Talent Spot: Community blogger, Tara Daynes
As a freelance HR professional, employment law consultant and corporate trainer, Tara Daynes needs to be confident presenting to large groups as well as on a one-to-one basis. Luckily, she learned the art of presenting early on as she went to stage school. “I was all singing and dancing”, she remembers. Media success came […]
Talent Spot: Donna Miller, European HR director at Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Ask Donna Miller, European HR director at car rental firm Enterprise Rent-A-Car, what she does for a living and you may get a rather surprising answer. “I’ve always been a very sales-oriented person and when people ask me what I do, depending on whether it’s in Enterprise or outside, I’ll often say I’m in sales,” […]
Case Study: Nokia attempts to ‘Bridge’ the gap with employee outplacement scheme
Nokia is attempting to take the sting out of its redundancy programme by introducing an ambitious employee outplacement scheme. Changes to the mobile phone company’s strategy led it to announce the closure of some UK sites during Easter 2011. The move meant that hundreds of people across all sections of the business from product […]
Talent Spot: Rebekah Wallis, HR director at Ricoh
Back-to-back company and employee integration programmes have kept Rebekah Wallis, HR director at printing and IT services firm Ricoh, pretty busy over the last four years or so. This is because HR has been considered core to the success of such integration work by ensuring that staff are supported and helped to make the necessary […]
Talent Spot: Leisa Docherty, people services director at Sage UK
One of the key aims of Leisa Docherty, people services director at Sage UK, is to help staff move “from good to great”. She believes that career development and encouraging innovation are key to the business applications company’s success and is proud to play her part in creating an environment where staff can flourish. […]
Talent Spot: Community blogger, Doug Shaw
Doug Shaw has his nine-year-old daughter to thank for coming up with the most appropriate description of his job: “I make work better,” he says. The clue to how he performs this feat is in the name of his consultancy – ‘What Goes Around’. Treat staff well and they will treat their employer and its […]
Talent Spot, Andrew Mayo, professor of HCM at Middlesex University
Andrew Mayo does not consider himself an academic – despite his title as professor of human capital management at Middlesex University. Instead for him, HR has to have a business focus. So rather than simply explore abstract theory, his teaching is very much geared towards explaining to masters students the real-life applications of HR, […]
Talent Spot: Jo Webb, talent director at The Marketing Store
“It’s right I’ve ended up in HR. I’ve found my home,” says Jo Webb, talent director at brand consultancy, The Marketing Store. But it took her a lot of travelling and a few career false starts before she found it. Like so many graduates before her, Webb went travelling when she finished her studies. But […]
Talent Spot: Vikki Sly, global recruitment director at QlikTech
The old cliche that people decide whether or not to hire someone within the first few seconds of an interview horrifies Vikki Sly, global recruitment director at business intelligence software provider, QlikTech. “I don’t believe that, and if that’s the way you treat your recruitment, then you’re doing people a huge disservice,” she asserts. For […]
Talent Spot: Community blogger, Ron Thomas
Ron Thomas, a principal at New York-based HR consultancy StrategyFocusedHR and favourite HRzone blogger, always knew that business was his calling, even if he didn’t know in exactly which branch he’d end up. “I knew I was going to major in business in college,” he says. “I was always intrigued by people who came to […]
Talent Spot: Nikki Hall, chief HR officer at SHL Group
An HR professional at an HR supplier is a pretty useful person to have around when a customer perspective is required on strategy and products. But they are likely to prove even more valuable if sitting both at the top table and at the heart of the business is par for the course. So […]
Inclusion: Reaping what you sow
From the rallying cry of the Lord Davies report calling for more women to join British boardrooms to the abolition of the official retirement age, diversity has been in the full glare of the media spotlight over the last year. Yet the story at ground level is rather different and the key theme in […]
Talent Spot: Kate Russell, the HR Headmistress
Although officially Kate Russell is managing director of her own consultancy, Russell HR Consulting, she’s better known as the HR Headmistress – a nickname coined by friends to describe her no-nonsense manner that has refused to budge. “It’s my own fault,” laughs Russell. “I’m short and very middle class in my accent, but with rather […]
Talent Spot: David Kast, head of HR at Hogg Robinson Group
When David Kast first started working in a branch of travel agency Hogg Robinson Group in the early 1970s, he had no inkling that he would still be working for the same firm 39 years later – or that his career would have veered off into HR and training. Kast had left school unsure of […]
Talent Spot: Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London
For Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London, work is much more than a necessary evil to pay the bills. “Noel Coward said ‘work is more fun than fun’ and he’s right,” he says. A self-professed “well-adjusted workaholic”, Furnham is ready to start grafting by 5am. Alongside his role at the university, […]
Talent Spot: Dan Grant, head of HR at Dell UK
There’s a saying within Dell: ‘It’s not just what you do that’s important, but how you do it…’ It’s a maxim that Dell’s head of HR, Dan Grant, strives to live by. If you’re honest in the way you deal with people and keep your promises, then you can’t go far wrong, he believes. […]
Talent Spot: David Arkless, president of End Human Trafficking Now!
David Arkless, ManpowerGroup’s president of global corporate and government affairs, constantly criss-crosses the globe advising on labour issues, talking to governments and spearheading a campaign against human trafficking. It’s an impressive and worthy remit that more than fulfils his modest childhood ambition: “I grew up in a very, very working class family in a council […]
Talent Spot: Emma Blaney, group HR director at Informa
Emma Blaney may have fallen into HR by chance, but it is no accident that she has risen to group HR director at Informa. It’s taken dedication and hard work. Today, Blaney works in Switzerland at the international publishing and conferencing company’s head office, reporting directly to the group chief executive and having responsibility for […]
Case Study: Rentokil Initial introduces “cohesion” by integrating HR processes
Rentokil Initial has automated and integrated its HR processes in a bid to make them more cohesive as part of a broader company-wide initiative to standardise administrative and operational procedures. The pest control and cleaning specialist is a £2.5 billion global organisation that employs an international workforce of 66,000. But, according to group HR operations […]
Talent Spot: Andrew Powell, COO of Colt Technology Services
Andrew Powell landed a six-week consultancy contract at Colt Technology Services in 2006 and has been there ever since. Despite falling into employment with the telecoms and IT services firm “completely by accident”, he is now chief operating officer after having held five other senior positions at the company within five years – which includes […]