Mary Canavan had it all mapped out; she began her career with a plan in mind and stuck to it driven by a goal to make it to the top — here’s how she did it.
1. What is your current job title? Briefly describe your current role.
I am HR Director at the British Library. My main remit is to develop a People Strategy that will enable us to be the leading library of the 21st century.
2. What challenges do you come across?
The challenges in the job are many but:
1. I am a member of the Executive Team who are charged with developing the strategic directions for the British Library
2. As an HR Director I am required to develop a people strategy to deliver the Library’s strategy
Of course this cannot be done without a strong professional HR Team and in essence I am building a team that is more customer-focused then ever before, one that is in tune with its key stakeholders. I am bringing in staff from both the public and private sector. A big challenge is influencing managers and staff to appreciate the importance of HR — that it’s not all about crisis management and that we are a key strategic player.
3. What activities do you spend most of your time on?
Developing the people strategy for the next five years takes up most of my time.
The key drivers are:
- Reward and Remuneration
- A competency based performance management system
- A leading edge learning and development strategy
- Engaging staff and developing our organisation culture
4. Describe your initial training within the profession
I started my career in local government. I left college and secured a traineeship with Camden Council, where I stayed for the next seven years. I was very lucky to experience all the disciplines within personnel. I was also fortunate to be sponsored through my CIPD professional qualification and gained promotion moving into a specialist industrial relations role.
5. What positions have you held?
After that I spent some time in other London authorities but I knew I wanted to be an HR director even back then and realised that in order to get there I had to get some operational experience under my belt. I moved to the London Borough of Brent where I headed up the personnel team for social services, this was one of the most interesting roles in my career. Developing a professional team to deliver robust personnel advice and support during a period of major change.
I then left and went to another London Borough, it was the beginning of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) and I had to manage the people strategy around this. It was a very male environment and I was the only women on the board so a challenging role. It was also an organisation that did not appreciate the value of HR — which was seen very much as a policing and enforcing role. I went on to win ‘hearts and mind’ and the organisation was successful in maintaining its services in house. By this time I had all the operational experience I needed and I knew I had to move back into a central strategic role. I had two further strategic roles and then I was headhunted into the job at the British Library.
6. Is there a significant event you can tell us about which had an impact on your career?
There are so many it’s hard to pick out just one. But if I had to identify one it was a dispute involving refuse collectors who took strike action and this was before the days when they needed to ballot to do so. There was a danger of it escalating so we had to reach a negotiated settlement which was very difficult. This was my first dispute and the lessons learnt have stayed with me through out my career.
7. What has been your greatest achievement?
Being appointed HR Director of the British Library – it’s an amazing organisation and its exciting working for the world’s greatest research Library. It’s great that I am able to transfer my skills and experience to this environment.
8. What is your biggest career mistake?
I have to say there haven’t been any, I’ve had luck on my side and every job I’ve done has developed my knowledge and skills
9. Which of your colleagues played the biggest role in you getting where you are today?
There are too many to mention but there have been a number of influences in my career from Chief Executives, my peers, my staff, politicians and Trade Unions.
1O. What influences do you think have had the greatest impact on the HR sector in recent years?
Legislation without a doubt and at long last the recognition of HR as a key function, there are more and more HR directors on the board today.
11. What advice would you give to someone thinking of entering the profession?
Be prepared to work very hard. If a task is really mundane just do it, learn every aspect of the job and don’t specialize too early. If you want a career in HR be very clear about how you are going to get there. Don’t ever underestimate the importance of networking either.
12. What are your plans for the future?
I’ve still got a lot to do here in order to deliver the people strategy but I’ve probably got one more big job left, I am very interested in the voluntary sector a lot of change is going on there and it does present an interesting challenge but we’ll see!
Previous career profiles can be seen on the How Did I Get Here? page.
