Leadership and Strategy
What inspired you to pursue a career in human resources, and how has your journey shaped your leadership style?
My honest answer…. how does anyone end up doing a HR role? Yet 17+ years after starting in my first HR role, I can honestly say I love it (most of the time). Part of that is due to the people I have been lucky enough to work alongside, but at its core, I have a deep interest in people, trying to understand what drives and motivates them and supporting them when times are tough. Being in a partnering role, I get to see the full spectrum, from navigating change, shaping a positive culture and giving advice, support and coaching to help us achieve our organisational goals. For me, building strong working relationships with those I partner with is key – once that is established, trust is built. This enables me to have honest conversations about challenging topics without the need for friction and is fundamental to how I operate.
Can you share a significant challenge you faced in your career and how you overcame it?
Restructures are always the challenging part in any HR role, and no matter how many you are involved in as a HR professional, they don’t get easier. There’s a human cost, and it’s important that we are profoundly aware of that. Being human-centered, resilient and steady in times of change are what I pull on during these situations.
How do you align HR strategies with the overall business goals of the company?
For me, this all starts with knowing your business. I need to deeply understand the business goals, obstacles, strengths and challenges so that I can leverage my skills and experience in HR to help us get to the desired outcome. I have regular meetings with my stakeholders and understand all the moving parts – It’s not good enough just to have my ‘people’ hat on, I need to be commercial, understand our customer base, our purpose and why we do what we do.
Talent Management and Development
What are the key qualities you look for when hiring new employees?
Early in my HR career, the company I worked for used the phrase ‘Recruit for attitude’…. and that’s something I still look for now. Yes, skills and experience are important, but I’m also looking for people who have honesty, integrity, a real sense of collaborative working and a can-do attitude.
What strategies do you use to attract and retain top talent in a competitive market?
We offer a range of diverse benefits and policies to ensure we have something for everyone. If we want a diverse range of people, skills, backgrounds (and we do!) then it’s important that our offering meets all those needs. On top of that, we are entirely remote as an organisation. This means our talent pool extends to all areas and individual needs because we’re not tied to a specific location.
How do you ensure continuous professional development for employees at all levels? CPD is so important in our industry, a huge proportion of our organisation is our wonderful clinicians, so keeping up to speed with changing research and ways of delivering optimal services to our clients is key. This is why everyone gets a CPD day each year, and a personal development allowance to invest in their own growth. On top of that, we have our own internal teams delivering training and CPD sessions on their own areas of expertise – so there’s always something we can all learn from.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
What initiatives have you implemented to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organisation?
Being entirely remote means we have the advantage of being super flexible, this in itself opens up lots of doors to people who may struggle with the need to be in a physical workplace. Our policies support the needs of our workforce in whatever stage of life they might be in, our enhanced parental leave policies not only offer enhanced pay, but also a phased return to work on only 50% of your hours for 100% pay (for both parents!)….I’ve never worked in an organisation that supports working parents back into the workforce in that way, and this really helps people during a transition in their personal lives. We also work with our DEI consultant to ensure we are constantly looking at ways to ensure we are inclusive in everything we do.
What advice would you give to other HR leaders looking to improve their DEI strategies? Understand your data! It’s important for us to know how our workforce is made up, so asking people to share their diversity data with us is key in us being able to hold the mirror up and know where we perhaps aren’t as diverse as we’d like, but also recognising what might impact our people. By having this information, we’re able to tailor our communications, support and policies to better match the needs of our people.
Employee Engagement and Well-being
How do you keep employees engaged and motivated, especially in a remote or hybrid work environment?
Communication is key in a remote environment. We use tools like Slack to keep us connected, and we ensure that it’s not always just work related topics too. We have social slack groups on a variety of topics like home interiors, menopause support and most people’s favourite is the pet sharing slack group where people share pictures of their furry friends! We also work with a global co-working office space provider so that when we do want to have a meet up (IRL!), it’s easy to link up in a convenient location and collaborate….and most likely do lunch too (because if food isn’t a good motivation, I don’t know what is).
What strategies do you use to promote employee well-being and work-life balance?
This is something that’s close to my heart, and is something I think we do incredibly well. To start with, everyone gets 2 paid life leave days every year from day 1 of employment. It’s no questions asked, no approval required, paid time off to deal with whatever life throws at you (a last minute hairdresser appointment, a duvet day or whatever you need!). We also do a weekly wellbeing session (Mindfulness or Yoga), monthly initiatives (In April we had an expert come in to run a couple of webinars on nutrition), every Wednesday we encourage everyone to take extra time during their working day to get out for a walk in the fresh air. We also offer a huge amount of flexibility to ensure people’s working patterns really work for them – so whether it’s part time, condensed hours, term time working, we’ve got you covered.
Leadership and Development
What are the key challenges in developing effective leadership within the organisation?
One of the key challenges is that it isn’t a one size fits all approach, and that can be hard when resources are tight. So it’s important that we’re able to identify talent and nurture it. This could be by giving them exposure to a project, having an effective career progression framework, coaching and importantly, allowing them to fail in a safe environment. It’s great when things go right, but sometimes when things don’t go to plan, we do our best learning, growing and developing! So if the culture is right, and people feel free to try new things and learn from them – that’s the sweet spot of growth.
Crisis Management
What lessons did you learn from managing HR during a crisis?
I’m fairly certain my answer here will be the same as every other HR professional of this time – the pandemic. We really had to think on our feet and manage the complex daily changes affecting our workforce including furlough, working from home (when we perhaps weren’t as familiar with that at the time), keeping the business going whilst also balancing our own worries and concerns of what on earth was going on.
Future Outlook
What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities for the HR industry in the next five years?
There will always be challenges in the world of HR, but we also have such a fantastic opportunity to lead the way on creating diverse and inclusive work spaces that people can thrive in. Whilst it is everyone’s responsibility to create a positive culture in the workplace, HR can really help steer the ship.
How is technology transforming the HR function, and how are you using it in your organisation?
AI is really starting to become commonplace now, whether that’s using it to complete administration tasks, coming up with ideas or automation. We use a number of different systems to hold our people data and information, and they’re all introducing AI tools to help speed up how we interrogate data – I’m excited to see how far we can take that to free up time for the more value-added stuff that we contribute to the business.
What advice would you give to aspiring HR professionals looking to advance their careers?
Ask the (seemingly) stupid questions! To be a true HR partner with your business, you have to understand it, and the only way to do that is by asking questions. Sometimes asking a simple question can spark up new ideas or ways of doing things, or will make people think of things in a new light. It can feel uncomfortable, especially when you’re starting out on a new career path, to ask questions, for fear of looking stupid – but no question is a stupid question. It’s easy to assume that everyone in the room knows what they’re talking about, and has explored all the options in a particular scenario, but the truth is, we’re all human, and someone asking something in a slightly different way can be enlightening for all involved.
What role does employer branding play in your talent acquisition strategy?
Branding and reputation are a huge factor in attracting the right talent. People spend a lot of their time working, so it’s important that they feel proud of the work they do, in an environment that works for them from a professional and personal perspective. We need to sell ourselves to candidates in equal amounts as they are trying to sell themselves to us.
How do you stay ahead and updated in the field of HR?
My network is so invaluable to me. I have met some incredible people who have remained colleagues or friends over the years. The great thing about having this network is that we bounce ideas off each other, share knowledge, seek advice and perhaps most importantly, meet for regular dinners to catch up on life. I also love to attend the Bond Williams updates whenever I can too.