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“I felt like I’d really found my niche working with people, seeing them  learn, grow and develop, and making a difference.” Sonia Robertson, Head of Recruitment at Cox Automotive, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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“I felt like I’d really found my niche working with people, seeing them  learn, grow and develop, and making a difference.” Sonia Robertson, Head of Recruitment at Cox Automotive, 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 Sonia Robertson at Cox Automotive, who began her career in HR delivering L&D at Marks and Spencer before moving onto Resourcing roles at O2, The Co-Operative Group, Shop Direct and a Resourcing Manager at the BBC before settling into her current role at Cox Automotive UK in 2016. How and why did you get into HR? I was living in West Yorkshire and was bored, I needed a challenge, so moved to London! I  stayed with some family friends, but didn’t have a job and didn’t know anyone. I look back on it now and it horrifies me, but when you’re young, you just take those leaps of faith into the unknown! I think that throughout my career, being brave and taking steps that challenge you is what has allowed me to get where I am today. It’s daunting and scary, but you’ve just got to do it. I don’t regret any of the bold and brave decisions I’ve taken throughout my career, I think they’re quite inspiring and motivating and help you focus on the future. I spent a day visiting recruitment agencies, and practically all of them said “Oh, come and work for us!”, but I didn’t want to work in recruitment‚ which I now find really amusing! One agency asked me if I could use email and I had never even heard of it. They told me what it was and I thought it sounded easy enough, so went for it! The role was with Marks and Spencer working as an Executive Secretary for one of the Directors in the Food Group. I thought, “Oh my God, I can’t do that!” That’s my next little gem; just because you think you can’t do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. That’s been a big learn for me throughout my career, thinking I can’t do something, but going for it anyway. So even though I thought I couldn’t do it and I didn’t have the right experience, I just went for it! I worked for one of the toughest executives in the Food group at Marks and Spencer. It was the summer so I covered all of the holidays for the exec secretaries andworked for quite a few of them. What an experienced! I loved it! Before I was due to leave a permanent role came up in the Wine and Soft Drinks department, and HR asked me if I wanted it, and I said yes. I joined the Wine department in an Office Manager type role, supporting the management team and organising extensive travel itineraries. I was also involved in wine tastings, a dream come true! I moved on from that role into Marketing, producing the M&S Magazine, their home catalogue and their Christmas Gift Guide. I used to sit near HR, and one of the HR ladies told me about an opportunity in Training. She said that my personality and people skills would be areally good fit for it. It was something that I’d never thought of, but I decided to go for it. It was working for Marks & Spencer Financial Services, so I had to go up to Chester for my interview and deliver a presentation. I was the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life, but I got the job. That was my first step into HR. I became a Trainer for the Marks & Spencer & More credit card when they first launched it, and my role was to go to stores and deliver customer service training. I absolutely loved it! I felt like I’d finally found something I was good at and that I really enjoyed. I loved delivering the training, seeing those lightbulb moments and seeing people learn, grow and develop. I’ve been at Cox Automotive for three and a half years now and every day has been a school day, as they say! I really love being in an environment where I can learn and develop. I had a blank sheet of paper when I joined CA and created the Resourcing function from scratch. I’ve had some of the biggest challenges in my career in this business,and also some of the biggest achievements. I’m part of the HR SLT and my role involves delivering HR projects and also learning and development. When the Government changed the Apprenticeship Programme 2 years ago I took ownership for it, having never worked with Apprentices before! Another big challenge. I love working in HR so much. When I first went into training, I felt like I’d come home, and the thing that I adore about recruitment is that I can share my passionate belief in every business I work with, and get them to believe in it too. I love finding people and saying to them “I genuinely think this role would be great for you,” and I love seeing them flourish in that role. It’s amazing. What key themes or challenges are prevalent for you at the moment? Engagement and Talent are key for us. We’re trying to focus on those, both in terms of what that looks like now and what we need to do to ensure success in the future. We do regular employee satisfaction surveys to find out how people feel about their roles, their managers, the business etc. It’s so important we understand how our team members are feeling and what we can do differently to ensure they are feeling engaged and that they are part of something special. The business is incredibly diverse—we have auction centres, yard operatives, drivers, and office people, and the other

“I felt like I’d really found my niche working with people, seeing them  learn, grow and develop, and making a difference.” Sonia Robertson, Head of Recruitment at Cox Automotive, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

“I love helping people realise their potential, it is really rewarding.”- Samantha Brook, HR Leader, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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“I love helping people realise their potential, it is really rewarding.”- Samantha Brook, HR Leader, 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 Samantha Brook, an experienced HR Director who began her career as a Graduate Recruitment Officer at Bass Taverns Food & Restaurants before moving on to take a Recruitment Officer role at Endsleigh Insurance. After serving as National Recruitment Manager at Peacocks, Samantha embarked on a 15-year term at Croda, during which she took on roles as Group HR Advisor, Group HR Manager & Global CSR Coordinator, and Group Head of HR. In July 2014, she set up Tomorrow’s Future Limited, after which she transitioned to Drax Group, taking on roles as Head of Corporate HR, and most recently, Group People Director. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? During my BSc in Managerial and Administrative Studies, I undertook an industrial placement year. Originally, I wanted to get into Marketing because I enjoyed studying consumer behaviour and didn’t enjoy the HR I’d covered during my studies. Bass Taverns took me on, and ultimately put me in Recruitment, tasking me with recruiting 50 Graduate trainee managers. So you could say I was looking at behaviour just in a different way.  It was a great role, and I looked to go into Recruitment when I graduated, so I interviewed for a number of roles and took up the Recruitment Officer role at Endsleigh. That was the point where I started to develop a passion for orienting HR’s core values in order to treat people as equitably and respectfully as possible. I enjoyed finding what it was that drew people together  and matching that up with processes or systems that existed within the company. It was during my time here that I self-funded my CIPD (or IPD as it was in those days). After a year at Endsleigh, a role opened up at Peacocks Stores, and I decided to go for it. The company saw phenomenal growth while I was there, opening up 100 stores in a year, so we ran a nationwide recruiting operation to bring store managers into the business. It was incredibly fast-moving, but ultimately spending 5 nights a week away from home and traveling 1000 miles a week just wasn’t sustainable. A job came up at Croda International PLC, a global speciality chemicals company, and the fact that it was in a new industry and local really appealed to me, so I went for it. During my early years there the company went through significant amounts of divestment and I spent most of my mid-to-late 20s running outplacement programmes for colleagues on our manufacturing sites. I loved building relationships and helping people find their next role, it was really rewarding.  While I was there, I had a number of opportunities to progress my career and achieved an MSc in Career Management. After Croda aquired part of ICI, the business underwent a complete cultural shift and after 7 years it was like working for a completely different company. This brought a whole host of new challenges and opportunities both in the UK and overseas. Working across borders for the rest of my time at Croda really helped develop my adaptability and gave me a greater understanding of what motivates people at work.  On leaving Croda I set up on my own, working in talent and leadership development which I enjoyed, but I missed working in a team and being able to get my arms around the whole of a HR function and the people processes in a business, so I went for a role with Drax Group PLC, yet again a change in Industry – this time the Energy Industry. Not long after I joined the organisation we acquired a business with 1000 people this meant areas of integration, change and engagement were all high on the agenda. The role at Drax involved a huge HR transformation, as things were still at the ‘Personnel’ stage in places. Through growing the team we were able to introduce a new behaviour framework, new rewards and bonus structures, and improved the performance, learning, and career management processes.  Can you tell me about the prevalent themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? I think our two biggest challenges are the increased importance of GDPR and increasing awareness and incidences of mental health issues in business. With GDPR, as soon as you get a Subject Access Request, you need to be able to respond to it in line with the regulations, and not everyone is ready for that. I also think that when you get too caught up in having the proper data, you run the risk of forgetting what’s important—the people. So getting our own house in order as a function is paramount. We need to find the balance between the importance of strong business partnering and a compliance focus to being a profession that genuinely cares about people. AI is definitely a key theme. In my mind, technology will change our jobs by chipping away at HR tasks so the HR team themselves can focus on helping people learn and develop, because that’s what adds the most value—it’s really exciting when you step back and look at it that way and consider how it will give us access to good, meaningful data and better systems whilst freeing up time. That said, I think HR as a whole needs to be wary of digitising everything and losing the human element, as ‘pressing 1 for HR advice’ won’t cut it in real moments of need. It’s a fascinating challenge. Industry-wise, I would say that the biggest challenge the energy sector is facing is that the pace of change is relentless. The industry is thinking about its future and succession and talent

“I love helping people realise their potential, it is really rewarding.”- Samantha Brook, HR Leader, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

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If you want to do well, you need to research your prospective company to seethe effects of HR in the core business. That’s so important.” – Damla Benli Yıldırım, Human Resources Director, Sodexo Turkey, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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If you want to do well, you need to research your prospective company to seethe effects of HR in the core business. That’s so important.” – Damla Benli Yıldırım, Human Resources Director, Sodexo Turkey, 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 Damla Benli Yıldırımat Sodexo Turkey, who began her HR career as an HR Manager at G4S Security Services when the company’s entire operation had 120 employees.Subsequently,Damla tookon roles within the company as HR & Quality Manager and then HR & Quality Director while the company grew to 6000+ employees. She eventually movedto Sodexo as Human Resources Director in 2015. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? At the age of 22,when I was stillin college studying Labour Economy & Industrial Relations, I decided to gain hands-on professional experience through an internship to see how HR was different from Personnel Affairs Departments and what was HR dealing with specifically.At the time,there were few HR Departments and more Personnel Affairs Departments in Turkey. Since I was taking classes at the university on the labour economy, which isclosely related to HR, I was already interested in the subject. After an internship I did at G4S, I was offereda position in the “Personnel Affairs Department” at G4S. After that, they chose me to a training program in London, where I undertook numerous training from the Quality Department and the HR Department for a period of two years. Then on, I went to work in HR at G4S Turkey for about 18 years. I think I stayed there for so long because it never got boring—I grew up with the company, and I loved managing the tailor-made projects alongside our clients; managing the size of the workforce, manpower planning, handling shift patterns, and dealing with any legal issues. I have alwaysbeen on-site, working with the clients to understand their needs, and I enjoyed that aspect—I saw so many different working styles during my time, and every project opened a new door for me.There were always new and unique challenges to overcome; therefore, no two years were the same. I also worked in the industryto search for potential local acquisitions for G4S, and during that time I learned to do due diligence from an HR perspective—that was really interesting, and opened up another way of looking at HR, because I was able to see how other organizations managed that side of things and what they were missing. After that was done, we opened up new segments of the company with new responsibilities, so we were always growing. After 18 years, I planned to have a baby, and working in the security industry was just too risky. Besides, the nature of the job required working non-stop and travellingconstantly.Additionally, because of the office location, oftentimes I was not able to come home before 9 PM due to traffic jam.Subsequently, I decided to take a break and have my baby, then look for another opportunity closer to home with more flexible office hours. After about 15 months of break in my professional life, I began searching for a new job and ultimately decided to work with Sodexo.Sodexo and G4S often worked on client projects together, so I knew of the company and their working environment.Since Sodexo is also in the Serviceindustry, and it was very similar to my priorexperience. It has been my conclusionthat my strength is working with blue-collar workforce; rostering, manpower planning, and working closely with the customer. I’ve also taken on some diversity, inclusion and social responsibility projects supporting women in the workforce. For instance, at G4S I initiated “Future Arteliers of Sodexo”, where Sodexo Turkey sponsors the culinary arts programs in vocational schools for female students in low-income neighbours. Sodexo not only provides a state-of-the-art kitchen but also the fresh ingredients such as different types of fish and meat that are expensive and not available through their regular syllabus. After classes, the students take the food they prepare for their homes to share with their families. The main goal is to bring girls into the culinary industry and prepare them before they graduate throughthis hands-on education and the internships that we offer for successful students. There is a shortage for young ladies, especially from low-income backgrounds, in the culinary industry. Our mission with this program is to help overcome the inequality for these female students, and establish a well-educated and sustainable workforce. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? I would say that an issue here in Turkey is definitely thelack of regulations in our labour markets. The rules regulating things like dismissal are far lessloose compared to the UK for instance.InTurkey,if a supervisor does not get along well with an employee, it’s much easier to lay them off, so our biggest challenge in HR is being caught between the Operations teams and the employees. I’m trying to have a fair system and ensure that we have equalityat Sodexo, and part of that is understanding what inequality can do to our employees on a daily basis. Not having much legal enforcement for the employee’s sake makes these issues much more challenging in my role in Turkey. What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? If you really want to be in HR, you must pay attention to where HR sits in the company you want to work for. I’ve seen so many companies that HR is perceived as just a room to store personnel files in. Therefore, if you want to do well, you need to research your prospective company and to see the effects of HR in the core business. That’s so important. If HR is perceived as a part

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If you want to do well, you need to research your prospective company to seethe effects of HR in the core business. That’s so important.” – Damla Benli Yıldırım, Human Resources Director, Sodexo Turkey, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

“In HR, you’re the oil in the engine. Done well, we make the parts work better together; we reduce friction and we increase performance.” – Anthony Perkins, Managing Director of Anvil HR, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.  

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“In HR, you’re the oil in the engine. Done well, we make the parts work better together; we reduce friction and we increase performance.” – Anthony Perkins, Managing Director of Anvil HR, 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 Anthony Perkins at Anvil HR, who began his career in HR as a personnel manager with Sainsbury’s before taking on a regional HR role at Scottish and Newcastle, and HR Manager roles at Bell and Howell and Fujitsu. He then served as HR Director at LOGiCOM, a management buy-out from Fujitsu of which he was one of the founders. Then followed roles as Vice President of HR at Proquest and Group Human Resources Director at Finlays, part of the Swire group. In 2016, he became Executive Director of People at Metropolitan, and set up Anvil HR in 2018. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? After graduating in 1986, I undertook an 18-month stint in the civil service as I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Knowing I was never cut out to be a civil servant, I secured my first proper job in HR, which was with Sainsbury’s as store Personnel Manager in the East End. I really enjoyed the breath and variety and at that point I knew I didn’t want to specialise. I didn’t want to be a career recruiter or rewards person; I wanted to be a generalist, so after I got a good grounding in what was then called Personnel at Sainsbury’s, really getting my hands dirty and doing a bit of everything, the course was set. In HR, you’re the oil in the engine. You get to interact with every part of the organisational machine. HR, done well, is an organisational lubricant. We make the parts work better together; we reduce friction and we increase performance. That’s what I enjoy about it. Can you tell me about the challenges and key themes that you’re seeing across the HR sector? I think a common one is HR’s ability to lead and be resilient to change. For me, that’s been constant throughout the last 20 years on five continents, whether it’s mergers and acquisitions, divestments, acquisition integrations, senior team changes, cultural change, or functional transformation. That continual thread of change has been something that I’ve seen run through HR over many years in many countries. The perennial thing with HR is that there’s always a ‘big thing’. In the 90s, it was competencies, and now it’s AI. I think AI is currently substantially underutilized, and the opportunities are vast and exciting. I love the idea of taking away transactional stuff with AI—having a well-informed robot deal with your tier one and two queries is a great concept—but a robot is never going to understand the nuances of your organisation. And poor deployment of AI will backfire. AI will never lead when it comes to understanding your organisation’s operating challenges, cultural complexity, or your strategy. It’s just an enabler; one of those tools in your toolbox. What you need is HR Leaders who can enable change, lead change, and reduce the risk of change. That’s the big thing that the last 20 years has taught me. I’ve been rather shocked by the lack of effective HR in large organisations who you might presume have established, capable functions. In some parts of industry, against the run of progress of most HR, there still exists back office, transactional ‘personnel’ functions that are not embedded in the business, don’t add value and aren’t visible. Crucially, there isn’t a causal link between what they do and the business ends they serve. Little wonder then that there’s no ‘pull’ from their business for HR. The profession has come a long way and I’ve seen some great examples of HR professionals over the years, so finding ‘personnel’ functions 20+ years after Ulrich always takes me aback. Darwinian principle has ensured the steady demise of old style personnel, but it does still exist. What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? I would say perhaps the obvious; be a business person first. That doesn’t mean you have to master the finite detail that the finance people have to know, but know the fundamental commercials of your business first. This is key because pretty much every HR CV says ‘commercial HR professional’ but the reality is often different. I interviewed a HR director who couldn’t explain the difference between a P&L and a balance sheet. Understand your business first and talk in that language. Understand the KPIs and the stress points of your internal customers. Find out what keeps them awake at night and only then talk about the HR stuff. This is almost too basic to mention, but it doesn’t happen in a lot of organisations. Succeeding in HR isn’t as much to do with the technical ability (though having that is presumed), as a mindset – particularly having a very clear understanding of the purpose of HR and why you are there. Once you see yourself as being that enabler, that oil in the engine for the business plan, it sends a very strong message about who you are and what you’re there for. If you get it right, you’re not just invited ‘to the table’ you’re invited back, because they see you as relevant and valuable and making a contribution. You are relevant and to use the hackneyed phrase you’re a business partner. It’s basic, but you need to do the right stuff right. After over 30 years as a career permanent, Anthony has been Managing Director of Anvil HR since 2018, providing broad spectrum HR services  with a specialism in organisational change, M&A, functional

“In HR, you’re the oil in the engine. Done well, we make the parts work better together; we reduce friction and we increase performance.” – Anthony Perkins, Managing Director of Anvil HR, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.   Read More »

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Once you understand a business, you become part of it, and that’s how HR becomes valued.” – Maria Khan, Head of HR at Design Council, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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Once you understand a business, you become part of it, and that’s how HR becomes valued.” – Maria Khan, Head of HR at Design Council, 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 Maria Khan at Design Council, who began her HR career as an HR Training Administrator at Harrods before moving to BSI to serve as an HR Officer. In 2004, she took on an HR Manager role at Transport for London, followed by a term at The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, where she took on roles as HR Manager and Interim Head of HR. She moved to Design Council to assume her current role in 2017. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? In my twenties, I was trying out different things, I was briefly a teacher, and I ended up one summer working at Harrods on the shop floor. I had various roles there, but I had a friend who worked in HR, and they told me that an HR Training Assistant role had become available. I was working in Export at the time, which was stressful, and I wasn’t really enjoying it, so I decided to go for it. My teaching background linked into the role, and I liked the idea of being able to experience different organisations within an HR career. Harrods was a brilliant experience. They really focus on customer service excellence, and the training they give their staff is second to none.  They had a really strong policy on internal recruitment and promotions, and one of the reasons I stayed there for so long was because I had the opportunity to develop and experience different roles. One thing I took with me was the importance of career development and promotion within organisations.  I then moved to BSI, which was my first time in a not-for-profit organisation, and I liked that it was a value-led organisation.   I received a really good grounding in HR , and they invested in me as I took my first steps towards my HR qualification.    I went on to Transport for London (TfL).  TfL was different and I liked the energy of working in an operationally demanding environment.   The environment was like nothing else I’d ever worked in. I experienced working as part of a first class HR team, where best practice was key.  One of the challenges was that HR could be seen as an emergency service called upon to resolve issues when they had escalated,  but the key for overcoming that was to make sure I went out on a regular basis to meet managers at the depots and to align my work to the way the depot worked, and basically become part of day to day operations.. I then went to The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), which was another not-for-profit organisation. It was a lot smaller than previous organisations I had worked in, but I liked the change. While I was there, the Head of HR went on adoption leave, so I stepped up to take over fairly quickly. I’ve been very lucky to work for amazing female bosses who were great change leaders and weren’t frightened to make tough decisions.  Anne Godfrey, Chief Executive of the CIEH was certainly a role model during my time there and I still apply what I learnt by working with her. I now work for Design Council – the government’s advisor on design. Design Council champions the power of design to tackle the biggest challenges of our time and bring about real, positive change in people’s lives. I was really excited about joining as it was a totally new field for me. Putting people at the heart of all that we do – being inclusive – is a core component of our work to support organisations develop places, processes and products that work for everyone.  Our Chief Executive, Sarah Weir, is passionate about equality, diversity and inclusion in the design industry, and working for someone with that mindset has been very rewarding. One of the first things we did was work together to diversify our Board of Trustees, which is now 50% women. It’s a real achievement in a sector where 78% of the UK’s designer workforce are male. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? I think there’s still a role to play in the gender pay gap.  HR advise on pay, recruitment, and promotions, so steps towards reducing that gap through raising awareness and giving the appropriate advice need to be HR-led. Speaking as an ethnic minority woman, I think another challenge we face is that we still need to see women from ethnic minorities in senior roles.  One way of addressing that is by encouraging that from within organisations and looking at the ways an organisation, recruits, develops and promotes its staff.   What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? Get to know and understand the business in which you’re working. The HR technical knowledge you’ll get as part of your studies, but understand how a business works; what its objectives are, what direction it wants to go in, and the pinch points where things might not be going so well. Be visible, contribute to conversations around how the business is doing. The HR bit will come, but once you understand a business and contribute to it, you become part of it, and that’s how HR becomes valued.

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Once you understand a business, you become part of it, and that’s how HR becomes valued.” – Maria Khan, Head of HR at Design Council, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

“Hard work and a good grounding are your best assets to succeed in HR”. Victoria Berry, Head of HR at Beatson Clark Ltd., speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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“Hard work and a good grounding are your best assets to succeed in HR”. Victoria Berry, Head of HR at Beatson Clark Ltd., 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 Victoria Berry at Beatson Clark, who began her career in HR at Team Telecom, which she followed up with a role as National HR Manager at SPICE Holdings before moving to Ebuyer.com to act as HR Manager. In 2006, Victoria took a role as Northern Region HR Manager at Connaught, before becoming National HR Manager for Arla Foods, Interim HR Business Partner at Haribo, and HR Director at Oakworth Joinery, then assuming her current role as Head of HR at Beatson Clark in 2012. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? When I left school, I wanted to be a painter-decorator, but didn’t get accepted at Leeds College of Builders I suspect because I was female.  Instead, I completed a secretarial course and went onto become an Office Manager, where I dabbled in HR and gained my basic CIPD qualification and also an HNC in Business and Finance.  Following redundancy I considered what I had enjoyed about my role and decided it was the HR piece, so whilst working in a temporary role I chatted to some recruiters and I initially took a role in recruitment to gain some further experience.   I stayed in recruitment for a short while, but it wasn’t for me, so I joined Team Telecom in my first pure HR role.  I loved the role and found I had a passion for HR and finally felt I had found the profession for me. I worked full time for Team Telecom whilst attending university two nights a week to complete my CIPD degree. Team Telecom were TUPE’d to SPICE Holdings and whilst working for SPICE was promoted to National HR Manager.  I managed a team of HR Advisors, Administrators, and Payroll with national and international responsibilities, it was an amazing grounding.  As a generalist I couldn’t have asked for any better.   I’ve stuck to production/manufacturing and construction industries in the main since then; the professional office environment doesn’t appeal to me much. Can you tell me about the challenges or key themes that you’re seeing across the HR sector? For me, and many others, mental health is a key area at the moment and I have recently become a Mental Health First Aider.  I’m seeing a lot more recognition and acceptance around this issue. However there is still some hesitation at times, sadly this issue still presents with a gender bias.  With Beatson Clark I employ a counsellor on behalf of the company, and I have noticed there is less wariness around seeking help and access to getting support is becoming much better.  Personally, I’m also a strong advocate for equality in the workplace, and in life, I believe this issue needs to remain under the spot light, not only for the obvious issues such as race or gender but also in how we create our HR policies and importantly how we apply those policies fairly and without bias. What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? I think to succeed in a HR role you need to be agile with the ability to satisfy a wide range of ‘customers’ sometimes with conflicting needs, you need to genuinely care about your profession and balance both Company and Colleague needs.   Having an in-depth grounding and being involved with as much as possible at the beginning of your career is far more powerful, and rewarding, than specialising from the start.  I would encourage anyone to gain their CIPD qualifications and to put themselves forward to work on projects outside their own role. I love learning and HR is ever evolving both with legislation and new thinking and I get the greatest pleasure from people who want a career in HR and I would do all I can to encourage this as it is a fantastic and rewarding career choice. If you can, try to work for a smaller organisation as often they can offer you opportunities to grow and learn before potentially moving to a bigger company.  The smaller companies can offer greater exposure to allow someone to gain wider generalist skills. If you can work for a manager who loves what they do, as I did when I worked for Team Telecom, this is infectious and the best supportive environment for someone new or indeed someone with years of experience, I believe to be successful in HR you have to have the passion for it. Read, attend seminars, network do whatever you can to keep abreast of what goes on in HR, and build and keep good relationships with people (including recruiters, in uncertain times you never know when you’ll need them!) A key skill in HR is to try and have as much of a balanced unbiased view as possible, however, you also need to be able to have difficult conversations when required, this is one key area that makes HR a better fit for some people and not for others.  At the same time as being able to have the difficult conversations you have to be empathetic. As much as you need to be agile in terms of how you think and the tasks you do, you also need to be emotionally agile without losing your base values, some of the situations you find yourself in may not go the way you expect them and people in difficult situations can act completely differently to how you might expect, you need to respond quickly and appropriately to the situation.  The natural ability to read people really helps with that, it’s

“Hard work and a good grounding are your best assets to succeed in HR”. Victoria Berry, Head of HR at Beatson Clark Ltd., speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

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Have the self-awareness to find what motivates and enlightens you, and then play into those strengths.” Craig Morgans, Director of Talent Acquisition, Emerging Talent & Employee Experience at The AA speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

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Have the self-awareness to find what motivates and enlightens you, and then play into those strengths.” Craig Morgans, Director of Talent Acquisition, Emerging Talent & Employee Experience at The AA 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 Craig Morgans, who began his career as a Personnel Clerk at the Yellow Pages. He assumed subsequent HR Advisor and National Resourcing Consultant roles with the company before moving on to work in various Resourcing roles for GMAC-RFC, Cadbury PLC, LV=, Care UK, Willis, and Vodafone Global Enterprise via Futurestep, ahead of joining the AA in 2015 as Head of Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development. After also taking on responsibility for HR Shared Services, he assumed his current role as Director of Talent Acquisition, Emerging Talent & Employee Experience in 2019. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I studied GNVQ Advanced Business Studies at Windsor College after I finished school, and alongside that, I worked part-time at King Edward Hospital in the Personnel Department. I liked my job there, and I really enjoyed the Personnel/HR module on my GNVQ, so I decided to follow it as a career. I was lucky enough to secure a job with Yellow Pages as a Personnel Clerk, and I stayed with them for nine years, working my way up through the ranks to HR Advisor. That was a generalist role, and I found that Recruitment was what really floated my boat—I loved getting people into a business and helping them find the right role to grow in. When they set up the national resourcing team, I was approached and it was a no-brainer. I then spent three years supporting high-volume recruitment up and down the UK in that function. It was a great place to cut my teeth and take up lots of different opportunities. After that, I was approached to work at GMAC as a Resourcing Specialist and overhaul their recruitment function, which was too good an opportunity to turn down. I spent two years there; it had a great culture, high volume recruitment, and we became a high functioning direct sourcing team, but after the recession, the recruitment dropped, and I had to move on. I then took a managerial role at Cadbury, setting up a new recruitment function for them. I had a team under me who supported graduate Sales and Marketing recruitment, and I retained global vacancies and supported senior hires from Corporate Head Office. I was then headhunted by LV, who again had a recruitment function that needed some fundamental overhauling. That was an amazing opportunity—it was a step up into my first ‘Head of’ Role, it allowed me to create a team, and there was plenty of opportunity to change and improve things, which is what has really motivated me throughout my career. I think I’m quite creative / innovative & I like pushing boundaries. After two years, I moved to Care UK to look at their recruitment functions and processing, starting out with the Community Services division and then moving into Head Office to work on their niche hiring for GPs and other specialists through direct sourcing. I then moved to Head of Resourcing at Willis, where I created a start-up recruitment function based in Central London, but I ultimately needed to return home to my young family, so I got in contact with Futurestep. The opportunity they offered me ticked all the boxes for me – it was closer to home, and something I hadn’t done before, so a bit of a challenge. It was very enjoyable. When I was headhunted by The AA, the L&D aspect was another new challenge for me, and the resourcing team needed improvement—we ended up rebuilding it from scratch. Again, that was a great opportunity to come in and work on big projects and build new functions, which I love. I’ve been here almost four years now, and it’s just been one new challenge after another—going in and taking control of Shared Services, and then moving into a Director role. It’s allowed me to grow, given me the freedom to be creative and innovative, and taken me out of my comfort zone. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? From an industry perspective, I would say that technological advances are fundamentally changing the way we operate. We need to innovate and clearly differentiate ourselves from our competitors, and be looking at things very differently to sell a different proposition from other companies. From a talent acquisition perspective, getting talent into the automotive market is a bit of a challenge. Trainee numbers are dwindling year on year, and it’s a very male-dominated industry. At AA, we’ve trailblazed and set up our own apprenticeship programme to try and give something back to the industry by sending apprentices out to our garage network to learn their trade. Following that, they come back into the business on either a three- or five-year programme to train in our vans. That was a big project for us, and it’s very different to what’s been done before. What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? I think choosing your manager is just as important as choosing an organisation to work for. I’ve had some great managers who have given me full autonomy and allowed me to make mistakes, but then also supported and guided me, as well as mentoring me and allowing me to develop. I’ve taken those skills on in my own leadership—about 30% of my team are apprentices who’ve never worked in Recruitment before, and I enjoy seeing them develop and come on the journey with us. I would also say don’t be afraid

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Have the self-awareness to find what motivates and enlightens you, and then play into those strengths.” Craig Morgans, Director of Talent Acquisition, Emerging Talent & Employee Experience at The AA speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. Read More »

When clients become candidates

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The reason I chose HR as my recruitment niche was simple. I love having conversations with clients and candidates about the impact they make on the businesses they work within. I also enjoy when candidates become clients and vice versa.  It’s great to uncover the whole story, not just the piece of the picture we see when working with you as a Recruitment partner. When we’re working with our clients we do take the time to get know you but it’s often not appropriate to instigate what could be construed as an interview when what you need from us is to source and engage talent for your role. So it’s often not until we work with them as a candidate that we uncover the whole story of their careers.   I have been working with one particular client for over 6 years now. When they decided it was time for a change I was really pleased they chose to have a conversation with me. I’m now supporting them to source suitable opportunities across Yorkshire.    I’d always worked really well with this person who works as an HR Director in a large SME. The team they lead had always given positive feedback about them, they were great to work with and I knew they’d achieved some great results for their business. I knew some of their background but I’m always intrigued to learn more about the career paths of the clients I work with when the time comes for them to move on.    With this particular HR Director I uncovered an interesting story about her time serving in the armed forces. As a supplier, I had no idea they’d served for so long in the military when they first got started in HR –  and the challenges they overcame in their early career.    Since then they’ve gone on to develop Talent Agenda’s, been responsible for entire people strategies of a business with an 8 figure income and contributed 6 figure savings to its bottom line.    This person is a strong and diplomatic HR leader with a focus on people and talent development. If you or your team are looking to add a strategic HR professional to your leadership team, we’d love to share more about their background and achievements.   Hope to hear from you soon.

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How The Changing World Of Work Affects Businesses [Guest Post]

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  As part of our mission to support talented individuals increase their exposure in the changing world of work – and their chance of finding their next career move – we work together with our candidates to write original content that will add value to their peers. This week we spoke with a Senior level HR professional who has been instrumental in decreasing employee turnover by 60%, increased engagement and has developed and led a global talent strategy. We asked them if they’d like to write a guest blog about something they are passionate about; they chose the changing world of work. The world of work is changing. Across the world 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day since 2016. In addition we are experiencing a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. It is our actions today that will determine whether these changes will create new opportunities for our businesses. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country across the globe. The breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance. The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. What is the impact of this revolution and how is the changing world of work affecting businesses?  50% of growing businesses in the UK are planning to recruit more staff over the next 2 years. 20% admit to having a problem with high workforce turnover. 72% of UK employers have admitted to being affected recently by talent loss and talent shortage. 69% of jobseekers are using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to gain insights into company culture. The average length of service with even the top global employers is shorter than you might imagine: Facebook 2.02 years, Apple 1.85 years, Amazon 1.84 years, Uber 1.23 years. What does this mean for those still inhabiting the changing world of work? We now have 4-5 generations in the workplace. That means 4-5 different perspectives in the workplace from baby boomers who were born 1943-1963 and saw the technological revolution take hold through to Generation Z born in 1996 and were born digital natives. According to a research study done by the World Economic Forum, there are few demographic and socio-economic factors that will influence the future of work. The research has been done on 1000 executives from different industries and different countries. When asked to what extent they feel these are going to impact the future of work: 44% stated the changing work environments and flexible working arrangements was a top trend. (Here’s our guide on how to make a successful flexible working request.)  New technologies are enabling workplace innovations such as remote working, teleconferencing, virtual teams, freelancing, co-working spaces, online talent platforms will continue to shape the way we work. Organizations are likely to have an even smaller pool of core full-time employees for fixed functions, backed up by colleagues in other countries and external consultants and contractors for specific projects. 23% stated the rise of the middle class in emerging markets would be an impacting factor. The world’s economic centre of gravity is shifting towards the emerging world. By 2030, Asia is projected to account for 66% of the global middle-class and for 59% of middle-class consumption. Did you know that the population of Chinese millennials is greater than the entire population of the USA? 16% claimed new consumer concerns about ethical and privacy issues would also impact the future of work. Consumers are increasingly concerned about a range of issues related to their purchasing decision: carbon footprint; impact on the environment; labour standards; ethical trading. 13% claimed young demographics in emerging markets would make an impact. Developing world experiencing rapid population growth; young population move up the skills ladder and improve access to higher education will lead to a dramatic rise in the number of college-educated and shift in the global distribution of talent. 12% felt women’s rising aspirations and economic power would contribute towards changing the world of work. Women have made significant gains in labour force participation and educational attainment, resulting in an increasingly important role in the economy as both consumers and employees. As a market, women will account for more than 2 thirds of global disposable income over the next decade. 8% said rapid urbanization would also impact where and how we work.  The world’s urban population is set to double between 2010 and 2050, from 2.6 billion to 5.2 billion. 34% saw the continued adoption of mobile internet and cloud technology making an impact The mobile internet enables more efficient delivery of services and opportunities to increase workforce productivity. 26% were clear that advances in computing power and BIG DATA would change the future of work. Realizing the full potential of technological advances in the changing world of work will require having in place the systems and capabilities to make sense of unprecedented flood of data these innovations will generate. 6% felt advanced manufacturing would have an impact on the way we work. A range of technological advances in manufacturing technology promises a new wave of productivity. 14% The internet of things – (7% artificial intelligence and machine learning) Advances in AI, machine learning and natural user interfaces (voice recognition) are making it possible to automate worker tasks (that have been regarded as impossible or impracticable for machines to perform). Disruptive changes to industry sectors are already reconfiguring business models and skill sets and will do so at an accelerated pace in the next five years. Updated labour market regulations are emerging to complement these changes, and new organizational models. While these changes hold

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“Don’t live in your little HR bubble. Invest the time to genuinely understand your company, not just from an HR perspective but how it makes money and why customers buy its products” -Jonathan Parsons, HR Director at Triumph Motorcycles.

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“Don’t live in your little HR bubble. Invest the time to genuinely understand your company, not just from an HR perspective but how it makes money and why customers buy its products.    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 Parsons, HR Director at Triumph Motorcycles. Jonathan began his HR career working in the city before moving into the automotive sector.  Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? Many people say they fell into HR, so I suppose you could say the start of my career was more planned than most. I grew up in mid Wales and when I was doing A levels and choosing a university, I was really conscious that I hadn’t had much professional work experience. I therefore looked deliberately for a course that had a year in industry, and did a mainstream business studies course which allowed you to specialise.  From a relatively early stage, I knew that I was more people oriented than focused on other aspects of business and that meant that when it was time to choose modules on the course, it was more natural for me to go down the HR route.  The real motivator for me was the chance to spend a year in industry, in an HR department. I had a fantastic mentor who ensured that I had lots of exposure to all areas of HR. I was their first HR industrial placement student and so both of us wanted to make it work and be a success. Historically they had students go into their equity analysis teams, but not into support departments. I was also very fortunate in that it was a small HR team so I got to see what an HR manager did versus an HR officer versus a reward specialist. I got involved in as much as I could and took full advantage of the opportunity. The whole experience meant that I’ve always tried to ensure that summer students and industrial placements who come into our HR team, really get something worthwhile out of it. Can you tell me about the challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector? There are a number of common themes, at a macro level, across engineering and automotive. There are the challenges faced around talent attraction and retention but that’s not just our industry, we are re-learning what it is like to experience full employment again. Certainly, there are niche engineering skills around electrical and hybrid technology that are so scarce that nationally I think we are now paying the price for not attracting enough students into STEM subjects.  Closer to home are some of the challenges faced by HR departments themselves, who must relentlessly keep focused on balancing the needs of their multiple customers. I’m always a bit disappointed at the reaction when I tell people in a social environment that I work in HR as often they go on to tell a less than complimentary story about their own HR department, if we want to add value to organisations, we have to change that perception.  Another key focus for us is trying to ensure that our internal environment keeps up with our external brand image. This occurred to me when I went with my CEO to Loughborough University, to their new engineering centre and all of the students were surrounded by the latest technology in this beautiful glass building. It was a healthy reminder of how important the built environment is. I remember that when I was a student, you went from what felt like an old fashioned university environment into a very modern work place. Now I think that Universities have become such exciting environments that we can run the risk of new graduates feeling like they are stepping backwards when they come into the workplace.   “What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career? I would recommend being open minded about taking opportunities in multiple different industries and sizes of companies until you find where you are most effective. The perfect combination, where you’re really interested in the end product, but you also love the values and the feel of the place is a powerful motivator.  When I came for the final stage of my interview at Triumph, I met the owner and he talked about how important the canteen was. We were recruiting lots of young engineers who were often living away from home for the first time, and he was really concerned that they were fed properly. I thought, wow, what an amazing culture, somebody who owns a company is genuinely thinking about the needs of the people that work there, that was a very important factor in my decision to join. My final piece of advice to HR people would be to make sure that you don’t live in your little HR bubble. Invest the time to genuinely understand your company, not just from an HR perspective but how it makes money and why customers buy its products.  Jonathan has been the HR Director for Triumph Motorcycles since 2015 and is responsible for all people and safety issues. If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

“Don’t live in your little HR bubble. Invest the time to genuinely understand your company, not just from an HR perspective but how it makes money and why customers buy its products” -Jonathan Parsons, HR Director at Triumph Motorcycles. Read More »

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