We hosted our first Human #HR Hackathon on September 30th. It was a great session discussing challenges including engagement, equity and inclusivity in a segmented workforce, overcoming the challenges related to COVID and many other issues. You can find the link to the recording here. Make sure to register and join us for our second Hackathon, on November 25th at 1pm BST Link to registration is here. Enjoy!
First Human #HR Hackathon Read More »
âListen more, ask more questions, and try to engage others more, but know that even then, you may never have everybody 100% where you want them to be. When youâre working with people, youâre working with the strangest commodity on the planet.â â Jon Thurmond, Regional Human Resources Manager at Team Fishel and Podcast Host and Producer of the #HRSocialHour Half Hour, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Jon Thurmond, Host and Producer of the #HRSocialHour Half Hour Podcast and Regional Human Resources Manager at Team Fishel. Jon took on his first HR role in October 1999 as a Recruiter with CBS Personnel. He then moved to an Accounting and Finance Recruiter position with Acsys. In May 2001 Jon began working as a Human Resources Generalist and Recruiter for CORESTAFF Services. He joined the team at Dominion Virginia Power as a Senior Recruiter in June 2005 before taking on subsequent roles there as a Supervisor for Staffing Talent Acquisition and Labor Relations Consultant. In October 2013, Jon became an Instructor for Career Prospectors, later taking on a role as a Recruiting Consultant for Titan Group LLC alongside this. He transitioned to his current role within Team Fishel in December 2014, starting his work on the #HRSocialHour Half Hour Podcast alongside this in January 2018. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? Before I started on the HR path, I was a public school music teacher teaching band and choir. However, I quickly figured out that that career path wasnât for me. I got out and went to a temporary agency intending to apply for temp work, but when I explained some of the relationships Iâd built up while teaching to the recruiter, they told me Iâd be good at their job. Within a few weeks, I was working for the temporary agency itself, placing people in entry-level clerical and manufacturing jobs. Recruiting seemed to be a great fit for me right awayâmy manager once told me theyâd never seen anyone pick up ATS systems so quickly, but to me, working out the role played by each of the components and how they interacted was just like reading a musical score. I also found that I loved learning about jobs. Meeting a range of different companies, seeing how they operated, and getting to work with their management teams made my own job interesting. Eventually, I moved from Kentucky to Virginia to get married and started recruiting for a mid-tier accounting and finance companyâuntil one particular client I was placing candidates for told me that she was going on maternity leave and not coming back, so I needed to apply for her job as an on-site manager for a staffing business who worked within a local electric utility company. I did a lot of generalist HR work in that role, and it was my first real taste of a dedicated HR function. After four years, the electric utility company itself approached me to interview with them and hired me as a corporate recruiter. I was in that job for a year and a half before a leadership opportunity came up, then I ended up taking on a Supervisor role to teach others how to recruit. I had a team of 18 people filling about 2000 jobs a year, and we reduced time to fill by four days even with a 65% increase in staffing. After two years, I got burned out and decided to move on. I was approached to work with labour unions within the same company, which led to a whole new career, and I spent five years working with unions in the New England market. That was a very eye-opening experience, but after five years, I had effectively worked myself out of a job. We negotiated contracts to sell the plants I worked with, and then there was no need for me. As a result of that Labor Relations job, I was able to bring together all the experience I had gained to really understand all the pieces and parts of the HR function. I would never trade that opportunity for anything, because it taught me so much more about HR than I had known while recruiting. Even though I was dealing with union leads rather than individual employees, I found that the issues they were facing and the need to build relationships was the same, so I learned a lot about how to handle interpersonal things better. Once I had left that job and taken some time off to spend with my wife and sons, I took a six-month recruiting contract. I went in and streamlined job postings, started social media recruiting via Twitter and LinkedIn, and did a lot of government compliance, but I knew it wasnât what I wanted to do in the long run. After that contract ended, I found my current job with Team Fishel, and now I get to do a little bit of everything. I recruit, I train, I work on investigations when we have issues, and I get to piece together what I call the âPeople puzzleâ. Itâs been quite an interesting adventure, and I love that although Iâve been in this world for 20 years, Iâm always learning something new and the work we do only continues to grow. My co-host Wendy Dailey and I started the #HRSocialHour Half Hour Podcast in February 2018 as an outgrowth of the #HRSocialHour Twitter chat that we started in September 2017 following the âNot at SHRMâ chat we held for the 2017 SHRM Conference in New Orleans. Almost 60 people from nine countries showed up to commiserate the fact that we werenât at the conference, and talking to them really resonated with me. I told Wendy that I wanted to keep hosting
â[I]tâs important to have a clear understanding of what you want to do within and get out of a role. You need to ask yourself what it is that you absolutely want to do, as well as what experiences you need in order to be able to get yourself in that position.â â Carol Elderfield, Consultant HR Director for Inclusion, Change, and Transformation at Amey, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Carol Elderfield at Amey, who began her HR career as a Personnel Manager at RHM Foods before joining the team at Greggs PLC as Personnel Director for the Midlands. In 2005, Carol took on a role as Head of HR at Dollond and Aitchison, later moving to an interim role as HR Director for the Cross Country Bid Team at Virgin Trains. In April 2008, Carol became joint Group Head of HR and Director of HR for Wickes within the Travis Perkins Group, later transitioning to Holland and Barrett to serve as Director of Human Resources. In June 2011, Carol became Human Resources Director at Initial Facilities, later moving to TNT Express to become Global Interim HR Director for ICS and GBS. Carol joined the team at Amey in April 2015 as Divisional HR Director for Local Government before transitioning to her current role in September 2020. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I was originally qualified to work in Hospitality, so I fell into HR as opposed to it being my initial career choice. I started off in an operational role running restaurants, then moved into retail and started to develop an interest in Training. While I was at RHM Foods, the Personnel Manager went on maternity leave, I was asked to cover it, and that was it. Iâve stayed in HR ever since. Hospitality can be a good gateway into HR in some respects, because you end up managing high numbers of people from a young age, so you have to understand how to lead people very quickly, and that stays with you. Even as I began covering the Personnel Manager role, the intention wasnât for me to build a career in HR from it. I went into it wanting to dip my toe in the water and see what happened, and I really enjoyed it, so it stuck. It helped that I had a really good mentor who taught me the fundamentals of employee relations. For me, that was the most challenging aspect of HRâI think most of HR aside from that is about having good judgement when it comes to decision-making, and my commercial skills and operational experience really helped there. That particular manager decided not to come back from maternity leave, so I stayed in the role and ultimately decided to make HR my careerâboth because I enjoyed it so much and because it enabled me to have the work-life balance I needed to start a family of my own. I have a very active mind that constantly needs to be challenged, so Iâve moved across a range of sectors throughout my career. Iâve never really been a steady-state HR person, so my career has been change and transformation oriented because it keeps those new challenges coming in and is perfect for keeping my brain ticking over. It has been challenging to change roles at times, but what Iâve found is that the People challenges are no different across sectorsâthe dimensions of them you tackle are whatâs different. Iâve never found it difficult to move across sectors. When I joined Amey, they really embraced the fact that Iâd got different sector experiences and seen things done differently elsewhere, because they recognised that they were very traditional in their way of thinking. If you have different sector experiences and position new viewpoints to your business as something that might be worth trying rather than something that other businesses are better at, that can be really powerful. Itâs a great place to be. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? I think the key themes and challenges Iâve seen throughout my career have probably been the same in all the different sectors Iâve worked in. Thereâs a big challenge around leadership capability and getting enough of the right people to do jobs that need to be done, and I think that remains true at all levels of a business. Itâs getting even more challenging as time goes on, because the market is becoming increasingly competitive. In terms of commercial challenges, thereâs always a need to do more for less, so businesses find themselves constantly resizing. I think HR professionals are always being challenged by that, particularly if theyâre seeking to prove that you donât always have to turn to downsizing to achieve better results. Linked to that is the issue of motivation and reward strategy. At Amey, weâve got a really forward-thinking Chief Executive, and she made a commitment as soon as she was appointed to pay the real Living Wage. Sheâs taken that leap of faith because she knows weâll have better people and better performance as a result, and therefore that weâll win more work. Sheâs at the forefront in that regardâother HR professionals I speak to say that their organisations are nowhere near that point yet. Diversity is a huge challenge for us going forward. Weâve got to be able to attract difference into any industry that weâre working in because the way that younger people coming through want to work is very different to the way that we might have worked 20 years ago. People expect a different work-life balance, and youâre not going to be able to create that unless youâre open-minded about the way you recruit. Thatâs an
âDonât underestimate your worth. Even though HR traditionally fought for a seat at the table, businesses are now looking to you to drive change in terms of working practices, workforce strategy, and culture. The HR space is changing, and we have a real opportunity to redefine our capabilities.ââ Kelly Anderson, Owner, Director, and Consultant at Nspire People Ltd, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Kelly Anderson at Nspire People Ltd, who began her HR career as an HR Manager at Sainsburyâs. This was followed by a role as HR and Training Manager at WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC. In 2005, Kelly joined the team at Tarmac, taking on a number of roles that culminated in the position of Senior HR Manager for Operations. This was followed by a role with Hazlewoods as Head of Human Resources. In October 2014, Kelly joined the team at L3 TRL Technology as HR and Security Director, later moving to the roles of Vice President of Human Resources for Sector at L3 Intelligence & Mission Systems, and HR Director at L3Harris Technologies respectively, ahead of assuming her current role in March 2020. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? Once I left university, I went to join the graduate training programme at Sainsburyâs as a Department Manager, which provided great grounding and full exposure to all aspects of the retail operation. I ended covering maternity leave within the HR function and my career within HR began. I really enjoyed the fast pace, and the changing demographics of who we were trying to recruit. I found that my management skills transferred over to HR well. I loved working in retail, but after three years, I was ready for a new challenge, so I went over to Morrisons and did a formal Personnel Training Scheme. After that, I got given my own store and was tasked with managing a number of other store openings. I loved that role and the ramp up of resourcing and development it offered, but I was finding that unless you were in a regional role, you didnât really get to experience the strategic element. You did workforce planning, recruitment for roles you needed to fill at Christmas, and low-level investigations and disciplinaries, but the role had limited exposure to Organisational Development, talent management and other key strategic elements of HR. I knew that my next move was to get into more strategic and operational HR and experience a different industry, as well as focus upon studying for my MCIPD. I was approached for a role as HR Advisor job at Tarmac who are a leader in their field of construction. I didnât get that role based on not having my CIPD, but clearly made an impression, because they offered me an Assistant HR Advisor role instead! That was where I really fell in love with HR and learned my craft, and Tarmac supported me through my CIPD and to continue to progress my HR career. They were a fantastic company, but once I had children I didnât want to travel so much, so I transitioned to more local roles. I did a stint in an accountancy firm and then was approached for an amazing sounding role and went over to L3. I had the most diverse experiences of my career to date there, eventually going from Head of HR to Vice President of HR for an international sector of five businesses across Australia, the UK and Canada. I decided at the start of this year that I wanted a new challenge that would enable me to apply all of my learnings and experience to give something back to the local community, and Iâm doing that in a few different ways. I took on the role of Governor at the local school my kids are at, and Iâm working to provide a full-scale People and Culture consultancy offering to businesses in the Gloucestershire region. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? Our biggest challenge is without a shadow of a doubt the COVID-19 pandemic. HR functions across the sector are being confronted with organisational change, reorganisation, and downsizing, as well as assisting their organisations with embedding remote working and working out how to lead teams when company cultures prior to this have largely been driven by spending time together both inside and outside the office. Along with that comes the challenge of managing people remotelyâboth on paper in terms of having a working from home policy and the proper risk assessments in place and in ensuring your teams are still performing at high levels while away from the office. The other challenging area is Talent Acquisition. Whilst weâre seeing a downturn in recruitment in some traditional organisations, in the high-tech and cyber sectors, itâs getting busier. For HR professionals in those areas, the focus will be on ramping up and scaling up recruitment strategies during this time. Smaller cyber and high-tech companies often have remote working embedded into their cultures and philosophies already, whereas larger organizations are now having to compete with that because of COVID. I think thereâs beginning to be a realization that while itâs a good thing that we can get talent from everywhere in the world with remote working, that also means that everyone else can get talent from you as well. Retaining your staff necessitates working on your culture and employee brand to ensure that people are engaged and happy in 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 think one of the most valuable things you can do for your career is to obtain your CIPD qualification.
âDonât underestimate your worth.” – Interview with Kelly Anderson Read More »
Why NOW is the time to get ahead of the talent curve! How would you like your recruitment process to be 10,15 or even 50% more effective? Check out the recording below about how daily or weekly marginal gains can take your hiring to the next level and why now is the time to take action. During the session Amy covered topics including: Not only how to identify talented individuals but also how to attract and engage them. How to make your hiring process more efficient without dehumanising How to make the best out of an interview – whether on zoom or face to face? Click here to watch the recording. Enjoy!
Hiring Boost: Why NOW is the time to get ahead of the talent curve Read More »
Staying motivated and at your peak has been hard for most people this last year. This is why, when I was introduced to Dan Gayle I wanted to understand more about his Peak Performance and Wellbeing Coaching . Dan is the Founder of Peak Performance and Wellbeing and the creator of The 6Pâs Coaching Framework. We had a great conversation about: His business and how Peak Performance Coaching can help you; What you can expect from Executive Coaching and; How to help protect your wellbeing and achieve peak performance even in these challenging times. We recorded the session so you can take value from Danâs advice too! Click here to watch the recording. Enjoy!
Balancing Peak Performance & Wellbeing Read More »
âOne of the key reasons why people go into HR is because they want to help others, but that can come at a personal cost. Donât forget about yourself. Make sure youâre compassionate towards and taking time for yourself first, because you canât energise others if you yourself are running on empty.â â Mark Pavlika, Founder of The Mindful HR Director and The Mindfulness Coach Ltd, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Mark Pavlika at The Mindful HR Director and The Mindfulness Coach Ltd, who started his career in Finance as a Data Input Clerk, Purchase Ledger Manager, and Accounts Manager for National Leisure Catering. This was later followed by roles as Management Accountant, Company Accountant, and Financial Controller at Claydon Heeley Jones Mason. In 2002, Mark made his first foray into HR Leadership as HR and Finance Director at Alcone Marketing Group. In 2006, Mark became Group Head of Human Resources at Lebara, and later set up his own HR & talent management agency called Morph Talent. At that time Mark also began serving as a Committee Member for the CIPD in July 2007. In April 2009, Mark founded the Likeminded Folk network, which he presided over until March 2015. In this time, he would take on several additional responsibilities, including ascending the ranks to Chairman of the North London branch of the CIPD. In September 2015, Mark became Head of Finance at the Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM). Alongside this, he served as a CIPD Council Representative and HR Director at ODINâa role which he would continue even after transitioning from IPM to his role as Senior HR Consultant at BVM Partners LLP. Mark continues to carry out a number of other roles alongside his responsibilities at The Mindful HR Director and The Mindfulness Coach Ltd. This includes his roles as People Director for ENERGY LONDON, WeAreFearless, and the Vision Nine entertainment Group. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? I had a difficult upbringing, so when I first started out on my own, I hadnât been to university or gained any qualifications. I eventually managed to get a job with National Leisure Catering as a Data Input Clerk. I really liked both the job and the company, so when I was offered the Purchase Ledger job managing invoices, I took it. I loved working in the department so much that I decided to qualify, and did a Foundation course with the Association of Accounting Technicians at Westminster University. From there, I started to ascend the ranks within the Finance sector. As I did, I found that I was seen as someone who people could talk to without feeling judged, a good friend, and a good colleague, so working in Human Resources felt like a natural progression when the opportunity to do so came up. I had started taking on more responsibility within my role at Claydon Heeley Jones Mason beforehand, so I was already dealing with the contractual and sickness side of things prior to that opportunity. I joined Alcone Marketing shortly afterwards. I asked if I could do 100% HR leadership, but ended up straddling both HR and Finance. As time went on, I decided to leave the Marketing sectorâit was struggling in the wake of 9/11, and I was under too much pressure. I ended up making myself redundant at Alcone, took six months out to focus on myself and mental health, and eventually took on my first exclusively-HR role at Lebara. Finance has always been the foundation that my work in HR is built on, and itâs given me some really good insight around running a business, but I was confident I wanted to become an HR Director. I wanted to work with people, but still be able to balance that with my ability to run a company. After almost a year and a half at Lebara, I decided to go into freelance consultancy and help businesses develop their cultures and HR practices. The best way to do that turned out to be to go back into the Marketing and Advertising industry. To a certain degree, those who want to be at the cutting edge of a creative company culture will always find Marketing and Advertising a great industry to work in, as some employees naturally arenât going to conform to wearing a suit or working a standard 9-5 pattern. That was the kind of environment I thrived in, so it was easy for me to return to. As it happened, I also had a brief foray back into Finance after one of my clients expressed that they needed the support of a Finance Director, although thatâs a very small part of what I do for them now. Even though Iâve coached their Associate Finance Director for many years now, Iâm still very much an HR Director. A few years into my freelancing venture, I decided to establish The Mindful HR Directorâor Lucid Cultures, as it was initially known. I had done quite a bit of work for Vision Nine in particular that went beyond implementing systems and processes and more into monitoring and managing the mental health of the teams working at their Boardmasters and NASS festivals, and Iâve struggled with my own mental health since I was young, so Iâve always been passionate about it. As the gay child of Jehovahâs Witnesses, I went through a lot of denial and lived a double life until I was 21, at which point my parents found out and kicked me out. I had developed serious issues with my identity over the years and was left homeless, jobless, and without an education, which I used drugs to cope with at first. I was also very prone to anger and anxiety bursts caused by
âUnderstanding how different parts of the business work and actually being able to go in and experience them is far more helpful than hearing about them. You need to be able to see how things are done, the dynamics and power structures at work, and what clients are saying first-hand.â â Robert Hicks, Group HR Director at Reward Gateway, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Robert Hicks at Reward Gateway, who began his HR career as an HR Assistant at the British Council. He later transitioned to the role of HR Manager at Workspace Group, and in January 2008, moved to Exponential-e to work as an HR Manager before ascending to the role of HR Director. In November 2014, Robert set up his own HR Consultancy, and took on an interim HR contract at Cognizant Technology Solutions, before joining the team at Reward Gateway as Head of HR on an interim contract. In April 2016, he transferred to a permanent contract upon undertaking his current role. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? HR found me rather than me finding HR. My first job was an admin role in the Marketing department of the British Council. The role wasnât a great fit, but I fitted well into the business, so I started to look for other roles. I found that the one that best suited my skills was as an HR Assistant. I had experience training and interviewing from earlier in my career at McDonaldâs, so it felt like a natural progression. I decided to go and work in HR for a year. 24 years later, Iâm still here! I love working in HR for many reasons. I liked the fact that doing HR qualifications set me off on a whole new career path, but I also found that I was good at organising teams and training courses. I enjoyed pulling together paperwork, improving processes and doing those things really suited me. I soon realised that I wanted to achieve more than the basics in HR. So, I gained my CIPD qualification. The route I took to get it wasnât easy, as I did my exams directly with the CIPD, which was the hardest route you could take, but it was ultimately helpful in enhancing my understanding of HR. After moving to the Workspace Group, I began to realise that I needed a really strong educational background in HR to progress. While my previous educational background got me comfortably into the position as an HR professional, I wanted to improve further, so I decided to convert my qualification into an HR Masterâs degree and become a Fellow of the CIPD. In 2011, I decided to take it one step further and undertake my MBA, which I thought was more of a rarity for people in the HR industry. My career has been a journey of continuous learning. Iâve loved it. Over time, Iâve created a path of progress. Itâs really important when youâre trying to move from HR Manager or HRBP jobs, for example, or change sectors. I was lucky to have three amazing influences in Adrian Clark-Morgan at the British Council, John Miller when I was at Workspace, and Colette Keegan at Exponential-e, who all supported me to further my education. Doing so was a great way for me to develop. My MBA taught me different areas of critical thinking, it automatically gave me more credibility during certain conversations, and boosted my appeal when I was applying for jobs. It also helped me understand the strategies we use and challenges we face in business, which enable me to be at the forefront of those conversations even today. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? Even though HR still has its challenges, itâs important to acknowledge that weâre probably in the best place weâve ever been in. The CIPD needs to take a lot of credit for that. The move to Chartered Institute back in the 90s was great strategically, and itâs made us stronger as a sector. In terms of the challenges we still face, I think the biggest one is the shift in our focus. The paperwork and administration side of our roles is no longer dominant, because automation is helping with a lot of it. Instead, weâre dealing more with positive and interesting things in the diversity arena and fighting the âWar on Talentâ. We constantly face issues in terms of finding not only enough people, but enough skilled people who are right for the jobs we need to fill. I think thatâs a cyclical issue that wonât ever fully go away. We also face challenges around educating people in a cost-effective, value-add way while remaining as dynamic, agile, and responsive to change as possible. Our sector is definitely more changeable than others, and a lot more subject to current concernsâ COVID-19 is forcing change upon us. We have to be experts in everything, including infectious diseases and creating safe workspaces. The digitisation of HR has resulted in the removal of a lot of entry routes for those who would previously have moved into HR Manager and HRBP positions having learned the ropes in admin roles. That said, I think the sector has done well to promote those in HR leadership roles as more than just second-level leaders (the seat at the table conversation seems to now be over). To be recognised as leading voices within companies as a whole means we are now in a position of strength and ability to do the right thing. As a business, Reward Gatewayâs key themes at the moment are stability and growth. Weâve been able to continue to grow our business throughout the COVID crisis by investing
The Success Story of Robert Hicks, Group HR Director at Reward Gateway Read More »
âIf thereâs anything that the current situation has taught us, itâs to take advantage of every opportunity, because the world could change tomorrow. Be opportunistic; donât be afraid to go after what you want.â â Valentina Kristensen, Director of Growth and Communications at OakNorth, speaks to us about developing a career as a business leader. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some industry leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Valentina Kristensen at OakNorth, who began her career at communications consultancy, Lansons. Valentina later joined Dragon Advisory as an Associate where one of her clients was OakNorth. After a secondment with the business, she joined full-time in July 2016 as OakNorthâs comms lead. Can you tell us how you started your career and how it developed into a leadership role? The possibility of a career in financial services communications first came to mind while I was studying for a degree in Business Management back in 2008âit was the perfect storm for change and opportunity in the sector with the launch of the iPhone and the financial crisis. At that point, trust in the big banks was all but destroyed, and there was a huge effort to try and bring new players into the financial sector to overthrow their market dominance. I could see that these new players had an opportunity to take advantage of this new dawn of technology and revolutionise banking, but would need to work hard to encourage consumers to put their trust in them first. I decided that I wanted to manage communications for businesses that had had their reputations affected by these developments, and take advantage of the opportunity to potentially help new brands launch and rebuild public faith in the sector. Either way, finance promised to be an interesting sector to work in amidst all the upheaval going on. My goal was to join a financial services communications agency, because I knew an agency offered the diversity of experience I wanted to have starting out. Iâd heard it was a great way to learn from a number of other communications professionals, build up a broad portfolio of clients, and get a wide range of experience in launches, research, and other key areas of the role. I started my career at an agency called Lansons, which had done everything from launching completely new brandsâincluding Metro Bank, who were one of my first clients and the first new bank in the UK in 150 yearsâall the way through to serving some of the largest financial services companies in the world. I got the opportunity to work with established players like Vanguard, JP Morgan, and BlackRock, but also to see the launch of a number of newer fintechs such as Nutmeg. My first encounter with OakNorth was in the summer of 2015 – the business had recently been granted a banking license with restrictions and I was working consultancy-side for them at Dragon. What really resonated with me was the mission and vision for the company laid out by its founders, Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman. They explained how in 2006, theyâd been looking for debt finance to grow their financial research outsourcing business, Copal Amba, but found that none of the banks would give them a loan unless they could secure it against a property – even though they were profitable, had strong cash flow and a great list of retained clients. Back then, there were no alternative sources of debt finance such as crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending which exist today, so when Rishi and Joel sold that business in 2014 to Moodyâs Corporation, they set out to fix the problem of lending to scale-ups. My mother is an entrepreneur, so I had seen first-hand the challenges of starting a business as I was growing up. I loved the fact that Rishi and Joel were trying to create a new bank for entrepreneurs who were seeking to grow their businesses even though they themselves werenât bankers. About five years into my career, I was seconded to work at OakNorth in-house. By that point, Iâd had the chance to build up a broad range of experience with different types of businesses, and I knew I really wanted to work for a start-up. I was keen to build a Communications function from scratch and be part of the team that helped to build a brand from the ground up, and OakNorth could offer me exactly that opportunity. Culturally, it was a very good fit, so not long into the secondment, Rishi, Joel, and I had a conversation about me joining full-time. I initiated that conversation which of course meant taking a risk, but creating that opportunity to sit down with them and give the elevator pitch was one of the best decisions Iâve ever made. Iâve been at OakNorth full-time for four years now, and Iâve had the chance to build a brilliant team and help grow the brand from the ground up just as I always aspired to. Itâs been a really exciting opportunity. How would you say your leadership has developed throughout your time at OakNorth? What skills have you developed as part of that? Iâve been extremely lucky to have real champions in Rishi and Joel, who have given me opportunities to develop and provide me with inspiration for my own leadership. For example, there have been multiple times over the years when Rishi has been approached for an interview and suggested I do it instead because I know the talking points and heâs of course limited for time. In the beginning, I was very nervous, because I hadnât really done public speaking, but my confidence built up over time. That has led to some amazing opportunities, but also upped my confidence to speak capably and with conviction in meetings with key stakeholders. Even though weâve grown significantly, Rishi and Joel still see Communications as an incredibly important
‘Don’t be afraid to go after what you want’ – Interview with Valentina Kristensen Read More »
âNo matter what level youâre at in your career, every day is a school day. Donât be afraid of learning from your team; knowledge doesnât always have to come from above, and humility is key.â â Vicky Walker, Head of People at Westfield Health, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership. As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, weâve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Vicky Walker at Westfield Health, who started her HR career as People Manager at Tesco before moving on to take on the role of HR Business Partner at Westfield Health. In July 2018 Vicky transitioned to the role of HR and Wellbeing Manager, before taking on her current role in October 2019. Can you tell us how you got into HR and why? My initial career aspiration whilst I was at university was to go and work for the NHS in a People roleâeven my degree was geared around that particular path. The NHS element of that aspiration didnât work out, so I applied for a graduate scheme at Tesco, where Iâd worked part-time throughout my studies. That didnât work out either, but this time I was left feeling determined that I could get to the Line Manager level in a different way. I did, and my first Line Manager role was actually managing the deli counters and the team of 35 that worked them. I suppose I didnât really have a clue what I wanted at that point in my career, but I continued to work my way up into a senior role. It was very hands-on and very operational, but we still dealt with people all the time. An opportunity within the People function opened up when the People Manager went on maternity leave, and I asked to take it onâthe People aspect was the best bit of my management role, and I wanted to continue that. I was given the chance, and absolutely loved it. I didnât want to go back to an operational leadership role after that; I really wanted to stick with People leadership. I think HR stuck because I liked talking to people. I try not to overcomplicate HR in my own practiceâfor me, as long as you can talk to people right, you can do it. The conversations you have might not always be the nicest, but as long as you can have them properly, youâll get the right outcome. At the same time, I knew I still wanted to stick with the management side of things. I felt that was where I could make a difference, even if it was just a practical one in terms of developing a new Line Manager to work their way up to a position above me, for example. I love developing people and encouraging them to become better versions of themselvesâit gives me a sense of pride even today. For me, HR is really about being able to understand a business and their people and how you can support them, not how you can get in the way or dictate policies and processes. As an HR leader, I should be just as involved as a function like Finance is in our decision-making processes. Any business problem is a People problem, because people are involved in every single aspect of the business. Equally, any business solution is a People solution, because solving issues is often about having the right people in the right places with the right skillset and the right energy level to tackle them. To me, people should be at the centre of every business because theyâre our biggest asset. Being in an operational role might have introduced me to HR, but the People aspect in them was always secondary, even though people were what delivered that operational aspect. After that opportunity, I knew it was time to make a change and allow People to become my primary focus, so I transitioned to HR at Tesco full-time. As a Senior HR Manager, I built up three teams from scratch prior to store openings, and I really enjoyed it. I loved being able to shape our crew and the expectations of them, and I also found myself responsible for everything from recruitment to disciplinaries to staff development, so I was getting great experience. I had a little boy a while later and went to a part-time role, but I still had the same responsibilities right up until I was made redundant in 2017. If it wasnât for that redundancy, I donât think I would ever have left TescoâIâd been there for such a long time that I was institutionalized, really. Towards the end of my time there, I knew that a job hunt was on the horizon, so I decided to self-fund my CIPD. You didnât need it to be a People Manager at Tesco regardless of how many colleagues you were responsible forâpolicies and processes were already written for you, so your job was just making sure they were implemented and followedâbut as I started to look to the future, I knew I needed the qualification to equip me with the theory to back up my practical experience and be able to transfer it to other roles. My current role at Westfield Health has definitely drawn on both sides of my experience. Even though I entered into a brand-new industry when I joined the team, I very quickly found that people are people wherever you go, and I was able to tap into my previous practical experience at Tesco. Never underestimate the practical element of HR; itâs what enables you to put your strategies in place and be a partner to your business. Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that youâre seeing across the HR sector? I think a major key theme for us is the fact that the future of work is going
“Donât be afraid of learning from your team” – Interview with Vicky Walker Read More »