Patti Whaley reveals the subtle differences of life in HR within the charity sector and talks about the fulfilment of the third way, while explaining her passion for cooking by numbers.

1. How strategic is your current role and what does it involve?
I’m the Director of Resources at the Forum for the Future, so my role involves overseeing all aspects of internal management: human resources, finance, office management, IT, internal communications, planning and generally anything that makes the Forum a better place to work. I sit on the board, as well as on just about every other committee and working group in the Forum.

Forum for the Future is a charity established about ten years ago to accelerate change to a sustainable way of life through a positive, solutions orientated approach. We work in partnership with over 150 corporations, local authorities, universities and other key sectors in the UK to build the understanding, commitment, and practical solutions required for sustainable development. In the past ten years we’ve grown to around 70 people, based in London and Cheltenham.

I’m the first person to hold a senior level role dedicated to organisational management at the Forum, so initially I focused on getting some basic policies and practices in place and making HR tools readily accessible to managers and staff. Over the past year I’ve focused a lot more on building a learning culture through a mixture of formal training and more informal information sharing, learning days and office lunches. Our “product” is essentially our ability to convey the merits, concepts and skills of a sustainable way of life to others; so unless we have good people and are able to support their growth, creativity and enthusiasm, we’re nowhere.

2. How is the HR function perceived within your organisation?
As a force for order in an entropic world. Things were perhaps a little too random in the past; so people seem to appreciate just steady, responsive, support – letting them know what they can do, what’s best practice, ensuring that people are treated consistently and fairly, listening to problems and trying to solve them. I’m lucky; I get lots of positive feedback and appreciation for my work.

3. How does your business use HR practices to get ahead?
By trying to offer incentives to keep staff longer. We hire tremendously bright people who come to the Forum and learn sustainability skills that are increasingly in demand in the corporate sector, who can pay a lot more than we can. So turnover is an issue for us; it’s good, because we’re populating England with people who are sustainability-literate; but it’s a big challenge to hire and support new people. What we can offer is a values-based work culture, plenty of learning opportunities, more flexible ways of working, and extra benefits like the Forum Challenge, where people spend five days doing something to further their own development, sustainability and to help another organisation.

4. Why is your company such a great place to work?
We have wonderful people who seem to really enjoy working together. Twice a year we have an all-staff away day, which I organise, with a mixture of updates, learning/sharing activities, and goofy games, and I’m always amazed at the amount of creativity, laughter, energy and good will that comes out of those days.

We have a set of organisational values: commitment, openness, respect, cooperation & learning, and fun; we don’t always achieve them perfectly, but we make a genuine effort.

5. How does HR win hearts and minds in your business?
By being enablers. HR should be about what you can do, rather than about all the things that aren’t allowed.

6. Will HR survive outsourcing and changes to service delivery?
I haven’t dealt with outsourcing very much, to be honest; and I have trouble envisioning an outsourced HR department. One of the nice things about my job is that I know every single person in the organisation; responding to people is really different from fixing a computer. You can’t just apply a rule and say “there it is, take it or leave it.”

7. What’s the new skill set of HR?
Responding to a growing culture of people working away from the office, moving from one job to another, and needing more flexibility while still wanting a sense of organisational belonging, personal development and meaningful work.

8. What’s the worst thing about working in HR and the best?
The worst thing is dealing with situations where there is no good answer – where every option is going to be painful for somebody; redundancy, for example.

The best is the continual learning about what makes people tick. I used to work in a campaigning organisation, for example, and it took me a while to realise that the same traits that drove me crazy – their stubbornness, anger, refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer – were the same traits that made them great campaigners. Once I understood that, it was easier to work with them.

9. What are the key issues preventing HR professionals from getting a seat on the board?
The best boards are made up of people who are joined-up thinkers, who can see multiple aspects of an issue or multiple points of view, and come up with win-win solutions. There’s no point wanting to get on the board in order to make them think more about HR; you have to demonstrate that you have a strategic understanding of what the board wants to achieve, and you can help them achieve their goals.

10. If you have a mantra/motto what is it?
A Buddhist teacher once said to me: try to avoid thinking of things as bad or good; everything is something to learn from.

11. What are you currently reading?

• About Time, a set of essays recently published by the Forum on time and sustainability.




• PD James’ Children of Men, about how humanity would react if we became universally infertile – if it’s true that massive global warning could threaten civilization, then stories are a good way of exploring how we feel about that.




• The Directory of Social Change’s (a company which do a lot of publications and training programmes to support better management of charities) Financial Stewardship of Charities.




• And a couple of cookbooks, always.

12. What would be your desert island disc?
Two friends and I practice piano trios together so it would be whatever we’re currently working on — at the moment, it would be Beethoven’s Archduke Trio.

13. If you could have lunch with three famous people, dead or alive who would they be and why?
I’d invite three musicians to my house – say the visionary American composer Charles Ives, the German tenor Fritz Wunderlich, and the conductor Daniel Barenboim – because they would enjoy meeting each other so much, and then we could make music all afternoon.

14. If you’d like to be remembered for one thing what is it?
Cooking really great dinners. I cook a lot, and I’ve spent time cooking for groups of 30 or 35 people at retreat centres. The sight of tired, hungry people coming in and brightening up over a beautiful dinner is one of life’s great rewards.

Previous career profiles can be seen on the How Did I Get Here? page.