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Speaking with Hannah Reid about developing a career in HR Leadership

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“If you can, find a mentor to support you. 9 times out of 10, the calls you make will be right, but it’s good to know for sure that you’re on the right track. Confidence is king in a lot of HR Leadership, and it will prepare you to move onto whatever your next challenge may be.” – Hannah Reid, Senior HR Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Gartner, 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 Hannah Reid at Gartner, who began her career as a Personnel Officer at the Employment Tribunals Office before moving to the City of London Police in 2006 to work as an HR Manager, later ascending the ranks to Head of HR. In 2014, Hannah joined the team at Allianz Insurance to work as a Regional HR Account Manager, moving to a role as Regional Head of Human Capital for the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordics at Oliver Wyman in May 2016. In April 2019, Hannah transitioned to her current role as Senior HR Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Gartner. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I originally studied Journalism at university, but after a long placement year as part of my studies, I realised that I wanted to work with people and build relationships with them rather than stay in the siloed environment of journalism. Because of that, I started looking for HR roles after I graduated, and came across a position within the Employment Tribunals Service. I went for it, got the job, and haven’t looked back since. I think that what made HR stick for me was the diversity. I liked journalism because I enjoyed being able to have an influence and bring people together, and I think that HR has lots of synergies with that. In that, I found that I was able to develop content that followed on from legislation and had a massive impact on people. As far as a foundation in HR goes, seeing legislation at work, being allowed to sit in the room with Chairman and Lay members as they made their judgements taught me how it all came together at the same time giving me the opportunity to work as a generalist travelling across the country. When tribunals moved from being under the Department of Trade and Industry to the Department of Constitutional Affairs, it triggered a really interesting change programme that I’m glad I got to be a part of, but also severely limited the autonomy of my role, so I decided it was time to move on shortly afterwards. My time with the City of London Police is where the bulk of my career took shape. It solidified my passion for HR, and I found that I was able to develop myself as a practitioner whilst getting the qualifications I hadn’t felt ready to do at the Tribunals —my FCIPD, a postgraduate diploma in Human Resource Management, and a Masters in Employee Relations. My studies focused on the lack of representation of Black and Minority Ethnic people in the Police, which led me to work with the Home Office and the  Association of Chief Police Officers lead for Race and Equality as well as the National Black Police Association. That was one example of many that helped me understand my influences and where I wanted my career to go. Although at that time they were struggling with being branded as institutionally racist, as a Black woman, that wasn’t my experience of the Police at all. It was an incredibly supportive environment; I was able to shape and influence the experience of others by being invited to have a seat at the table with the most senior Officers. It also shaped and drove my own  career, which turned out to be less about traditional HR and more varied in what I was delivering. Eight years might be considered a long tenure for someone so junior in their career, but working with the City of London Police was a constantly evolving picture. I was learning and learning, and it was really challenging at times, but it gave me so much opportunity that I wouldn’t change it for anything. I was given so much exposure as a HR Manager there that the progression to Head of HR was almost natural, but it would not have happened if I had not have proved my capability and had the support of senior leaders. No amount of deputising could have prepared me for the role, and I think that goes for any job. You might see elements that you think you can do from the outside looking in, but once you occupy the seat, you see the demands of the job in a very different way. Transitioning into that higher leadership role taught me a lot that has helped me lead ever since—I learned how to integrate change projects we’d done in the past to help us improve the ones we undertook in the present, as well as the true importance of leveraging my team to help us achieve our goals. I had the support of some amazing leaders who believed in me and gave me the confidence to be successful. Around the time I finished a large restructuring project resulting from the Government’s comprehensive spending review, I spoke to my manager about what was next for me as I was under 30 and knew I would not spend another 8 years at the Police. I was given some other great projects to lead and she then left to work for Allianz, and a year later, she called me to see if I was still thinking of leaving and recommended some vacancies in Allianz. I trusted her opinion and really

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Help your team thrive in the new normal

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This is a time of extraordinary change and uncertainty for small businesses—and their employees. That’s why Engagement Multiplier has created a new tool to help business leaders quickly understand how their teams are adjusting to working remotely, and what adjustments need to be made to help employees stay connected and productive.  You’re resilient. Make proactive changes to strengthen your business today—and for the future. Get started here

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Climbing the ladder of HR Leadership

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“Our commodity is humans. We’re not dealing with making a product, so we have to be flexible in our approach to work in a way that technology can’t be.” – Ian Stilgoe, Talent Acquisition Manager for the North Europe region at 3M, 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 Ian Stilgoe at 3M, who began his career in High Street Recruitment before embarking on a role as 3M European Program Manager under Volt Consulting Group and later 3M UK itself, later moving on to become Talent Acquisition and Human Resource Manager for 3M UK. In early 2019, Ian transitioned to his current role as Talent Acquisition Manager for the North Europe Region of 3M’s global operations. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I started my career in Recruitment, as many of my colleagues and my peers did. I worked my way through the management chain with some large recruitment companies, but ultimately I felt that my key attributes and strengths lay within the customer delivery side rather than new business development, which tended to be a key theme of Recruitment at the time. That led me to look into a role with Volt Consulting Group at 3M UK to manage permanent Sales and Marketing recruitment and a portion of contingent worker recruitment. I was successful in that, and was leading a team of seven Volt employees to manage the account across Europe when I was approached by 3M to head up Talent Acquisition after the decision was made to bring recruitment into in-house operations. Initially, I embarked on a career in the Recruitment industry because I could see that it was a lucrative industry that meshed well with my personality traits and strengths. I stuck with it because even though it was hard work across long hours, it was exciting, rewarding, diverse, and I loved working with a young group of people who were all driven by their desire to be successful. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the sector? The first one within Talent Acquisition specifically at the moment is the war for talent. It’s extremely competitive, and 3M only want to hire the best, so on top of that, our recruitment process is very stringent. Attracting and hiring the right people for the role can be very challenging. Another key theme is keeping up with ever-changing technology in a fast-paced environment, and I think that’s both in terms of ensuring we have the right technology to attract the right people for us, and ensuring we as recruitment professionals in operational roles can use that technology as effectively as possible. Navigating things like candidate pooling and applicant tracking software can be a minefield as there’s so many options out there, and having the time, headspace, and experience to understand what the best tool for you to use at any given time isn’t always easy. It’s important to be able to focus on a select number of systems at a time to make sure our time is productive.  At 3M Diversity & Inclusion are essential to innovation, we seek and value differences in people and our recruitment processes are aligned to support this. As an equal opportunity employer is important that we tackle the challenge of ensuring our candidate attraction strategy supports our D&I targets. We are constantly looking at ways to improve the way we reach out to our target candidate audience.  The final challenge, for me, is that across the industry, we’re seeing team sizes reducing but workload expanding. We’re increasingly being expected to do more with less—to continue to work on significant projects and perform operationally as we did before, even though our teams might be half the size now. You can implement all the technology in the world to try and ease the strain of that reduction, but ultimately there is still a huge amount of human input needed in the recruitment process, even down to the basic elements like orchestrating interviews and dealing with people on a daily basis. Our commodity is humans. We’re not dealing with making a product, so we have to be flexible in our approach to work in a way that technology can’t be. 3M are definitely supporting that, but the world of recruitment isn’t easy. What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their career? I would strongly recommend considering where your strengths are to govern where you fall, both in HR more generally and Recruitment specifically.  Recruitment organisations have evolved a lot over the years, but more traditional agencies are still providing a service to organisations that use mass recruitment. Their work may not be the most skilled practice out there, but if you’re just starting out in Recruitment, they can provide a good introduction to the key elements of good recruitment practice. From there, you have professional recruiters who’s approach may be to focus on a certain industry or senior level hires, and experiencing that is incredibly useful when helping you facilitate a career in recruitment. I think it’s important to be aware of the fact that Recruitment isn’t as simple as taking a vacancy and matching candidates to it; the reality is very different. If you can consider your strengths and your expectations for a role versus what you’ll actually be doing within that role, you’re more likely to see success rather than fall by the wayside. The third element of a Recruitment role alongside understanding the role and the sales aspects is where your people skills come in through matching up your requirements and candidates with the role itself, but you will start to develop these skills naturally through your professional development.   Talent

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Toby Hough speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership

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“To be the best HR Leader you can, you have to be able to build a multi-skilled team that sets you up for achieving your goals and recognises the value of both newcomers with wider business experience and those with hardened HR experience as well.” – Toby Hough, Director of People and Culture at hiber 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 Toby Hough at hiber, who began his career with internships in Marketing and Communications at Saudi Hollandi Capital and as a Sovereign Wealth Fund Analyst at Robeco before moving to Deloitte to work as a Consulting Analyst; taking on subsequent roles as Management Consultant and later Senior Management Consultant within the company. In 2013, Toby joined the team at Medallia as a Senior Analyst for Professional Services, later ascending the ranks to Manager for Professional Services, followed by a 17-month tenure as Senior Manager before he became the company’s Head of People and Culture for Europe. In May 2018, Toby transitioned to his current role at hiber. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? The shift into HR happened while I was working at a customer experience software company called Medallia, following a three-and-a-half-year term in Consulting at Deloitte. From day one, I was incredibly struck by Medallia’s approach to People and Culture and HR. At that point in my career, I had never come across an organisation that placed so much value on having a well-defined values-based culture.  Medallia had top-quality People and Culture team members wired in across the business to be strategic and pastoral partners, and they were always seeking out views and opinions on how the business was evolving. The leader of the People and Culture function was as visible a strategic leader as anybody else, and that was one of the reasons why I held that team in great esteem. The company carried out very in-depth cultural onboarding with everybody who joined. As the business grew, the onboarding programme leader decided it was worth having facilitators for cultural onboarding in all the different regions we covered. Having been struck by how good my onboarding was a few years before, I applied to be a facilitator for Europe alongside my main role. That experience was a real turning point for me; I absolutely loved it, and was buzzing to do more. At that time, I was running a team of five or six Project Managers and dealing with a lot of pastoral and career development components in my main role; and I also spent a year helping to get an office set up in Paris, working with the team there to establish the culture from grassroots. As a result, alongside the facilitator role, I had HR experience without working in HR. Eventually, the outgoing Head of People and Culture for Europe asked me to consider applying for her role. I was hesitant at first, but with some guidance a mentor in the Learning and Development team, I undertook some self-reflection into the kind of work I enjoyed most and what energized me. All the signs pointed to the HR suite, so I took the plunge. The role was a total baptism of fire, but I was being challenged in ways a lot of outsiders to HR never realise you’re challenged, and I loved that. I loved how difficult the problems were across employee relations, design, and the technical aspect, as well as how directly linked they were to strategy. I knew at that point that HR was the place for me. Because I loved my People and Culture role at Medallia so much, my transition into hiber almost took me by surprise. I was approached by a friend who told me they knew a founder-CEO who was keen to create a top-class culture and HR setup in his startup, having learned the importance of this in an earlier venture. They asked if I would meet with him. I met Kilian, the CEO of hiber, a few times over the course of the next few months, and we started sketching up plans for implementation. In January 2018, Kilian secured investment funding to create a management position in the People and Culture space. He offered me the opportunity to join the founding management team of his start-up, and I recognized how rare such an opportunity was. I knew we had a chance to trailblaze—to influence other organisations to bring People and Culture in at the start rather than when a workforce hits 50+, and that was hugely exciting. I felt hiber had great potential to grow and adopt a different approach to building an organisation, so I agreed. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? Where hiber are forming as a business, my experience with them has been very different to coming into an established HR role, and has presented some unique challenges. In our early days as a start-up with no brand, recruitment was a real challenge, especially given the fact that I had been fairly hands-off in terms of recruitment at Medallia. Nevertheless, I knew hiber needed me to roll up my sleeves and learn what it was like to recruit, so I did. Initially, I was ashamed of spending money to secure agency support with the process, but Kilian was very passionate about getting talented people on board who could not only do their jobs well then, but continue to do so as the business expanded. Ultimately, I had to tackle my misconceptions and invest in building good strategic relationships with agencies. I see a reluctance to do so across HR that I think boils down to a stigma around agency spend and not seeing it as investment, but our CEO understands

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RPA in HR: Robotic Process Automation Myths vs Reality

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Technology has always been an important factor in improving performance and reducing costs, and has also made it easier for businesses to deliver value and meet KPIs. But the true potential and impact of some of the software tools and innovations available now is somehow still debatable today. Like with any new tool that claims to make our work and lives easier, there’s often a lot of skepticism surrounding RPA in HR and the impact of technology on HR departments these days. As humans, we are hardwired to avoid what we don’t fully understand and stick to our comfort zone, especially when there’s a readjustment to make. But the human resources industry is constantly evolving, becoming more and more of a key driver for businesses. As a result, HR professionals need to embrace the future of recruitment and be willing to adopt the latest tools and technologies if they want to stay ahead of the game. But what exactly is Robotic Process Automation or RPA? RPA refers to the use of software “robots” that mimic tasks usually performed by humans. Such robots are especially helpful in situations that involve lots of manual activities and operational procedures with rule-based processes that could be streamlined and automated. What’s more, the power of RPA stems from its ability to automate work with increased accuracy, in a fraction of the time that would take a human and with lower productivity costs. However this is not a one-size-fits-all solution. To clarify some of the common misconceptions around robotic process automation in HR and offer you a better overview of what deploying an RPA solution within your own organization or HR department might involve, we thought we should address the following 5 myths: Myth #1: RPA in HR doesn’t work One of the highest impact areas where RPA can be successfully applied is without a doubt Human Resources. As HR departments are undergoing a continuous transformation thanks to the infusion of digital tools and technologies available in today’s workplace, repetitive processes make most of the daily workload of a HR professional. Through HR automation however, you can free employees from standard tedious tasks, while allowing them to focus on complex tasks that involve more creativity and strategizing. For example, if you’ve received 50 applications and decided to interview only 5 of those applicants RPA can be used to email all of the other 45 individuals, letting them know that they have not been selected for the interviewing phase. And that can be done with just 1 click in 2 seconds, whereas in the past you’d need to email all 45 people separately – or not at all due to time constraints, causing lasting damage to your employer brand. Myth #2: RPA in HR is difficult to implement Having processes that are clearly mapped out before automation would certainly involve less brainstorming sessions and back and forth between IT teams and your department. So the automation process should begin only after the right processes have been identified. In other words, you might first want to check with your IT department to see what the deployment of such a technology would mean for your team and department in terms of implementation and maintenance. Because when IT and HR departments work together, it also allows you as a HR leader to facilitate much quicker results and get an understanding of which processes can be automated according to their input. Myth #3: Automation will replace humans in the workforce and will lead to job losses There is a real fear that technology innovations in general, and robots in particular, will take away many jobs from people, HR jobs included. However such a forecast entails that machines can function without human input, which is far from reality at this point in time. Instead of eating away jobs, what will most likely happen is that more nuanced jobs will emerge in the changing world of work. And while some casualties will certainly be unavoidable, the purpose of RPA isn’t to replace human jobs, but to redefine the approach toward certain job functions in order to prioritize those that drive growth over those who don’t and free up time for employees. As we see it, RPA will take over tasks that HR professionals dread doing anyway while being able to create their own jobs in the future according to their true capabilities and goals. This will also free up HR leaders’ time to focus on more interpersonal skills which reap far greater rewards than transactional paper based tasks. Myth #4: RPA is only about cost reduction With today’s challenge of attracting top talent and more importantly retaining it, HR teams strive to focus on more valuable activities like increasing the quality of the hiring process and boosting employee engagement rather than losing their heads in mundane processes and tasks. So while the benefit of RPA may be primarily cost-reduction, the extent to which RPA can help your organisation and HR department go way beyond cost savings. By successfully implementing such tools you can: Eliminate risks of human errors Ensure regulatory compliance Build consistency in operations Ensure accuracy and productivity of the team Improve employee engagement by removing mundane tasks Transform the operating paradigm from labor-intensive to technology-centric Myth #5: All HR processes can be automated RPA is suitable for a wide range of HR department functions and operations. A good way of identifying those processes is by looking for a well-defined set of rule-based instructions because that’s where RPA’s input is most visible – around repetitive logical tasks. The HR industry has always been known for its high number of manual tasks, which include creating reports, sending emails, sourcing candidates, etc. In fact, according to a report by Ernst & Young, about 93% of the time spent by HR employees is on repetitive tasks! And the same report reveals that 65% of HR rules-based processes have the potential to be automated. In other words, RPA in HR is a great fit for

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A Success Story of Leadership in the IT Industry

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“For me, it’s always been about the people. And you can deliver an enormous amount more when you understand the people, what motivates people, what makes them feel good.” — Julie Bishop, CEO at IT Naturally, speaks to us about developing a career in 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 Julie Bishop from IT Naturally, who began her career as a business analyst for the Metropolitan Police, and went on to her first leadership role as Head of IT at British Airlines, before founding her own company with a partner.   Would you say you were always destined for leadership, or was it more of an organic process?   I did some leadership training at British Telecom and went to some workshops. We were put into teams of eight people, and I was the youngest in the team, and also the only woman. After the various activities, we were asked to offer feedback.   I was the last to give feedback, and to a person in my team, they had said that they’d wanted me take a lot more leadership than I had. They’d seen me as leader, which was a bit of a surprise. I was in my twenties and most of the guys were somewhere in their late thirties, and some in their forties or fifties. It was quite the shock for me to hear these people say: “No, we wanted you to lead.”   I had a friend who was looking for business analysts at BA, so I went over to British Airways, and then my roles just got bigger and bigger.    I’ve had a very unplanned career. At British Airways they were reducing the number of employees. Not the cabin crew or pilots, but the rest of the organisation. But every time British Airways downsized, I got a bigger job with even greater responsibility.    Eventually, one of my colleagues who left to become the CIO of Eithad Airways said “Why don’t you come work for me in Abu Dhabi?”My role at British Airways had come to an end and  it was a great opportunity so I took it. While I was there I became the CIO’s deputy and so whenever the CIO was away, I was running the shop. When the CIO left, who was very much my sponsor, I knew it was time for me to go as well, and Cathay Pacific Airways made me an offer, it was very unexpected and I’d never been to Hong Kong but seemed a great opportunity so I took it.  I was there on a two year contract.   Eventually, after that ended, I worked at Thomas Cook for a while, until it went into liquidation, and then set up IT Naturally with my partner.    So what’s the plan now with IT Naturally, what clients are you looking for?   We have 30 employees so far, and we’re gradually getting new clients. I was in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, getting in touch with an airline out there, and actually I’ve been in touch with them today, so we’ll hopefully  do some work for them.    We look after IT infrastructure. We look after data centers, and networks, and security and all of the sort of foundational elements for IT. We  don’t work specifically with the applications. We’re just making sure that everything works underneath that, and that it’s safe, and secure, and we reduce costs for our customers.   What I’ve done a few times, as has  my partner, is go into organisations where they’re spending an enormous amount on their infrastructure. And once you go in, you find you can turn off some of it. Many things are no longer used and they can be switched off.  We can go in and understand it then sort it out, we can put it on far newer infrastructure, far more secure. We have a 24×7 help desk in the UK, and we’re supporting 24×7 companies. We run their IT Infrastructure and we transform it for them.   And you can usually cut a large part of the  cost of your infrastructure if you do it right. It’s scary how much money people throw away on their infrastructure and how insecure it actually is, and how not compliant with the legislation. Nearly every company that hasn’t invested can save a lot of money if they do it right. So, that’s all we’re looking for. We’re looking for companies that probably have more than a thousand employees; that sort of scale, so that we can go in, simplify their infrastructure, turn what they don’t need off, and then transform what they need, often putting it  in the cloud and run the infrastructure for them.   How do you find leadership to be different now that you have your own company?   It isn’t as different as I thought it would be. I’ve always deeply cared about what I do and I’ve always really been a downwards leader.  I would always spend a lot more time managing my team and managing the output than I would managing upwards. Of course you have to do some managing upwards. It’s key as a leader to manage upwards. But for me, it’s always been about the people. And you can deliver an enormous amount more when you understand the people, what motivates people, what makes them feel good.   For example in Hong Kong I introduced a person of the month, which would not work in all environments. We put a post on the wall where their photo would be and they’d get a certificate, presented to them in the theatre, all their family knew about it, they were rightly so proud. The key thing for me as a leader is understanding what motivates people, and then work with those

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A Successful HR Career Path: From Intern To Executive

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Pursuing an HR career path can be more difficult with the current state of affairs, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible! Yes, climbing the HR career ladder and capitalizing on this trend might seem difficult to do in the context of the already overwhelming day-to-day responsibilities, and it’s completely understandable if you haven’t been giving your career the attention it deserves. But there are definitely ways for you to move forward. From staying on top of HR trends and industry developments, constantly investing in your knowledge base, as well as surrounding yourself with like-minded people, navigating the ever-competitive HR landscape can be a challenge. Which is why in this article we are going to address some of the most important steps for crafting the HR career of your dreams. Whether you’re just getting started on your HR career path or are looking for a new challenge in your professional life, we’ve compiled a few tips to help you achieve your goals and steer your career in the right direction. 1. Stay focused and proactive If you are good with people, have an eye for details, and a keen understanding of the bigger picture, then a career in HR might be for you. But there’s a long way from wanting a successful HR career path to actually achieving it. First things first: a proactive attitude can help you differentiate yourself. As an HR professional, there are many situations that require creative solutions, so the more innovation you bring in your organization through your role and the more motivated you are to focus on solutions instead of problems the faster you will get noticed. So by coming up with new ideas and applying a “can do” attitude instead of waiting to be assigned new responsibilities, it will be just a matter of time until your company and superiors recognize your efforts. However, this doesn’t mean you should work longer hours. Working smarter instead of harder should always be your mantra. The main idea is to get out of your comfort zone and be open to learning new things every day that are beyond your to-do list, instead of sitting back and waiting for your job description to unfold. 2. Be like a sponge and try to absorb everything related to HR There are a variety of HR career paths you could embrace as a professional to take your career to the next level. So before deciding what your next move should be, or choosing between different areas of HR like hiring, payroll, employee benefits, or employee development programs, it’s important to understand how each aspect of HR contributes to your organization and how you identify with the job functions required to perform. HR generalist roles are a great way to test the waters, immerse yourself into a variety of specific functions, and gain important insights into HR’s most common challenges. Whichever path you eventually decide to specialize in, having a broad experience will serve you well in the long run and help you get a comprehensive overview as a future HR manager. 3. Stay exposed to quality information Thanks to the internet, we now have instant access to tons of information readily available about the changing world of work. These resources can help you with everything from answering basic HR questions to finding a network of professionals that can help. Making friends is free and the best way to do this is by putting yourself out there and attending industry events or proactively reaching out to people online. Join online networks (e.g. create a great LinkedIn profile) and interact with people if you appreciate their work. This way, before you know it, you’ll have a whole network to leverage when the need arises. Constantly challenge yourself by asking good questions and developing a thirst for knowledge. From your managers to new people you meet at events, there are countless things to learn from everyone just by swapping stories and ideas. Of course there will also be some filtering to do (i.e. don’t take relationship advice from someone that’s single), but the main focus should be on having the right mindset to acquire a vast knowledge around your HR topic of interest. 4. To succeed on your HR career path, get certified While many HR professionals choose to focus on their skills, having an up to date, polished resume is just as important if you want to advance on your human resources career. In other words, it’s important that your skill level and experience is also supported by confirmation of those skills by either certifications, or even better, company awards for achieving outstanding results. On the certification side: this might mean going for an MBA in an HR-related field, or getting an industry-recognized certification, like a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) or Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) certification. 5. Take a break from HR once in a while It can be easy to get caught up in the HR bubble. Whether you tend to only surround yourself with HR peers or just get into a work-home routine, it’s important to come up for air once in a while. It may seem counterintuitive to recommend that you not focus solely on HR, but that you actually strive to acquire knowledge outside this area to broaden your perspective and expand your skills. This will also give you a better understanding of business in general and your own human resources career path, in particular. 6. Aim high but don’t be afraid to start slow As you are starting to build your career in HR, a common pitfall would be to aim only for the jobs and companies that have a certain resonance. However in reality, titles vary from one organization to another, depending on their size and structure. They don’t necessarily comply with industry standards. This means you shouldn’t assess a job opportunity by its name but by the learning potential and growth opportunities it offers. Also try to keep in mind that building

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Climbing the ladder: Getting to the top of an HR department

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“My advice would be to focus on a particular area or theme such as Recruitment, L&D or maybe Comp and Bens if you’re considering a career in HR, then branch out into a more generalist role once you have gained the experience required, that approach worked well for me.” — Dylan Wickenden, HR Director at EMCOR 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 Dylan Wickenden from EMCOR UK, who began his career as a trainee recruitment consultant, before moving up the career ladder into the role he has now which is HR Director for a leading Facilities Management company employing over 4200 employees across the UK.   Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?   Totally by accident really! When I finished university, my first job was actually as a landscape gardener, but unfortunately that didn’t pay the bills, as I was looking to rent a property with my girlfriend at the time (who is now my wife) and I didn’t earn enough to be able to afford to do that.   So we moved to London and stayed with my girlfriends parents whilst we both looked for employment and the first job that I went for was a trainee recruitment consultant at Hays, referred to as a resourcer at the time, and that was within the telecoms market.   So I suppose that was my first people related role in recruitment, where I grasped the finding of candidates fairly easily. I was young and ambitious, and I was badgering their recruitment consultants at the time to make me a recruitment consultant. I was promoted to Recruitment Consultant and then went into the Inhouse Recruitment Industry as a Recruitment Manager in an RPO style arrangement and that was my real first exposure to HR as I was involved in very low level casework. Further career moves saw me focus more on resourcing, L&D and then strategic HR. Essentially I moved more into HR and less recruitment as I became a HR Generalist and as my career developed I went from HRBP to Senior HRBP, Head of HR and now HR Director. That route gave me a great grounding in all areas of people related activity from casework to commercial, strategic HR decision making   Bizarrely, the first HR Director that I had real contact with when my career was taking off, Im now meeting for a coffee in a few weeks time as he tries to sell me some consultancy work, so maybe that’s where my career will end up! Right now in my current company, I am responsible for all of the strategic people related decisions, although obviously that’s in conjunction with the rest of the executive leadership team, but ultimately the EMCOR UK people strategy sits with me.   Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?   Some of the challenges are probably ones that many organizations face around resourcing; getting the right people and keeping holding of them. In the last few years this has been a real focus of mine and team as we have looked to reduce our turnover, diversify careers and find new channels to recruitment from. Three years ago, our turnover was roughly around the 20 to 23% mark. We’re now at a fraction over 15% having made significant changes through a whole host of activities to make that happen. For example, all of our managers that have the ability to hire, now go through an EMCOR UK accredited interview skills training program. If they don’t go through that, they can’t interview. Well, certainly not on their own anyway. This has been a Programme of activity that concludes this May and has already seen significant improvement to first year leaver rates and the decisions made at interview stage.   Another key theme is wellbeing, and that has been a journey in itself which began with the presentation to the board around a flexible benefits platform that evolved into a Wellbeing Platform that includes flexible benefits. We used that to build a wellbeing program of activity that now forms a key part of the HR Strategy. The Wellbeing platform allows us to focus on such areas as mental health and physical health, financial wellbeing as well as provide great discounts for shopping, gym, cinema etc. Inside two years of launching this we have now 75% of our workforce signed up. We also produce a significant amount of MI now around our staff and their wellbeing, and we use that to make some really calculated or targeted decisions on activity we undertake to support their wellbeing at both work and home. Recently my Head of HR created a Sleep campaign designed at helping our employees relax, rest, repair and it was a work of art and was well received by our employee base. Its this type of activity that really makes a difference and supports our aim of a more engaged, supported and committed employee base Another area of concern is how to reach out to those employees either less engaged or perhaps may work remotely. How do you provide meaningful communication and updates to those employees who may not have the company technology to remain in touch. We’ve got around 2000 employees, who work on sites or in locations where they don’t have access to email or a phone. So how do we communicate with those individuals? What do we do? That’s been and continues to be a real challenge for us.   Another theme around engagement that we have been working on for some time now is our approach to D&I.  We have a really great diversity and inclusion program internally called Creating Balance which has helped us launch a number of positive initiatives

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Yinka Opaneye speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership

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“Wherever you might be in your career, continuing to improve your skills is key. Budgeting, process improvement, and analysis are always very useful skills to have.” – Yinka Opaneye, Group HR Director at GameAnalytics, 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 Yinka Opaneye at GameAnalytics, who began his career as an HR Administrator at Mattel Inc. before moving to the Jubilee Hall Trust to work as an administrator and subsequently an HR Manager with responsibilities towards employee surveys, training & development, and payment & reward structures. In 2011, Yinka took on a role as Team Leader for HR Shared Services at Transport for London, later working as Recruitment Lead with legal, compliance, and immigration responsibilities at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Remaining in the public health sector, Yinka joined the team at Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust as Head of Employee Relations with a number of associated training and compliance responsibilities in 2013. In 2015, he moved on to act as Global HR & Payroll Manager at Lamex Foods Europe, with responsibilities towards employee relations, recruitment, and learning and development. Alongside this, Yinka took on a role as Chief HR Officer at OKA-HR Limited, which he carried into 2018 as he became HR Director  at GameAnalytics. Yinka ascended within GameAnalytics to assume his current directorial responsibilities in January 2019. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? My first entrance into HR came while studying my degree in Managerial and Administrative Studies. I saw there was a role available in China working with Mattel. They are a well-respected brand, and China is an exciting, very dynamic market I wanted to be a part of. That was a brilliant experience. After I finished my degree, I went on to work at Jubilee Hall. I first joined the team there in an administrative position, but after about six months, the Finance and HR Manager told me she was stepping back from her duties and she felt I’d be a good fit to take on the HR role, which I did. Jubilee Hall was a really great company to work for with a wealth of new and interesting opportunities to develop my HR career. I got to make a lot of mistakes and get outside my comfort zone, and everyone was very accepting of that and willing to support me. After four fantastic years there, I decided I wanted to work in a more specialist area in a much larger organisation to see how things were done from an ideal standpoint in terms of policies and practices having a lot of input from charities, specialized groups, and employment representatives. I was able to find that in the public sector, so I moved to Transport for London. That environment really encouraged internal movement, and there was the opportunity to move across and diagonally as well as up, which I really enjoyed. I don’t think people recognise how many roles exist within that organisation, but perhaps that’s because there’s so much internal recruitment that a lot of them aren’t advertised. Once you’re in, it’s a great place to stay because of the benefits and general atmosphere. It’s fantastic. Staying in the public sector, I then moved to the NHS to work at Guy’s and Barnet Enfield and Haringey, where I got to specialise in Recruitment and Employee Relations respectively, and both organisations were great for the sheer volume of work I was doing and how consistent it was. I recruited nurses and consultants, and it was fascinating to see the different approaches you have to take to attract people to different roles—it gave me a huge insight into the importance of tailoring your message. The experience I got in the NHS really deepened my HR knowledge, and I’d say that Recruitment and Employee Relations are my areas of expertise because of it. From there, I moved to Lamex Foods, where I got my first taste of having an international remit in offices worldwide. Developing HR plans that would encompass everybody and be globally compliant was a big challenge, especially as I was expected to renegotiate everybody’s contracts within my first couple of weeks there. It was a lot to do alone, but it was a great role to be thrown in at the deep end doing. During my time at Lamex, I also set up OKA-HR, because I decided I wanted to continue to work in the private sector, and I was beginning to become more and more interested in technology start-ups, especially within fintech. It was a way to offer companies in the sector freelance HR consultancy to help them set up their initial HR functions as they scaled up. I moved to GameAnalytics in 2018, and the set up here is very diverse, with a wide range of opportunities. Although I’m contracted with GameAnalytics, I’m involved with the HR of several companies within the Mobvista group, and each one has a slightly different culture and requires slightly different HR strategic plans. Many of them are at different stages when it comes to the sophistication of the HR processes, so the work is very wide-ranging with lots of different challenges. Some are incredibly new to HR—as GameAnalytics was when I started—while others only need light input from me. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? I think we’re seeing HR in the workplace becoming more diverse. Minority groups are becoming more visible, and that’s diversifying our workforces for the better. We’re having more representation of groups like the trans community, more generations, and more atypical workers like the digital workforce. It’s more international, more globalised, and we need to create systems that can deal with that but also have

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