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Guest blog: Fertility vs Fear

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“Women shouldn’t feel the need to sacrifice a career to have a child, or vice versa.” As part of our commitment to sharing insight and creating opportunities for our network to share their insight, we recently received this blog from Samantha Lewis, HR Director at NMITE.  As an HR Director that has worked most of her life in a male dominated environment, I am very aware of the barriers that are often found when looking to progress your career. I also know that many women feel they have to choose between a family or a career. My question is always, Why? I have produced a short blog that includes my own journey of going through fertility treatment, and tips for other women that may be facing the same challenges. As an HR Director that has worked most of my life in a male dominant environment, I am very aware of the barriers that are often found when looking to progress your career. I also know that many women feel they have to choose between a family or a career.  My question is always, Why?  I have produced a short blog that includes my own journey of going through fertility treatment, and tips for other women that may be facing the same challenges. Should planning for a child be something to be feared? As a 21-year-old, I had my life mapped out. I planned to complete my HR qualifications, marry my partner, start a family, and return to work whilst still young enough to be able to develop a career. There are so many things wrong with that plan. Why did I feel the need to have to return to the workplace whilst I was still ‘young enough’ to develop a career? As things worked out, the plan was a shambles. I did complete my HR qualifications, and I did marry my partner……. but the having a child part wasn’t as easy. At the age of 27 I was told I would never conceive a child naturally. As a female working in a male dominant manufacturing environment, the idea of discussing the difficulties I was facing to conceive was incomprehensible. If they (the company) knew I was planning to have a child, I felt I would be overlooked for promotion, additional opportunities and further training. After 4 years of trying, and the continuous emotional rollercoaster, I was finally approved to start ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection) treatment. A chance to start at family, but at what cost to my career? Telling my employer that I was actively trying to have a baby was the most difficult conversation I have had within my working life, to then have to request additional time off to allow me to attend the appointments, and the emotions that run with this treatment was not easy. I knew at this point, the work and effort I had invested in my career to date was going to be halted. Who would believe in me now, knowing I was going to be taking Maternity Leave? When I returned to work, would I be able to commit 100% to the job as I had previously done? Surely having a child, I couldn’t juggle a senior role too. Women shouldn’t have to have this internal argument with themselves, or fear having this conversation with their employers. Women shouldn’t feel the need to sacrifice a career to have a child, or vice versa. Infertility affects around 1 in 7 heterosexual couples in the UK. Often cited is the fact that women have more freedom to choose between career and family, plus the social pressures that lead many of them to delay parenthood until they have established a career, financial stability, and have found the right partner. As a result, many women delay motherhood until their mid to late 30s, and it is well known that fertility starts to decline around the early ’30s, decreasing gradually until the early ’40s, after which most women have a poor fertility prognosis. Does this mean women are sacrificing the desire for children over the need for an established career? Going through ICSI treatment and having a child (who is now almost 9) was the best thing that ever happened to me. Not just because I have a small human than calls me mum, but because it taught me resilience, determination, grit and never to give up. As a HR professional, I am more driven and creative now, than ever before. Since having my son, I have moved into a fantastic role within an innovative and supportive organisation, completed an MBA, become a Chair of a Charity, but more than all of this I developed empathy and emotional intelligence. It doesn’t matter whether you are male, female, or gender neutral, if you want something in life, barriers are there to be hurdled, and the rewards are there to be enjoyed. The choice between child or career should not have to be made. Success should not be determined by whether you want or have a family. Organisations need to start making this an accepted decision and support their employees to be parents, and be successful in the workplace, and adopting new ways of working, to make goals achievable. Fertility and pregnancy should not be a ‘taboo’ subject. As an employer, you should be embracing the strength and determination that some women face and harness it within the workplace. Make these conversations the new ‘normal’ and promote the support you can offer. 5 top tips for women facing a similar challenge: Believe in yourself! Just because you have decided to start a family, doesn’t mean you lose all of your fantastic traits and experience. Be honest – talk to your employer, let them know the challenges you may be facing, ask for support. Remember employment is a reciprocal relationship. Your employer hired you because you were right for the job, and you joined the business because you believed they were the right employer. This shouldn’t change, just because you

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“…build your resilience, and make sure that your own personal behaviour is exemplary.” – Interview with Dee Booth

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“Every company says people are our greatest asset. Everybody says it in whatever way they dress it up, but they need to put their money where their mouth is.” – Dee Booth, Group Human Resources Director at mac-group speaks up on how companies should prioritise their employees’ needs. 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 Dee Booth, who has proven her dedication to her chosen career path with more than 30 years of generalist HR experience.  Dee fortuitously stumbled upon this career during her early years, hit the ground running and has continually developed her passion for HR. Dee worked as a HR Director in her previous company before accepting the challenge Group Human Resources Director with leading construction company mac-group.   Can you tell us how you got into HR and what it was that made you stay?  Many years ago, I joined a business as a secretary, and they had an opening in the HR department. I was only doing the job for about six months when they let go of the HR Manager. With that, I got completely thrown into the deep end while I covered that role for a period of about six or nine months. They got a new HR Director into the business, and he promoted me and encouraged me to gain my qualifications part-time. I worked alongside him for about 12 years.     I went into HR when I was 21. In the early days, it was more about learning the role.  But it’s only really when I took responsibility myself rather than just reporting to a HR Director or HR Manager, that I felt like I came into my own.  Every company says people are our greatest asset. Everybody says it in whatever way they dress it up, but they need to put their money where their mouth is. And I think being able to influence up to the board level got me thinking, ‘I’m going to stick with this.’  A lot of people have specialised in different areas, particularly rewards and benefits but I personally made the decision to stay in a generalist HR role. I love that I have the ability to get involved with different things. My day at the moment would be, interviewing somebody in the morning, then benchmarking salaries and benefits.  I’m also doing a lot around coaching development and mentoring, but things like health and safety training and other soft skills, I’ve passed  to the line managers.  What key challenges are you facing right now as a Group HR Director?    Our supply chain is causing challenges. Within Construction we have a lot of semi-skilled people or operative labourers.  We’ve seen a massive shortage of skilled tradespeople. Brexit obviously was starting to have a bit of influence on that, and COVID-19 has had a massive impact as well.  A lot of people that we employ were Eastern European. Because they didn’t have quite the support mechanisms in place and they had a big lockdown in construction, many of these Eastern European people went back to their homeland because they weren’t earning any money. And it’s been very difficult getting those people back.  Also, poaching is rife within our industry. Keeping on top of market rates is quite difficult.  We take the feedback we get from exit interviews very seriously. So, one thing that we are really striving for as a board is to absolutely improve our communications across the company and to be more outward facing in terms of asking the staff what they want. That is really our mission.. We are determined as a company to get better with our communications and to know what the employees want. No more assumptions.  We’re learning as we go along and there is a real family feel to the business.  Everybody’s very, very supportive and we’re very flexible in terms of people’s working hours. We recognize that people have got childcare issues, so we work with them. We’re very, very flexible on that. We recognize when people are ready for promotion.  It does not need to go through layers of bureaucracy. We can make really quick decisions because we’re an agile business. Do you have any advice for someone planning to pursue a career in HR?  I think you have to build resilience. There are times it can be quite a lonely position.  I’d say that having worked with big HR teams as well, you need to find the balance between supporting the business and making sure you support the employees. I’ve seen colleagues fall by the wayside because they’ve either been too pro-employee or too pro-company. It’s a really fine line to walk. Your own personal integrity has to be 100%.  I’ve had to build resilience over the years as well, because sometimes you do get knocked back and sometimes, you’re in situations that aren’t particularly very nice. Also, you have to be a people person. You have to care about individuals, but you’ve also got to have a fairly broad mind as well. And the other thing is you have to listen. So, to summarise,  build your resilience, and make sure that your own personal behaviour is exemplary. That includes your integrity, and above all, you really have to care about people. From recruitment to rewards and benefits, training and employee welfare, Dee readily fulfils any HR function but maintains a more generalist approach to her role. She joined mac-group in 2019 as its Group HR Business Partner and was recently promoted to Group Human Resources Director in January 2022.   If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

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“Be willing to take on responsibilities and do certain things before you take the next step” – Interview with Lucy Robinson

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“A lot is being done to make sure that people do feel that they can talk about mental health and have the support in place that’s needed. Even if it’s on a smaller scale, as opposed to a bigger issue, it’s important that it’s being dealt with early and people have the support early as opposed to too late.” – Lucy Robinson, Director of Resources of the East Midlands Chamber emphasises about managing the employees’ mental health.  As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited HR Leaders from a wide variety of organisations to share their insight on building a career, the challenges they face and advice they would share with those hoping to follow in their footsteps. This week, we had a great conversation with Lucy Robinson, the Director of Resources of the East Midlands Chamber. Lucy has spent the last 14 years expanding her HR knowledge in several areas, from legislative compliance and guidance to employee relations activities, performance management, and supporting the senior management team. .  Lucy started out as an HR Manager at a medical communications and consultancy business and became an Employment Law Consultant. Now, she is the Director of Resources of the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce.  Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?  Before I started my HR career  I’d had a bit of interest in law. But when I came out of school, I wasn’t exactly sure which route to take and where I would feel happy. I ended up moving into my first job where I took on an apprenticeship. The training provider I worked with ended up taking me on and that’s where I got my first exposure to  training and development. That was my first foray into HR and obviously quite a specific area of HR.  I got a glimpse of how supporting people could have an impact on their work-life. That’s obviously a really nice side of HR. But there are other areas that are more difficult to deal with, which link back to the business side of things – what really matters to the business and how you can influence the return of investment by doing HR the right way. That includes the individuals that are obviously employed by the business. Then as an Employment Law Consultant, I worked with different companies when they were experiencing issues. It could have been anything from sick leave to tribunal claims or a grievance. Sometimes they just needed some information about what was happening within the business and I helped them work through that and put policies in place.  It was quite interesting to see the differences between a lot of organisations. It wasn’t just the differences between small, medium and large organisations, it was right across the board in terms of how their leadership felt about HR and how that impacted the people and their performance.  So since I’ve been at the East Midlands Chamber, my role covers quite a few other things. I’ve got all of that internal focus, but I do have an external focus as well, so I run some of the HR forums. I always get to hear sort of what’s going on, but I also get to speak to our members as well. And of course, whilst I’m not a consultant and I won’t give them advice that they have to follow, we can have conversations.  And it’s quite interesting still to find out what’s happening across the region.  From an HR perspective, what are the biggest challenges that you’ve seen to have made a huge impact on organisations? Recruitment’s a massive thing. We’ve been quite lucky we weren’t impacted by it throughout most of last year but I think it came a bit later for us. Whereas a lot of businesses I was speaking to were really struggling to fill certain roles. You would definitely see an extension to the amount of time it takes to fill a role now. Another big thing we’re definitely seeing with member organisations, especially manufacturers, is that the cost of doing business is massively increasing.  Everything seems to have just kept leaping across the field now. We’re seeing this press on lots of businesses that we work with. And another interesting thing connected to that is the living wage increased as well and it is having an impact.  People think, ‘Well, I’m experienced, I’m trained, I’m now getting paid very similar to this person. They’ve had a bigger price salary increase’. You’re definitely getting those types of conversations happening. We’re definitely hearing that externally that the pressures about pay are increasing.  There’s also the competition for talents, even the topic of counter-offers. You’ve got processes in place to make sure they are fair and that they’re done properly. But they’ve almost become a deterrent because people will have already been offered a job by the time you are able to go back to them or by the time an interview process is completed properly.  You feel like everything’s having to change the gap quite quickly.  One other big challenge is mental health.  People have been dealing with COVID, dealing with conflict in other countries.  That actually has links back through whether it is family or people that we work with that are close to the conflicts.  Or maybe being upset even just from the knowledge of all that’s happening.  I think it’s adding to the pile of things that people were already concerned about. We’re definitely seeing more people suffering.  From an HR perspective, a lot more is being done making sure that people do feel that they can talk about it and have the support in place that’s needed. And even if it’s on a smaller scale, as opposed to  bigger issues, it’s important that it’s being dealt with early and people have the support early as opposed to too late. Can you share some advice with those starting or advancing in their HR career? 

“Be willing to take on responsibilities and do certain things before you take the next step” – Interview with Lucy Robinson Read More »

“Get involved in as much as you can.” – Interview with Clare Garcia

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“Get involved in as much as you can. Put your hand up for a project that’s happening, to learn new skills and to gain as much experience as you can.  That positive attitude, enthusiasm, and desire to succeed will take somebody further than they think” – Clare Garcia FCIPD, People Director at Places Leisure talks about the best attitude to have in pursuing a career in HR. 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 Clare Garcia, who has 20 years of successful generalist HR experience. Having started as a Personnel Assistant for Panasonic during her uni years to being an HR Coordinator and Manager at Avis Budget Group International, now, she is the People Director for the leading leisure and wellness partner, Places Leisure; a social enterprise delivering fitness, sport, health and wellbeing to communities across the UK.  Clare has always been interested in HR, pushing her to pursue a Personnel Management with CIPD degree at the University of Plymouth and supplemented it years after with an Employment Law Advanced Diploma.  Can you tell us what made you decide to pursue a career in HR?  I can link it back to the work I did with my Dad. I was 15 or 16 when I spent a couple of weeks with his regional HR manager. She was kind, knowledgeable and passionate about HR.  During that work experience, I just supported the team by preparing some interview packs for a recruitment day that they were running; I loved that structure, and the organisation required for that task. I loved the buzz of that role in the team. During university I did my placement year at Panasonic as their HR assistant. They had a large placement scheme and had around 20 students each year in different departments within Panasonic. The HR role was responsible for recruiting all of those students for the next year’s intake. So that’s what my role was. It was a big focus on recruitment and I was also involved in some other projects whilst I was there. After I finished my degree, I went to Avis Budget Group, a car rental company. There, I met another really good role model. I think she saw something within me, took a bit of a chance and promoted me to HR manager very quickly. I was very flattered, but I was also petrified. I think I’d only graduated maybe a year or two years and thought this role is too much for me. But she mentored me, supported my development and pushed me outside of my comfort zone continuously. I think I learned then that it was important for me not to let fear hold me back from achieving my potential.  I later joined my current company, Places Leisure, one of the largest leisure management partners, managing over 100 leisure facilities on behalf of local authorities across the UK. Over my time here the company has seen substantial growth and is now home to over 6,000 colleagues. I’ve also grown both personally and professionally over these years, especially when I was promoted to People Director in October 2020.  What are the biggest challenges you are facing in your current role?  For a good part of 2020 and 2021, we were closed due to the pandemic so our employees were furloughed. Actually, not just our employees—the whole industry was affected. So the workforce had a long time to think about what they wanted from life. We had some great examples during the pandemic of our furloughed people retraining to work for the NHS, supporting their local communities and working in retail as well. We’ve had a number of our employees either deciding not to return to work after furlough or coming back and then leaving us. But also because of Brexit, we have been struggling to recruit into some of our lower-skilled roles as well.  As a result we’re focusing on recruitment and how we can get the best talent into the business, but then we’re also looking at how we can retain the talent that we’ve got at the moment.  Some of the things we’re doing include reviewing the benefits that we offer our employees. We’ve extended our staff-use of leisure facilities benefit and are offering many more discounts to encourage our employees and their families to use our facilities and get active. We’ve also introduced an emerging talent programme, our graduate recruitment scheme. We’ve got a lot of students who work for us and if they’re just finishing their degree in Sports Science or whatever it might be, they can also apply for those graduate roles that we are advertising both internally and externally.  We have a Lead with Spirit, management development programme, and will shortly be launching a succession planning and talent management process and mentoring programme. We want to be able to talk to employees about where they want to progress in their career. Because I think a lot of people don’t see working within a leisure centre as a career, but there are many career options for people. We’ve got so many examples of lifeguards that have progressed to senior management positions. Like you could be a lifeguard, but then you could also train to become a swim teacher or a fitness instructor or personal trainer or group work instructor. There are lots of opportunities for people, but I don’t think we have shouted about that enough in the past, which is what we’re trying to do now. What advice would you give to anyone planning to pursue a career in HR?  Take the time to understand what motivates you and what gets you energised. If I think about my early career, there was a turning point when I was leaving Avis Budget Group. Unfortunately, I was made redundant from that role because two teams were merging. At that point, I

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“That would be my best advice, to be open-minded and to find a support system.” – Interview with Olya Yakzhina

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“It’s always been a balance between what’s right for the business and what’s gonna get our company from point A to point B. It’s also true that you are not gonna get your company from point A to point B if your people are not on board with you” – Olya Yakzhina, Head of People, Switchee 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 Olya Yakzhina, who passionately juggles a multi-faceted career in people operations and HR. Olya is currently the Head of People at the IT Services and IT consulting firm Switchee, a member of the Leadership of the Slack community, People Stories, and is also the co-founder and podcaster of The Modern Employer Spotify Channel.  Olya’s range as an HR practitioner covers several fields, including recruitment, onboarding, learning and development, employee engagement and experience, employer branding and people strategy. She is a firm advocate that employees must be happy, fulfilled and well taken care of to be the best assets for the organization.  Can you tell us about your journey in pursuing a career in HR?  My psychology degree and my transformational coaching degree helped me understand how to get people comfortable in their own shoes and then how to get them from point A to point B. At that time, I was working in the operations department where I was writing processes, training manuals and coaching team members. Through this, my role evolved into Learning & Development, where I got to set up onboarding, close skill gaps and inspire a high-performance culture.  Learning & Development turned out to be a great stepping stone into the People function for me as I learned how to implement processes and policies, be the “change agent” and promote the culture of feedback. My next roles took me deeper into a more generalist People role, where I got to learn more aspects of the function.  What do you think is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your HR career?  – Within the talent acquisition space, I found it paramount to pay lots of attention to the people you bring on board. It’s people who make your culture and lead to it declining, surviving or thriving. Solid talent acquisition techniques such as educating interview hosts, producing great interview templates and carrying out culture fit interviews help with that.  – I’m very passionate about making sure that people feel happy and fulfilled at work. anything to do with employee experience and their satisfaction, but also happiness at work. My role is to ensure that any and all touchpoints and milestones they have with our organisation throughout their employee lifecycle are built to cater to all of the above. – Inclusion & Diversity is one of my current focuses as well. This year we are dedicating a couple of quarters to realising some of our core beliefs and values when it comes to building a truly inclusive culture where people experience equity and belonging.  You are very passionate about fostering employee experience and happiness. How do you think that translates to the needs of the organization as a business?  You see lots of other companies doing certain things and you get inspired by that, and want to replicate that in your company. And I really feel that it’s the wrong approach. I feel that you can only do what’s best for your company by looking within your company and asking your people what’s best for them. You can’t do that by going online to look for 50 great ways to build a culture and then trying to replicate those ways in your company. That’s a lot of energy that could be wasted in vain, in my opinion.  I really am for asking people what they want and giving them plenty of opportunities to say their piece. I tend to try and involve them in shaping the company they work for. One example is our hybrid working setup. We asked people how they want to work in a hybrid environment. We gave them a few different ways to express their opinion. And then we did what they asked us. We tried it for six to nine months and then we asked them for feedback. They told us what works well, and what didn’t so we just changed it and its been working so well ever since! I truly believe in creating bespoke solutions for your people.  It’s always been a balance between what’s right for the business, what’s commercially important and what’s gonna get your company from point A to point B. But another side of it is that you are not gonna get your company from point A to point B if your people are not on board with you.  You can still do it. You can still have a very toxic culture and very unhappy people and still get results. But it might take you longer and everybody’s gonna be just stressed out and miserable in the process. It’s just emotionally draining to run a company like that for everyone involved. So why not start it right?  What do you think is the best advice you can give to other HR practitioners or those who want to start a career in this field?  Find a support network or a system of like-minded people who will be there to inspire you and who will be there to bounce ideas together with you. I think that there is true power in a support network and a support system of like-minded people around you. And I have grown personally so much from being able to run my podcast and meet people from the industry to learn about their approaches and the challenges they face.  It of course is still possible to grow from mentorship provided by your manager. However, when I found myself in

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Human: HR & Leadership Hackathon #10

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On May 25th we hosted our 10th Human HR & Leadership Hackathon, this time joined by a special guest speaker. We were joined by Lucy Brazier, Founder and CEO of Marcham Publishing and a great panel of experts. The discussion took place around The Global Skills Matrix and how it can support HR and Business Leaders to assess and develop administrative staff. You can watch the entire session here. PS: You can also find the schedule of our next Hackathons here. Make sure to register!

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“…always remember you’re working with people. Remember the people factor.” – Interview with Abi Hadley-Clift

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“If you’ve got a workforce that’s engaged, passionate and driven to succeed, you don’t need to worry so much about the business performance because your team will own the business’s results themselves.” – Abi Hadley-Clift, HR Manager at Cycling Sports Group speaks up on how taking care of the employees brings about a positive effect on the business.  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 Abi Hadley-Clift, who has almost two decades of HR experience.  She has been a part of different industries, including a hospital, a lifestyle brand, a chain of hotels, and currently, for a trusted cycling brand.  From training to coaching, personnel support and administration, Abi fervently led the organisations she’s been a part of to churn out the best practices, policies and procedures that will benefit the companies and their employees.  Can you tell us what made you pursue a career in HR?  My aunt was an HR director and whenever we saw her, she would talk to me about it because I found it really interesting. So, when I went to university, although I knew that’s what I wanted to do, I kept my options open and chose business studies and psychology.    After university, I didn’t go straight into HR. It was more important for me just to get any experience. My first job out of university was as an administrator at a housing association.  I was there for eight months while I kept looking for an HR job.  I then found a job as a personnel administrator for a property management company. And that was my first step into HR.  From there, I worked for the NHS as a medical personnel officer.  The workload was incredible at the NHS and it completely overwhelmed me. One of my friends worked in a restaurant and they suggested I get some shifts there. So, I left my job with the NHS and at the restaurant, they ended up creating a role for me as a manager. I stayed there for 10 months, but really missed working in HR. That’s when I realised HR is what I wanted to do. Since then, I have stayed in generalist roles and progressed my HR career to where I am today.  Was it a conscious decision to keep a generalist HR role rather than focusing on a certain aspect?  I like to have variety and love the variety in a generalist HR role. I have got a real passion for training and development, coaching, maximising everybody’s potential by finding out what an employee’s aspirations are and taking this and the business vision and trying to make it all come together.  I love making people the best that they can be in their jobs and making them feel valued. So although I really do enjoy the development side of it, I also just love all of it. What do you think is the biggest HR hurdle you’ve experienced so far?  I think most people have struggled in one way or another, from a mental well-being point of view that’s been caused by the pandemic. Lots of people experienced loneliness and isolation, especially people who lived on their own. So we had to keep in regular contact with those people to make sure that they were okay.  We also coached managers into truly prioritising their staff alongside the business needs to make sure that all their teams were okay as this was a massive change for everyone. And now on the reverse of that, we are trying to get people back into the office and some people are really enjoying working at home. We are currently working with a hybrid model of two days in the office and three days at home. I don’t know what it’s going to look like in the future, but that seems to be working. People seem to be enjoying this kind of balance. If they want to come in more days, they can, but we’re just trying to rebuild that team environment.  In February, there was a time to talk initiative. We encouraged people to take 10 minutes just to go and sit with a group of people and have a cup of tea and a biscuit and have a chat about mental well-being. We’re trying to do some more events. We recognised mental health awareness week in May and we’re getting some people trained in mental health first aid later this year to encourage the support there as well. We are encouraging the team to take part in coffee mornings, similar to the time to talk, exercise clubs, or even just walk in their lunch break to enhance their mental wellbeing. These are the kind of initiatives we’re working towards now. For people who want to start a career in HR or those who are taking on bigger HR-related responsibilities, what advice would you give them?  For both working in HR and being a manager, always remember you’re working with people. Remember the people factor. It’s so easy to get absorbed in the day-to-day job and get your to-do list ticked off, but make sure that you remember this is a person you’re dealing with.  I did a 10-week counselling course about seven or eight years ago, which taught me to sit back and actively listen and ask questions, especially when someone’s coming to you with a problem.  Rather than telling them what they need to do, just ask a couple of questions and they’ll come to the conclusion on their own. If you’re wanting to progress within HR and become an HR manager, you need to also know about the business. So it’s great having your speciality in HR and being the expert in it, however, you need to know how the business runs, be commercially aware and understand the impact people and what you do have on the

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Jayde Tipper, Chief People Officer of Temenos, speaks up on how having quantifiable data is essential in HR Functions. 

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“What the evidence tells us is that if you, as a manager, check in with your people, talk to them about their careers, and give them feedback regularly, consistently, and in an actionable way, your people will stay.” – Jayde Tipper, Chief People Officer of Temenos, speaks up on how having quantifiable data is essential in HR Functions.  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 Jayde Tipper, a passionate and knowledge-hungry all-rounder in the HR and recruitment field.  She did not stop at having a Sociology undergrad degree and a Master’s degree in Global Human Resource Management.  She gained her MBA, the learnings from that taught her to look at issues from the business angle first and foremost  Jayde has been honing her skills in the IT industry for more than a decade.  She led Talent Acquisition for the Middle East and Africa for Hewlett-Packard and was Acer’s HR Manager for MEA as well.  Currently, Jayde is with the fintech firm, Temenos as its Chief People Officer.  Can you tell us how you got started with your HR career?  My first proper job was IT sales recruitment, which was quite a theme for my career and I even do a lot of recruiting until now, actually. So I was doing IT sales recruitment, and then I moved to Dubai. I rejoined an old boss of mine  who ran a tech search firm and set up an international business from a hotel room in Abu Dhabi during the financial crash of 2009. One of the first clients that I was working with was Hewlett-Packard.  They called me one day and said, ‘Hey, do you wanna come across?’  I took a big leap of faith and went across from working in a 10-person company to HP, which was massive. I was a really small fish in a massive pond, but I loved every moment of it. I learnt so much there. Then out of the blue, one day I got a LinkedIn ping actually from a former leader from HP. He moved to another tech company and said he wanted an HR person, did I want to come across. And I said, ‘I’m not an HR person. I’m a recruiter.’ He said, ‘I know how you operate. I’ve spoken to people. You can do it.’  I’ve never done performance management. I’ve never done workforce reduction programs, all this tactical HR stuff. I’d never done it. But I thought, let me have a go with it. So that changed the trajectory of my career. Someone took a chance on me to do HR business partnering.  Can you tell us what challenges are you facing as a CPO (Chief People Officer) of a global organisation?  I think COVID has really changed the expectation with HR. We are expected to have data like our colleagues in finance and marketing have not only data but insights are able to tell the story. By being more connected and closer to commercial outcomes.  We should be able to quantify why we are doing stuff and not just because HR says it’s good for you.  It’s just not going to cut it anymore in the new world.  I’ll give you an example.  Like a lot of companies, we’re going through a performance review process and managers must provide people with feedback, which HR has been preaching about forever.   Let’s reframe that.  What the evidence tells us is that if you, as a manager, check in with your people, talk to them about their careers, and give them feedback regularly,  consistently, and in an actionable way, your people are more likely to stay.  People start talking about the Great Resignation, I see it as a great recruiting problem.great recruiting problem. Let’s look at our top talent. We’ve got a fairly low attrition rate amongst our top talent grouping.  There has been a huge market shift, we’ve also been able to acquire talent in the last 12 months that we would never have been able to acquire before. So I think that it depends on the lens that we use.  Let’s double down on our brand and candidate experience and upskilling managers and let’s keep the people growing when they’re here.  When you just double click once or twice on the attrition data, it’s a completely different story from the headline What advice would you offer to someone that was looking to follow in your footsteps in the HR field?  I’ve got two main pieces of advice. One is to be super curious and learn about the business, whatever business you are in, you’ve got to be interested in it.  But my main piece of advice would be to have a coach, whether that’s formal or informal. No athlete that goes to the Olympics or any at any level or any sport does not have a coach. I think it’s the best investment of your time and energy wherever you are in your career to help you, in terms of self-realisation, feedback, presence, whatever it might be.  I spent a lot of time having coaching conversations at all levels, now, I don’t sit down and go, ‘Hey, we’re having a coaching session now’. Coaching is really asking a series of questions and listening very intently and challenging your thinking.  I’m their coach but they coach me as well.  We do a lot of peer coaching as well within the HR leadership team. It’s a great opportunity to get out of the weeds and look out at what’s going on. Jayde has worked up the ranks in Temenos these past six years.  She started as its Senior HR Business Partner for MEA, and then became the Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Executive Search.  In August 2021, she took on the reins as the fintech’s Chief People Officer. If you are interested in having a

Jayde Tipper, Chief People Officer of Temenos, speaks up on how having quantifiable data is essential in HR Functions.  Read More »

‘Instead, seek out what you love to do and roles that will use your strengths and talents.’ – Interview with Rob Peacock

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“Never seek hierarchical growth because you’ll be seeking it for the wrong reasons. Once you get to a senior level, if you’re not passionate about it you’ll quickly get found out. Instead, seek out what you love to do and roles that will use your strengths and talents.” – Rob Peacock, Head of Learning, Leadership and Performance at The Very Group, 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 Rob Peacock at The Very Group, who began his HR career after working in retail banking. Rob joined Tesco Stores Ltd in 2010 as a Recruitment Manager responsible for Central Europe, later becoming HR Business Partner for Global Food Sourcing. Rob continued his career progression at Tesco, taking on the role  of Learning Partner for Global Food Sourcing in 2013.  In April 2015 Rob joined Virgin Media as Senior Learning and Development Partner, transitioning after a year to Personal and Professional Development Academy Lead. In 2018, Rob moved to Samsung Electronics as Head of Learning and Development, UK and Europe. He remained in that role for two and a half years before joining his current company, The Very Group, as Head of Learning, Leadership and Performance in January 2021.  Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? Throughout university and the years before I’d always gravitated towards roles with people. My part-time jobs were at shops and restaurants and after university I worked at Little Chef. I remember the night I met my wife and she asked me what I did.  I wasn’t very proud of my answer and I thought to myself I want to start building a career for myself.  So I applied for what was pretty much the first thing I came across; a retail programme for graduates at Lloyds TSB. I worked in their retail scheme, initially selling personal loans and insurance products. I then took on a role coaching and supporting other team members in customer and sales roles, which I loved. Then I became a Branch Manager with my own branch and a team of 20+ people. I thought things were going really well and I had visions of vertical growth but things began to stall for me. I was doing okay, but not brilliantly and I remember thinking to myself, I don’t enjoy going into work. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t that.  Driving to work one day there was a career development interview on the radio advising people to find something that they’re passionate about and go after it. After hearing that I started to get really interested in personal development. One of my favourite books is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma and in it he says the secret to a life of happiness is simple: find out what you really love to do and then direct all of your energy towards it. That’s always stuck with me.  At the time I didn’t know what I truly wanted to do but I knew I loved certain elements of my role such as the coaching and I felt I had the capacity to spot people with talent and grow and develop them. It’s difficult to go from being a bank manager to a role in L&D so I worked in resourcing and recruitment for a while. I then got an opportunity to work at Tesco’s head office, recruiting in their commercial buying function. That’s really where my HR career began. It began with a desire to find happiness.  Working at Tesco was great because it gave me an opportunity to grow and there’s a real history there of promoting people through the ranks. They had strong processes, structures and capability plans in place. It felt like my HR school was done at Tesco. I ended up being with the company for just under 6 years with many roles in that time.  I didn’t go to Tesco thinking my end goal was talent development because back then I didn’t know what it was. Up to that point all I’d seen in the bank was operational training which is very different. I started to look for clues and identify when I was really happy, or in a flow state and I realised that I was in flow when I was with people, coaching, talking about culture, making a difference to people’s lives.  I gravitated to things that came easily to me, where I could see they required significant skills and I could also see I had the skills to meet those challenges. I found my home gradually, by doing different things: I worked in the business, in commercial roles and different areas of HR.  The opportunity at The Very Group was exciting because they were making a huge investment in their talent and it was an opportunity to build something from scratch. The team is incredible, very visionary and I’m having the best time in my career now.  A big element of the role is firing up and tapping into people’s potential and the performance piece is really exciting. I’m looking at how we can approach talent in a different way, so instead of managing numbers we’re supporting growth and social opportunity across the business. It’s a very exciting agenda.  Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?  The top three themes are hybrid working, skills gaps, and talent development.  We moved to a hybrid model, having been a fairly office-based full-time model before. There’s a recognition that obviously COVID blew that working model away but it was also the skills shortage, the need to recruit tech people and the need to open our candidate market beyond Liverpool. I think regardless of COVID the business was ready for that change.

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