalty are going. It’s important that the most senior people in organisations begin to realise that now you’ve got to invest more in talent and understand that it’s okay when that talent leaves. The other point to note is the millennial generation’s approach to work is highly different. They are dependent on tech and the notion of traditional approaches to work are changing. It’s about what we can learn from this generation and how technology can encourage more agility in our working practices. I know when I work from home it saves me four hours of travel and means I can spend some more time with the family. Work around culture is key, it’s a focus for our board and led by our MD. We need to recognise how we are going to achieve world class, so it’s important that we know what we need to do to get there. We are investing time, energy and resource into shaping a culture for the future. What advice would you give HR professionals who are just getting started in their career? “Get as much experience as you can and as broad as you can. And if you don’t get it, keep trying, ask questions, find ways, be resourceful”. “Being a solutions provider makes you a great asset in any company”. Oliver says he’d rather take up a task then figure out how to carry it out later. By consulting Google, colleagues and his boss, he always found a way. “In the early days I would start saying, ‘yes’, and work my way back from there”. Oliver has been HR Director at Arriva Rail London for almost 18 months and leads the HR, Talent and Communication teams.

“Use your knowledge as a blueprint”. Oliver Gant, HR Director at Arriva Rail London talks to us about HR Leadership in 2019 Read More »

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