When Aird joined in June, there were 25 employees, but that figure has already more than doubled to 60 and she is currently hunting for a further 100 recruits. As well as filling these vacancies, Aird is also concentrating on setting up corporate HR policies across all areas of the business.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to get into a company when it’s just about to take off and develop all the policies from appraisals to recruitment,” she enthuses.

As HR manager and currently the only HR staff member, it is Aird’s job to help find suitable talent and ensure that the organisation hangs onto it by offering the right training, development and benefits. But it is a challenge she relishes.

It is also, however, a massive cultural change moving from an established firm where all the relevant processes and procedures were in place to one where nothing has been set up at all.

 

“The sudden freedom coming from a company where everything is codified and you walk between these two lines is daunting – where do you start? But once you start, you draw on your experience of where you’ve worked in the past,” Aird says.

 

 

But it was by chance rather than design that led her to a career in HR in the first place though. Without a clear idea of what she wanted to do, Aird took an admin qualification after school and ended up working at the head office of a recruitment agency.

 

Her responsibilities there quickly started to shift away from admin and towards HR, however. She then made the move to Southern Electric Contracting, where she became heavily involved in the firm’s rebranding as it morphed into Scottish and Southern Energy.

 

When the transformation was complete, Aird felt in need of a new challenge and a role that was less back-office-oriented and more focused on employee relations. And she got her wish at Jacobs Engineering, but it was a double-edged sword.

 

Although she enjoyed many aspects of the role, the recession meant that the organisation made wave after wave of job cuts. Two years of relentless redundancies took their toll on staff morale – her own included – and Aird began looking for a more upbeat opportunity.

“It was quite a difficult time personally because it’s very difficult not to get emotional and you could walk away from meeting feeling upset,” she remembers.

A call from Anesco, run by people she knew from her SEC days, provided the break she was looking for and the chance to work for an organisation that was growing rather than being buffeted by recession.

 

 

Since joining the company, one of the things that Aird has developed is a lively and interactive induction process. Although previously it consisted of little more than pointing out fire escapes and toilets to new recruits, under her stewardship, new starters receive talks from the senior management team to welcome them into the organisation and give them a better understanding of what it does.

Aird also hopes that the addition of a new HR IT system by the end of November will help her track progress more effectively than she could using spread sheets.

Looking ahead, however, her focus is on building up management training options in the company. Because it has a young team, some of whom will be assuming management responsibility for the first time, Aird sees it as crucial that they are furnished with the necessary skills to cope.

“We need to give them guidance on how to manage staff as they are not used to being responsible for staff or how to coach employees,” she explains.

But while working for a new company may be exciting, the key to future success is ensuring that this excitement is sustainable and remains with personnel at all levels into the long-term, Aird believes.

“There’s quite a buzz at the moment because we’ve just landed some big contracts and it’s all very positive. We’re recruiting a lot of people, which is a nice situation to be in. The challenge in the future will be in maintaining the buzz,” she concludes.

And finally…

Who do you admire most and why?
I have an awful lot of respect for our chief executive who joined SEC as an apprentice at 17 and worked his way up to become managing director.

What’s your most hated buzzword?
I hate ‘push the envelope’ and ‘brain dump’.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
I was about eight years old and my swimming coach said: “When you feel you can’t do any more, push yourself to do one more length and that’s how you’ll get better.”

How do you relax?
With family and friends and my garden.