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HR Leadership with Frances Lees, HR Director at Melia Hotels International. “As the person on the HR side you must keep bringing it back to the people”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Frances Lees, UK Talent and Projects Manager for MeliĂĄ Hotels International. Frances got her start in HR at MeliĂĄ and served as HR Manager for her first two years there, and then moved up to HR Director. Frances was Deputy General Manager at Firmdale Hotels for three years before moving to MeliĂĄ. Your career started in PR. How do you go from PR to HR? Was that a conscious decision or was it an organic process? ‘It was definitely an organic process. I got into PR straight out of university. I literally graduated one day and walked into my first job a PR agency the next day. I’d done a Photography degree and I was looking for something where I would be working with people. I realised by the end of my degree that I wasn’t really the type of person that wanted to work on my own. And being a photographer, I think there’s a fair amount of working alone. I was also looking for the stability of being in an organisation rather than working freelance.’ ‘At the bottom rung of the ladder in a PR agency, you are like a sales person. You’re selling stories to journalists and some of them are stories that they’re just not interested in. I didn’t get enough exposure to the creative side of PR to override the sales nature of it which definitely didn’t suit me!’ ‘It was at that point that I thought of doing something else. It was really obvious to me even at university that I was good at team leading. I always ended up as the team leader of things even without asking. Even in the PR agency I became the mentor of all of the interns without anybody formally suggesting to do so. I knew it was about leading people and I enjoyed the training side of things. So that was how I ended in the hotel industry, because hotels seemed like a really obvious choice if you wanted something that involved people management, being hands on, and always being busy with lots to do.’ ‘I was lucky to get into a fantastic company that really supported me and helped me progress into a senior management position. That was how I discovered HR, because in small hotels, there isn’t an HR department onsite. In more senior management roles, you take on more and more HR responsibility without really realising that’s what you’re doing. And when I realised I didn’t want to be a General Manager anymore, it was in conjunction with realising that I wasn’t really enjoying my job because of the customers. I was enjoying it because I was managing the team. I loved the people and it was important for me to keep them motivated. That was how I discovered HR.’ Did you set your sights on HR Leadership from that point? ‘Most of these things just happened organically. I’m quite open minded about my future and where I go. You can see from what I’ve done so far that I want to try lots of things. I like learning, and I like developing my knowledge and my skills. So I’ll take most opportunities that are presented to me.’ ‘I took a pretty significant pay cut to go in as HR manager, although, I was prepared to take an even bigger one. I thought at the time I was probably going to have to go to HR Advisor level. And I think I was probably being a bit unfair on myself, luckily MeliĂĄ thought so as well. Because, I had a lot of leadership skills and I’ve been part of the senior leadership team. Going in as HR Manager was still quite a big step back for me, and I had an HR director above me at the time. So when I became HR director that was just after her departure from the business and I took over the position from her.’ Are there any key themes and challenges that you are facing in your role, or you see your peers dealing with?   ‘I would say one big thing at the moment is well-being. I think hospitality is probably a long way behind. And obviously, hospitality is one of those industries that comes with a lot of challenges in terms of well-being. Even more so if you’re operating in central London because of the nature of living in London is so expensive, and doing the very basic hospitality jobs really makes it very hard for you to live reasonably comfortably in London. You’re often working very long hours, or very extreme hours, and I think that combination can damage well-being.’ ‘We also attract a lot of people from abroad. The majority of our workforce is mostly European. They come to London, which seems like a city of opportunity and it seems really exciting, and then you live in a room in a shared house sharing a bathroom with eight strangers, and you don’t know anybody. London can be an incredibly isolating place to live. People don’t talk to one another – you sit on the tube and nobody talks to you and people just ignore you. I think that that comes as a bit of a shock, particularly for our Spanish employees (our Head office is in Palma), it’s just so different from their own culture.’ What career advice can you offer someone who wants to build a career in HR? ‘There are two things that I would say that I live by. One is, don’t keep your mouth shut. If you don’t agree with something, and if you have a different perspective, then you have to say so. And learn to say it in a way that is assertive, but it’s not going to make people feel uncomfortable, and don’t

HR Leadership with Frances Lees, HR Director at Melia Hotels International. “As the person on the HR side you must keep bringing it back to the people”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Hannah Atack, HR Director at Alamy. “Don’t be afraid to be creative. Some of the best ideas come from stepping out of your comfort zone”.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Hannah Atack, HR Director at Alamy. Hannah was Head of HR at Volo Commerce, and also served as HR Manager at Barnett Waddingham. She started her HR career at Cheltenham and Gloucester upon finishing her CIPD qualification soon after finishing a degree in Marine Geography. How did you get into HR? ‘I did my degree in Marine Geography, which I loved but the career options weren’t really a fit with what I was looking for from a career on graduation. Whilst deciding on what I wanted from a career I got a temporary role straight after university, and I happened to be sat next to the HR department. I got to hear what they were saying and learned more about it, and it all seemed really interesting. So I investigated how I could get into it, and got my Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources Management.’ ‘After receiving my CIPD qualification, I interviewed for a role as a Compensation and Benefits Officer and got hired. It wasn’t really where I intended to start, but I took the opportunity and having that experience has proved very beneficial throughout my career. I did that for a year, but was keen to try different areas of HR. There was a Personnel Advisor opening within the branch network, so I went for that role and got it.’ ‘I think from the get go, right after finishing my post graduate qualification, I knew HR was the career for me. I’ve always been fascinated with how organisations can enable people to achieve the most that they can and how businesses can structure themselves to ensure that they’re gaining the most from their workforce.’ Did starting in such a corporate environment help you in your career? ‘I definitely think so. I don’t work in a corporate environment now. It’s a smaller, albeit global, entrepreneurial organisation. But the skills gained from the experience and training that I got from Cheltenham and Gloucester and HSBC has been helpful throughout my career.’ ‘I think having diversity in your career is important. I’ve always made sure to be involved in several different areas. I would say my HR experience now is robust and well-rounded. I’ve learned something in every single role I’ve done. It’s either I’ve built a new skill or tried something new. For every role that I’ve gone for, I’ve always looked at what I can gain from that role and what I can offer.’ What do you think is important in terms of key skills to be successful in an HR leadership role? ‘I think it’s a mixture of having a very commercial focus and using data to achieve the best outcome, but equally being really creative and innovative about the way you think about things whilst ensuring that your product is relevant, and adds value, to the business.  These are some of the things I encourage my team to focus on.’ ‘Leading from a position of trust has also been something I’ve always naturally done. It’s really important to me and I think it’s good organisational practice and enables you to lead an empowered and successful team.’ What key themes and challenges are you or your peers facing at the moment? ‘It’s a really interesting time in HR. I think the idea of moving away from annual appraisals and ensuring you have a continuous performance approach is an important factor in enabling high performing teams. We are focused instead on moving to quarterly objectives and making sure we have regular conversations, feedback and check-ins. One question that I consistently hear from people with regard to removing the annual appraisal and rating system is, “How do you ensure that you maintain a fair assessment of performance, for example in terms of how to pay out on a bonus?” This is a question we are trying to answer at the moment. ‘Another thing I’m focused on increasingly revolves around the employer brand. You have to make sure that you are utilizing all the resources at your fingertips to get your employer brand out there from a candidate point of view, as well as from a customer perspective.’ ‘Employer brand and company culture should naturally feed through everything because that’s what makes it authentic. If you have to protect it or if you have to try too hard, something is misaligned. It should be there naturally because you’ve enabled it to develop over time. It’s also critical that the external employer brand matches the internal one. That’s what I mean by being authentic. What you’re saying externally shouldn’t be too hard because it’s what you’re living internally; it’s genuine.’ Do you have any advice for someone hoping to step up to HRD?  Learn from things that didn’t go as expected and focus on continually developing your technical, business and leadership skills.  Consider what the skills and attributes are of a great HRD and identify any gaps in your own experience and proactively seeks ways to gain those skills. ‘It’s important to know your topic, no matter what role you’re in. Make sure that in every step you’re building credibility and that you’re delivering value add people initiatives and ideas. You should also be actively listening to what the business needs at that point in time, and thinking about the future. Don’t be afraid to be creative. Some of the best ideas come from stepping out of your comfort zone.’ Hannah has been HR Director at Alamy since July 2018 and leads the HR function. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how Human can support you in growing your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Hannah Atack, HR Director at Alamy. “Don’t be afraid to be creative. Some of the best ideas come from stepping out of your comfort zone”. Read More »

HR Leadership with Giorgio Jones: “Emotional intelligence is paramount” Giorgio Jones, Group CFO & HR Director talks to us about the skills needed to succeed in HR Leadership.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Giorgio Jones, Group CFO and HR Director at PM Holding Group. Giorgio has been in the pharmaceutical space for almost 30 years, working primarily with Clinical Research Organisations like Quintiles, Profiad and Quanticate.  Can you tell us how you started your career in HR?  ‘It’s unusual because I started off as a Management Accountant, and eventually rose up to Finance Director and then CFO. At that point and up until now, I’ve always worked with SMEs or within SMEs, and invariably you’re given either IT or HR to look after as well. I think it was about 2003 when I got my first Finance Director role, I became responsible for HR.’ ‘I’ve always had an interest in HR because I’ve worked for companies in the services sector where the people are your asset. What we sell is people’s expertise and time, and they’re knowledge workers. So, I’ve always had an interest and understood the connection between commercial success and how those people operated and how you looked after them.’ ‘When I turned 50, I decided to formalise my HR understanding and I did the CIPD. And I found that very interesting, because whilst I had quite a lot of practical experience by then of running HR departments, albeit it in SMEs, it just gave me more insight into the theory.’ ‘One of the first things that struck me when I started was the importance of good HR admin. It seems obvious, but when you don’t think about it and you’re always focused on strategy, engagement, retention, and recruitment, you forget the basics. If your HR admin is poor, people will have a poor opinion of HR as a function within the company. From then on, I focused on making sure my team were really good on the admin side before we even started thinking about people development, and so on.’ What core skills do you think are important to be a successful leader in 2019?  “Emotional intelligence is paramount. You can define that in different ways I suppose, but for it’s all about understanding people’s motivations. And I think sometimes it’s far too easy to put how we are as individuals on to others, and think their behaviour is driven by this and that because that’s what I would do. And maybe it’s not even a conscious thing, but rather a subconscious reaction. We need to break that and actually reflect and look at individuals individually, and why they do certain things when their behaviour is not what you expect.’ ‘I think it is very hard now to engage people. And, of course, working predominantly with a younger workforce, they’re quite different to myself in their aspirations and how they view work. So, for me, the first thing you’ve got to do is put yourself in other people’s shoes. Why are they coming to work every day? What is it they’re looking for from their job?’ ‘And of course, culture plays a key part in it all. I’ve worked with owner managed businesses for a long time now, and the culture of the company absolutely reflects the personality of that one individual. And HR has to be there to try and soften it, change it, or whatever. And they may even be asking you to change it on their behalf. But in the end, it’s very difficult to do because if they themselves don’t live it and set that example as the ultimate leader in the company, you’re fighting a losing battle. You can work hard to get people to a certain level of satisfaction and contentment, and then the leader can say one thing in a meeting and it all goes down the drain.’ What career advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in their HR career?  ‘Well, it’s interesting because I’ve got grown up sons and a grown up daughter who are all embarking on their careers now. I think it’s hard because you have to really think about what you want to do longer term, because it is difficult to switch. I was able to do it. But I was still younger than some of my kids are now. And I can see that one of them would like a change, but he perceives it as too late, and it probably is. Unless he’s prepared to take a step back financially, which is difficult to do. So, I was lucky in that sense that I was able to make that change.’ ‘So I think my advice would be to do what you enjoy, and perhaps don’t think too much about the financial side because that will come if you really enjoy something. You know, I never thought I would get to the CFO level and be on boards. When I started doing management accounting, that didn’t figure in my thinking at all. ‘I think you just have to get on with things really and not be too concerned what the impact is on you. That will take care of itself at some point in the future. I’ve not ever pushed for pay rises, but they’ve come my way quite naturally over time.’ Giorgio has been with PM Holding Group since May 2016. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how Human can support you in growing your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Giorgio Jones: “Emotional intelligence is paramount” Giorgio Jones, Group CFO & HR Director talks to us about the skills needed to succeed in HR Leadership. Read More »

HR Leadership with Gareth Williams, Country HR Director for UK and Ireland, Kantar “When it comes to doing something that you haven’t quite done before, it’s important to have the ability and energy to learn quickly and deliver results.”

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week we had a great conversation with Gareth Williams, Country HR Director at Kantar for the UK and Ireland. Gareth started his career in the publishing sector working his way from Personnel Officer at Oxford University Press, to HRBP then HR Manager at RELX and then attaining his first global HRD at Informa. Over the last seven years Gareth has been serving as HR leader for large consulting firms, exposing him to different sectors like Engineering, Auditing and Market Research. Can you tell us more about your career and how you got started in HR?  During my final year at school time I undertook work experience in the Employment Department of a law firm in Oxford. I was interested in studying law at university but said the overwhelming message I took away was “Whatever you do, don’t do a three-year law degree. It’s incredibly boring! Study something you enjoy, and then do your CPE later.” So, I studied History at Exeter University with that intention in mind. During my time at Exeter I lived with friends who we were studying Law And I thought, “Gosh, I don’t think I really want to cram three years into one year.” So, I explored other things.’ ‘My father was Group HR Director for Unipart in the late 80s and early 90s. At home he would talk me through fascinating work he was leading with various trade unions, employee relations, as well as the establishment of what I believe was the first corporate university. I was intrigued to hear about the impact he and the CEO had on factory productivity as a result of a major change programme. I found my Dad’s stories to be really interesting and appealing because they combined my interests in law, teaching and psychology.’ ‘In my last year at University I applied for various graduate HR roles and took up the role of Personnel Officer at Oxford University Press. I was planning to get six months’ experience before taking a gap year. But in the end, I enjoyed it and OUP liked me. They offered to support my HR studies. And that was how I got my Diploma in HR Management at Oxford Brookes.’  ‘I had a great boss at the time called John who was a lay tribunal member. I learned from him the art of good commercial judgment around employee relations cases, which I found fascinating
I spent five years there and I got involved in job design and evaluation, a lot of recruitment and I got to know the business leaders well and developed strong partnerships. I also got involved in various projects around Europe which was very interesting.’ Are there key themes or challenges in HR that you think will be prevalent in 2019 or that you’re seeing in the sector currently? ‘At Kantar we are in year three of a huge, global HR transformation where we’ve evolved from a siloed, typically reactive personnel model to a global, ‘Ulrich’ model including local HRBPs, regional Shared Service Centres supported by global Centres of HR expertise. ‘We also rolled out Workday in November across 82 countries and I was involved in a truly world-class change management approach introducing new ways of working across the UK & I. The adoption of new systems and new ways of working always take time to bed down and once they do the benefits to Kantar will be immense: shorter transaction times, greater talent data and insight will enable our business development and delivery teams to foster even closer relations with our clients and have quality coaching conversations with their teams. Workday will also remove from HR much unwieldy administration and allow us to spend much more time pro-actively engaging with managers around subjects like culture change, talent management and personal development as well as offering our colleagues a first rate employee experience. What career advice would you give someone who is looking to take the next step up in their career or someone who’s just starting out in HR?  ‘I think when it comes to doing something that you haven’t quite done before, it’s important to have the ability and commitment to be able to learn quickly and deliver results.  In my opinion if you want the HR Director role then the ‘B’ of Business Partner is fundamentally important. You can develop this through active listening and spending time with the sales and product development teams. Another key partner is the CFO. HRDs and CFOs working closely together can bring transformative insight to the Board and help you develop as a rounded business partner.” Good HR technical expertise is of course very important, but you must translate that commercially. It’s key that you quickly understand your CEO’s immediate and longer-term strategic goals. This could be challenges like growing market share, digitisation, moving into new markets, or acquiring a competitor. This context is a key differentiator at HRD level. Start with the Board’s ambitions, diagnose the current talent, structure, systems and culture and then work with the Board to identify where to play in order to achieve the vision.’ Gareth has been with Kantar since the second half of 2016. He leads a team of 45 HR professionals and also looks after Kantar’s HR Shared Service Centre. He is responsible for 4,800 employees across all nine of Kantar’s Operating Companies. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how Human can support you in growing your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Gareth Williams, Country HR Director for UK and Ireland, Kantar “When it comes to doing something that you haven’t quite done before, it’s important to have the ability and energy to learn quickly and deliver results.” Read More »

“
 it’s not just about people now. It’s understanding all the compliance and the impact on people going forward”. Jonathan Tinning Head of HR at Freeman Grattan Holding speaks to us about HR Leadership in 2019.

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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 Tinning, Head of HR at Freemans Grattan Holdings. Jonathan also previously worked in HR consulting prior to joining Freemans and was Head of People at JD Williams where he worked for 14 years. Has HR always been your focus? Has is it always been what you wanted to do? “I actually started life as an electrician. I was an apprentice electrician and finished at the top of my class, I became a maintenance electrician in a large engineering firm. I was going to go back and do my degree in designing electrical installations, when the Personnel Manager grabbed me and said, “I need somebody to train electricians. I’ll make you a deal. Don’t do your degree for a year and go and train electricians. If you like it, you can go down that route, if you don’t, you can go back to do your degree.” “So, I got into training electricians. The next change came when the organisation was starting to have a core workforce and flexible workforce. The Personnel Manager said, “Well, you’ve been an electrician, so you can recruit electricians.” That then developed to, “You did a bit of welding. So can you recruit a welder? Can you recruit fitters?” I ended up with 150 temps and was responsible for recruitment, employee relations, and training”. During this time, I did the CTD and then I did four years of IPD “I then moved into Wall coverings manufacturing, looking after sites in the UK and a short spell in Canada all this was great experience. Then I moved into retail at JD Williams in 2001. So, it was a different way of getting into HR”. What do you think are the key skills needed in becoming a successful HR leader in 2019? “You’ve got to be adaptable as the pace of change is increasing significantly. Working in a regulated environment, compliance brings different challenges. We have the FCA, HMRC and the GDPR, it’s understanding all the compliance and the impact on people going forward. It’s important to take a flexible approach, to protect the culture to keep the people engaged in the organisation. One of the things I’ve seen is that people can lose sight of the culture. HR can also have a huge impact on damaging that culture. So that’s one of the key things when I sit down with the CEO and say, “Right, when we do things, we really need to think about the culture of the organisation because we don’t want to damage that because it’s very difficult to get it back. Commercial acumen is key, especially in retail at the moment, it’s going through a perfect storm there is an enormous amount of pressure on all angles of retail at present. It’s having that business acumen to say, “Okay, we’ve got to think about this from multiple angles. So, you’re wearing many hats, not just the HR hat”. How do you disseminate the culture across such a disparate skill set? “The culture starts with our CEO John and his approach. We always look to him to see how he does things, to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for the staff. And when we make changes, we explain why we’re doing that to the individuals as well, honesty is the key. Then it filters into the Board, and how they behave, interact, and how people see those people work together. I’ve seen that previously where I’ve had Boards that didn’t work together and the whole organisation feels the negative impact”. What are the key themes and challenges that you’re facing at the moment? “I want to say Brexit more than anybody. We ship product in from Germany. So, we need to understand the impact of Brexit on the movement of goods. We’ve also got around 70 people who are European nationals who work for us, so we’ve got issues with that as well and were working hard to support them settling in the UK and taking away any anxiety they may have. We have launched a solid interlinked performance management process and as part of that we are developing our managers which is a key issue to ensure we have the right skills for the future. Digital talent is another area where we are building our capability even further and we’re working hard on our employment brand to attract talent.” Jonathan has been Head of HR at Freemans Grattan Holdings for the past two years. He also sits on the Board of Trustees of the Tony Rampton Trust, which provides funding for charity projects and additional employee benefits for both current and former employees of FGH. If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.

“
 it’s not just about people now. It’s understanding all the compliance and the impact on people going forward”. Jonathan Tinning Head of HR at Freeman Grattan Holding speaks to us about HR Leadership in 2019. Read More »

“There’s a war for talent, but the war doesn’t end once the person joins.”. Kenny Jin, Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA talks to us about HR and Talent Acquisition in 2019

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Kenny Jin, Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA, a venture capital firm and investment group based out of Singapore. Kenny helps REAPRA’s startups, which are located across Southeast Asia, sort out their HR and recruitment issues. Kenny got his start in HR when he joined Michael Page International as a Consultant. He then spent several years working for several recruitment companies in different roles such as Associate Director for Sales and Marketing at Profile Search and Selection, Branch Manager at Adecco Group handling Finance, HR, Sales and Marketing, and finally, as Vice President for Accounting and Finance at Charterhouse Singapore before joining REAPRA. Can you tell us how you got your start in HR and recruiting? ‘I definitely had a nontraditional journey. I started my career in investment banking. I did that for about a year or so, and I quickly found out that it was not really what I wanted to do. It wasn’t just the hours. You’re staring at a spreadsheet, building financial models, and you’re not talking to anyone. There are days when you can come in and you don’t talk to anyone. And I thought that was quite numbing in a few different ways.’ ‘So, I approached a headhunter to help me find another career in finance.  And basically, they said, “Why don’t you join us and be a recruiter for us?” And that’s how I joined Michael Page as a Consultant.’ ‘The change or the type of feeling I experienced in my first few months there was significant. I couldn’t believe I was being paid to do something where I basically just talked to people all day, which was something I really enjoyed.’ ‘I spent four or five years in Shanghai, and then four or five years in Singapore, and then I decided it was time for something a little bit different. As you and I both know, recruitment is a competitive and rewarding industry, but it can also be quite transactional. So that made me want to make the leap to in-house. And my current organisation was the perfect one to make that transition.’ ‘Right now, I’m working for a holding company or an investment company. My role involves working with our portfolio companies on HR and recruitment matters. The dynamic is a little bit different from a recruitment agency, but it’s very transferable in terms of I’m the subject matter expert that these companies go to when they have recruitment or HR issues. Since we are part owners for these companies, the working relationship is more of a true partnership and is that much more impactful’.  Can you explain to us what you’re doing now as Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA? ‘I have two roles. I do all the recruitment internally for our parent organization, and I also help with recruitment for our subsidiary companies. We have 20 companies across Southeast Asia that are majority owned by us.’ ‘And then, there’s the HR Business Partner role where I spend probably about 50% of my time in our local markets such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. I work with our companies there and help them solve HR problems, come up with HR best practices, look at the implementation of those practices, and things like that.’ Putting aside labor laws, cultural and language issues, what common themes are you seeing when you’re working and dealing with people issues across those five countries? Are there any commonalities? ‘There are definitely commonalities. There are two big parts to it. The first part is on the talent acquisition side. I would say that in Southeast Asia, there’s no shortage of talent, but there’s a shortage of good talent. There’s a huge war for talent especially in very specialised areas like UX, UI, and hot topics like blockchain developers. This is across all the different countries.’ ‘The second big part is more on the HR side. I don’t know if it’s the same in the UK, but in Southeast Asia, there are a lot of HR tech companies popping up. Every week someone will approach me and sell me a new APS or management platform. And I guess nowadays you can’t really have a high performing team or HR framework without integrating some of these technologies. And the challenge that I see for a lot of my peers and a lot of other people in the HR industry is, how do we pick the right software and tools, and how do we integrate it into our overall HR strategy.’ What key themes and challenges in terms of HR are you facing across those organisations at the moment? ‘I think talent is obviously going to be the biggest part of it. And from the regional organisation level, each country is very different. They have a lot of different regulations and other little things that you have to worry about just to be compliant. So that’s one challenge that we’re facing, because we’re operating in five markets simultaneously without necessarily having satellite offices or local teams.’ ‘I think the other main challenge is keeping people motivated. I told you that there’s a war for talent, but the war doesn’t end once the right person joins the organisation. You also have to fight to retain your talent. And I guess with lean startups you can have a very exciting startup, but the next day there’s another startup that pops up. And they have maybe higher pay or cooler perks. And that’s something that we’re always dealing with.  Because at the end of the day, our target audience is similar to a lot of other companies’ target audience.’ What career advice would you give someone who is looking to get into talent acquisition or HR? ‘I think there’s no right or

“There’s a war for talent, but the war doesn’t end once the person joins.”. Kenny Jin, Head of Talent Acquisition and HR Business Partner at REAPRA talks to us about HR and Talent Acquisition in 2019 Read More »

“You have to start thinking about the company almost as if it were your company”. Robert White, COO at IDC speaks to us about developing a career in Leadership.

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As part of our commitment to adding value beyond the connection, we have been speaking with CEO’s, COO’s and HR leaders. We wanted to understand more about how they developed careers, the challenges they face and how they have achieved their success. This week, we spoke with Robert White, Chief Operating Officer for Western Europe at IDC and CFO for EMEA. How did you develop a career in Leadership? “I will have been with IDC for 27 years in March 2019. Prior to that I’d go into a company, work for two, two and a half years maybe and then look for some sort of the promotion or upward movement”. “In 1992 I was working for a major computer vendor. It was a French organisation and I was looking for the next step up. Like a lot of the hardware companies at that time it was just starting to hit a wall in terms of its growth and expansion. So, I thought it was a good time to have a look around. I went to some recruitment agencies and one of them came back with this opportunity at IDC”. “As before I initially had my eye on the horizon. But I quickly realised that there was massive potential for me at IDC. Around 1997, I accepted the opportunity to take on the European finance director role. This opened up more possibilities in terms of taking on international work and managing teams distributed across western Europe. There was always something more to do. That role led on to my current role as COO, which I’ve been in for about four or five years”. Was it easy to transition to the role of Chief Operating Officer? “I would say it was a significant transition going from Group VP of Finance into Chief Operating Officer. I kept responsibility for finance. At the time we were going through a change and I was also given the extra responsibility for our publishing division.  The really big change came 10 years after that when I moved into my current role. It really gave me the opportunity to operate as a general manager and more than a head of the back-office support function”. What key skills are most important to success in a Leadership role? “Communication is definitely in the top three. When you are working with a mix of direct reports who are spread across a geography the size of western Europe, the ability to communicate is paramount.  There are different cultures, which sometimes presents a challenge, and sometimes presents opportunities. You have to recognise that people do things differently, they behave differently, they have different management styles. It’s very important as an international manager to be able to connect and communicate across those different geographies”. “Another key element to success for me is to be able to think like an owner rather than an employee at all times. You have to think about balancing shareholder interest, employee interest, and of course the client interest.  You have to come to a decision on something that you know is optimal for the organisation whilst balancing those three important constituencies”. Roberts also believes a high level of commercial acumen and a strong grasp of the numbers is key. “Coming up through the finance route, naturally gives you that philosophy because of course you’re dealing with numbers, you’re dealing with financial reports, forecasts and plans and financial plans actively. Roberts recognises that the numbers are important, but what’s behind the numbers in terms of your organisation is almost more important”. Empathy was the final of the three-skills Robert said would be key to success in a Leadership role. “You have to take into consideration things like human aspects. For example, HR decisions, you have to think about how change will be received. The numbers might look good but how do you sell this to managers who might be resistant to change. That part of the equation for me was something I had to learn on the job and often by experience, occasionally through mistakes. The Human aspect to leadership is key”. What key themes and challenges are prevalent at the moment across the Leadership function? “In our company as time moves on there’s definitely been a change and the younger generation coming through have been the catalyst. Flexible working is a key consideration. The expectation is that people come in and do eight hours, nine to five, although we have a lot of flexibility. Over the last few years, we have operated with flexible working; people can work at home for a certain amount of days a week and can come in later if they need to. So, to that extent we flexed and moved with the times. “If you are attracting top talent you want them to be productive. You want them to be optimal, but at the same time, switch them on to the long-term opportunities. People want to understand what their career will look like in four or five years’ time if they choose to stay. In that sense, the traditional employer employee relationship has changed. At the younger end of the scale the expectations are higher and there’s more choice out there in terms of newer companies who were often set up by people in that generational bracket”. What career advice would you give to someone with aspirations to develop into a C suite role? “It goes back to what I said, that you have to start thinking about the company almost as if it were your company. That’s the single best advice I would give. I’d also recommend you look at how the whole company fits together, understand the role of other support areas which often get overlooked. Who’s the sales director or sales manager? Who’s on the upward path? You can go on training courses and learn about corporate governance or HR in terms of what it means today. But I think often the best thing to do is look at the

“You have to start thinking about the company almost as if it were your company”. Robert White, COO at IDC speaks to us about developing a career in Leadership. Read More »

HR Leadership and Careers with Janine Walker, HR Manager. ‘
the most important thing is to work for an organisation that aligns with your values’.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited several HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Janine Walker, HR Manager at Catalyst, a mental health charity involved in drug and alcohol addiction. Janine’s HR career spans a variety of sectors working for highly recognisable organisations such as British Rail, the Royal College of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Wetherspoons, and HelpAge. She’s also been an HR consultant and interim HR Manager for more than 10 years, and has helped numerous organisations develop their HR departments and strategies. How did you get started in HR and why has it stuck after all these years? ‘I didn’t go to university. I started off working for a pension payroll company and my boss was the Staff and Payroll Manager. I saw what she did dealing with people, and I thought, “I’d like to do that.” But they didn’t give me a chance to do it. Then I got a job at British Rail in the HR department. I was there for about seven years and they paid for me to do my IPM, which was what it was called in those days.’ “Later in my career, I set up my own business, Bloom in Work Ltd, and alongside that I got a job at Remploy on their mental health support service. I was coaching people who were either off sick or still at work but struggling with their mental health’. ‘I then started working for Catalyst as an HR Manager. They’re a drug and alcohol addiction, and mental health charity. I’m currently implementing an employee well-being group. I’m doing pulse surveys. I’m doing all the things that I think organisations should do’. What advice would you give someone who was looking to develop a career in HR? ‘To me the most important thing is to work for an organisation that aligns with your values. One of the things about HR is that you can work anywhere, because virtually everywhere has got an HR department.’ ‘I feel very strongly about justice, following due process and making sure people get a fair hearing. I’ve worked in organisations where I’ve been bullied to try and reassure a manager that I was going to sack somebody in a disciplinary case. Well that doesn’t sit well with me. So, I think the first thing for me would be to get into an organisation that lines up with your values.’ ‘I’ve got a very particular view of HR. I don’t like HR departments that work for management only. I strongly believe that HR is like the middle person. Sometimes I’m going to tell managers things they don’t want to hear, and sometimes I’ll tell employees things they don’t want to hear. But I’m working for the organisation either way.’ ‘To do that and to find out what you enjoy, maybe try working for a few different types of organisations because they’re so different. I think years ago it used to be really difficult to move from public to private or private to public. It’s much easier now. So, if you get a chance to just try working in a few different types of industries, then that would give you a really good understanding of what you enjoy.  I love working with blue collar organisations. One of my favourite jobs was working for the airline catering industry. If you like employee relations, that’s the kind of place you want to work because there’s tons of it. If you’re more about management development and that sort of thing, then you’re probably better off in a more corporate environment.’ ‘In my day, it was really good to get a generalist experience, but I think it’s moving much more towards everyone being a specialist, particularly around reward and organizational development. So, try a few different types of roles out if you’re earlier in your career to see what floats your boat.’ What key themes and challenges in HR are you and your peers facing at the moment? ‘For me at the moment one of the key challenges is recruitment. Although we’re supposed to be in a very high employment situation, because of the stagnation of salaries and the high cost of living, one of the problems we’re having at the moment is people saying, “You’re not paying enough.” If you benchmark us across the charity sector we’re not bad payers, but compared to some of our partners, like the NHS, we’re lower. And because of everything that’s going on in society, with all the cuts and all that kind of thing, it’s having a knock on effect on people’s general well-being. So that’s something employers really need to step up, because we spend so much time at work. Those are the two key things that I’m working on at Catalyst.’ ‘I think sometimes if you can make people happy at work, the money is less of a problem. Right now, only 25% of our staff are full time. So I’m having a bit of a nightmare having to type in individual work patterns for everybody, because everyone does such odd hours and compressed hours. But I think it’s good that people can work more flexibly nowadays. For a small charity, there are a lot of issues that are historic, but I think we’ve got the opportunity to make it a brilliant place to work moving forward.’ Janine has been HR Manager at Catalyst for 6 months. She’s also been developing her own company, Bloom in Work Ltd., which aims to help people deal with their mental health and well-being in the workplace, and also help employers look after their staff better. If you would like to have a confidential conversation about your career or would like to understand how Human can support you in growing your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership and Careers with Janine Walker, HR Manager. ‘
the most important thing is to work for an organisation that aligns with your values’. Read More »

HR leadership with Dean Morley, HR Director and Founder of People Capital Ltd. Working from the ‘Outside-In’; first understand the organisation, then look at the people.

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited HR Leaders across the UK to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Dean Morley. Dean’s HR career spans a wide range of sectors starting with Financial Services in retail banking at NatWest, Civil Service as the Head of HR for the National Offender Management Service and Deputy HR Director at Department of Work and Pensions. He later moved into to Higher Education where he served as HR Director at Kingston University and the Royal College of Art. Dean now runs his own HR consultancy, People Capital Ltd. Were you always interested in an HR career from the start? ‘I’d love to say that I had this massive career plan that saw me one day being an HR Director and doing consultancy work, but to be honest, it didn’t work out that way; the path I followed tended to be more about following my instinct when opportunities came up. ‘If you look at my career, I started off in NatWest Retail Banking. When I joined, I thought, “I’ll be at NatWest until I retire.” Then came ‘Big Bang’ and bank deregulation[1]. The whole sector was turned upside down. That was a huge learning experience for me about how you can never fully predict the future – and how organisational (and personal) agility is arguably more important than well-formulated strategic plans. So I would say it’s more about whether or not you want to take up opportunities that present themselves; if you’re focused on getting to be x in y years, then fine, but you might miss out on some interesting experiences along the way. After branch banking, I did a stint in Regional HR, and then moved across into Regional Operations as part of a drive to improve branch productivity and improve cost/ income ratios; that taught me a lot about the business side of retail banking and also developed my analytical skills. From that sense it was the ‘hard side’ of HR; not that it was more difficult, but it involved driving and leading structural and operational changes using a lot of MI, something I have found isn’t strong enough in many HR people. Have you ever come across the age-old objection of not having industry experience in any of your roles? ‘Oh yes, every single time! Even within Higher Education, if you talk to any university, every one of them is different in some way, and every sector does also have its differences. I still come across that today, but provided you obtain a core understanding of what makes a particular organisation successful, I have found good HR can take you through organisations and sectors.’ In practice, the biggest challenge I experienced was going from NatWest Retail Banking to NatWest Mortgage Services, and being Head of HR for the Sales and Marketing teams; in my experience, sales people are motivated differently from corporate individuals – so the HR priorities and focus needs to shift accordingly. What key themes and challenges are you seeing in the HR sector at the moment? ‘I’m seeing a lot of reward challenges because of increased regulation and scrutiny over senior manager’s pay. There’s also an increasing focus in all sectors about equality and fairness between pay increases for senior management and rank and file employees. Both these issues are actually a key focus of work I am helping two of my current clients address. ‘The other area that I’m seeing an increasing interest in is strategic workforce planning (SWP); whilst most organisations will have a strategy for where they want to be and what they want to do in the future, there is very rarely a connected vision for what the workforce needs to look like. ‘To give you an example, one of my clients had a strategy for where it wants to be in 2021 in terms of research, academic courses, students and international locations. But there wasn’t any parallel vision for how each School should look, even from a preliminary structural perspective that would have given them a better idea of the capabilities and capacity needed. Once you have that stake in the ground, you can then look at your workforce today and gauge how well it aligns with future goals. The subsequent SWP will involve things like L&D, talent, succession, and rewards – but it’s all very clearly and consciously connected to the broader strategic plan, not lots of isolated initiatives.’ ‘Finally, I continue to hear management debates about the need to ‘change culture’, but unfortunately this is not something I’ve generally seen done that well. The general approach seems to be to try to do it by PowerPoint; ‘..We’ll put up slides to talk about our vision, our values, the culture we want, what we expect from people, and what people can expect from us…’ But you can’t get hold of it or measure the culture now and what the culture will be like in the future – those are important things if you truly want to make an effective and sustainable change. In fact, culture and behaviours are a key part of strategic workforce planning because you need to know what the culture is you’re aiming for, where your culture is now, and be able to track where you are on the path to achieving that culture.’ As an HR leader in 2019, what key skills do you think are important for people to develop? ‘First of all you need commercial skills; you need to understand the organisation you’re working in, what makes it tick and what it’s aiming to achieve. And then from that, you can start to think about what the people implications are, and what people interventions need to be made. So it’s working from the ‘Outside-In.’ At its heart, an Outside-In approach is about how the sector, economy and society are going to influence an organisation. So agility is the key. Even

HR leadership with Dean Morley, HR Director and Founder of People Capital Ltd. Working from the ‘Outside-In’; first understand the organisation, then look at the people. Read More »

HR Leadership with Fiona Guthrie, HR Director “
if you can harness the power of your people, you will get a lot in your business right”

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As part of our commitment to supporting candidates in developing fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success. This week, we had a great conversation with Fiona Guthrie an experienced Group HR Director.  Fiona has worked within an HR Leadership role across several sectors including Rail, Retail and Construction. We asked Fiona about her career and what is required to build a successful career in HR. What lead you to a career in HR? Why HR? “I was attracted to HR because it offered the ability to work across the business and not just in a particular specialism. The variety and the impact HR can make was also attractive. I believe that if you can harness the power of your people, you will get a lot in your business right: That reach across all functions through its people is fairly unique to HR. In other functions you can deliver the right results but in HR you can influence across the piece. Fiona moved away from HR for four years and moved into General Management before she returned because of the impact good HR can have on a business.  “You have the ability to work at senior levels not only in a functional capacity but also as part of a team”. What makes a successful HR leader? The ability to deal with ambiguity, be flexible and have a can do attitude Understanding the business is vital. Data analysis has become increasingly crucial – you have to be able to understand and interpret data. You don’t have to be a maths whizz, but it helps to know when the numbers are right and to be able to interpret and communicate what the data is telling you.   All business is about relationships with your stakeholders – colleagues, customers, suppliers – and the ability to establish and develop good relationships is a critical success factor. Being able to coach and develop your team is also key. In my opinion investing in coaching is the best development money you’ll ever spend. If you train your people to coach, the return on investment will come threefold”. Within HR you are often needed to coach and influence others to achieve the right results – I think both are intrinsic to success in HR. You also need courage as a leader – in HR and across the wider leadership – to challenge when you might be the only one doing so, to question the status quo and to pursue the right solution to business challenges. What key themes and challenges will be prevalent in 2019? ‘AI’ is one to watch. I use inverted commas because a lot of what people are calling AI is really automation or data management. There are huge opportunities for change with the development of that type of technology. Finding a holistic way of using technology without falling into “the computer says no” scenarios will be important.”. “How to keep people engaged with the business purpose is not new but should remain a hot topic. We need to stay focussed on diversity and inclusion, and as part of that I would like to see more companies doing proper work on wellbeing:  If you can get all that right, I believe you will see an impact on the bottom line”. What do you wish someone had told you when you first started your career in HR? “Keep the bigger picture in mind – sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war; don’t take things personally; take every opportunity to learn and grow that you are offered and if you’re not offered them, go and look for them”. “You have to be brave, flexible and resilient. If you’re not those things in HR it won’t be a happy place”. Fiona has worked as an HR Director for organisations within Utilities, Construction, Retail and Logistics. If you would like a confidential conversation about your career or need help finding the next great addition for your team, please get in touch today.

HR Leadership with Fiona Guthrie, HR Director “
if you can harness the power of your people, you will get a lot in your business right” Read More »

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