[S]etbacks will happen, and you will face challenges and adversity over the course of your career, but it’s important to pick yourself back up and carry on when they happen. Just be resilient and focus on what you can deliver, and it will get you through.” – Sarnjit Kaur, HR Director for Commercial Businesses at Cox Automotive UK, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Sarnjit Kaur at Cox Automotive UK, who started her career in Finance by taking on roles including Customer Service Adviser, Customer Service Banking Team Manager, and Banking Marketing Manager at Abbey National PLC. In February 2002, Sarnjit became Diversity Manager for the company, later taking on the role of HR Business Partner. In January 2009, Sarnjit took on the role of Interim Organisation Development Consultant for Sheffield City Council, later returning to the Finance sector as Senior HR Business Partner for Santander UK before ascending the ranks to Divisional People Projects and Performance Manager. In June 2017, Sarnjit turned her HR talents to the automotive industry, becoming Head of HR for Manheim UK—part of the Cox Automotive UK group – and moved into her current role in January 2019. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I actually stumbled into HR. After I graduated from university, I first fell into banking because I lived in Bradford, where Abbey National had a big network of branches. At first, the aim was just to pay off my overdraft; I never envisaged staying, but I did. Starting off as a Customer Service Advisor, it became apparent very quickly that that there were many opportunities for growth I could take up, and I progressed to Team Leader, followed by projects, and then marketing. At the time, the banking world was going from strength to strength, and as long as you were mobile, the world was your oyster. Although I enjoyed those operational roles, my dream job came up in the form of a Diversity Manager role that sat in the HR function. If I’m being honest, I didn’t know anything about HR at that point, I just saw the job role and knew that was where I needed to be. It was a big move, though, and at first, I kept talking myself out of it as a lot of women do. I even withdrew my application at one point because I knew other people who had HR experience had applied.  The Imposter Syndrome kicked in, but I remained true to my instinct and realised I was being silly and re-submitted my application.  The rest is history: I travelled to Milton Keynes, successfully landed the role and that’s how my HR career started. I’ve never looked back. I loved my Diversity role—it was a blank canvas that allowed me to tackle many issues that are still rife today. Educating colleagues, leaders and customers on inclusion and diversity matters was a real privilege as I realised it was a quite a taboo and often scary subject for people.  My strategy was very simple and one which was focused on the strap line “Value People As Individuals“. After a few years, Abbey National wanted to amalgamate the role into a more generalist HR Business Partner role. At the same time, the business structure transformed and the Business Partner roles available had more opportunity than ever. I therefore made the decision to put myself forward for one despite knowing that I’d never done generalist HR beyond a bit of recruiting. While my technical perspective on things perhaps wasn’t as developed as it could have been, my results orientation, communication and influencing skills made me stand out, and the organisation decided to give me the role despite my technical shortcomings. I really enjoyed the Business Partner role, and went onto become business partner for the UK contact centres where I had started my career.  Knowing how the contact centres operated, their KPIs and the people priorities as I had experienced as a team leader, enabled me to achieve several successful achievements in my role as HRBP. During that time, Abbey National started outsourcing many of their contact centres.  By that time, I’d been there 12 years, gained my CIPD qualification and gained diverse experience across the bank.  I made the decision to take advantage of a restructuring programme and sign on the dotted line in November 2008 and left Abbey National. I didn’t have much of a break as I started work as an Organisation Development Consultant at Sheffield City Council in December 2008.  That was an interim role, but an interesting experience. In that time, I learned that the public and private sectors were like chalk and cheese, and how much the public sector was held back by bureaucracy. I learned a great deal there, but by the end of my contract, I was ready for a change. That summer, Abbey National—who had rebranded to Santander — announced the acquisition of Alliance & Leicester.   As with all acquisitions, there was plenty to do from a HR and people integration point, so I welcomed a call from my HRD at Santander, asking me to return and support the business harmonisation, integration and optimisation plans. Progressing into a Senior HR Business Partner, I did nearly five years of transformation to streamline contact centres and tackle duplication after the acquisition, as well as closures and business optimisation, and of course, standard HR Business Partnering. Returning at this point in my career was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me: I progressed greatly in that role and became more involved with our global functions and senior leadership team. Santander was such a large organisation that I didn’t have to move out of the business to take new opportunities or move between teams