Earning a Seat at the Table

It’s easy to say HR should be ‘at the table’ – it’s harder to create the capability and credibility that earns that seat.

Developing a team that delivers brilliantly day to day, while also helping leaders think long term about culture, capability and ways of working, has been essential. I’m lucky to work with a senior leadership team that is strongly people-focused and wants HR involved early, which makes it possible to have the right conversations, not just the urgent ones.

Q: What attracted you to HR?

A: What attracted me to HR was the opportunity to work at the intersection of people and business performance, and to do that in very different environments.

At its best, HR is both commercial and human.”

I’ve always liked the fact that you can take what you learn in one sector and apply it somewhere else, adapting it to the context. At its best, HR is both commercial and human, it helps organisations make better decisions, and it helps people do their best work.

I’ve also always been interested in people, what motivates them, what gets in their way, and what good leadership looks like when things are busy or uncertain. HR gives you a front-row seat to that. The work is varied, it’s rarely straightforward, and it requires you to combine judgement with empathy. That mix suits me, I like solving problems, I like bringing clarity, and I care about creating an environment where fairness and development are more than just words on a slide.

Q: What is the most satisfying thing about working in HR?

A: The most satisfying aspect of working in HR is being able to make a genuine difference to people’s day-to-day experience and their longer-term careers. Sometimes that impact is organisation-wide, shaping culture or building leadership capability. At other times, it’s quieter, supporting a manager who wants to do the right thing, or helping someone navigate a change in role, team or circumstances.

I’m especially motivated by work that creates the right conditions for people to thrive – fairness, clarity and development. When people understand what’s expected, feel supported by capable managers and trust the systems around them, engagement and performance follow. Listening well is a big part of that. When feedback consistently points to pressure points like workload, it’s a prompt to look at priorities and ways of working and make practical changes that improve day-to-day experience.

Q: What are the important challenges and successes you have in your current role?

A:One of the main challenges in my current role is balancing strategic transformation with the day-to-day realities of the business. There’s constant demand for HR to be responsive and operationally strong, while also leading long-term change around culture, capability and ways of working. Doing both well, without burning out teams or losing momentum, takes real focus.

A related challenge is supporting leaders through ongoing change while maintaining clarity and stability for employees. That means being really clear on what’s changing and why, being consistent in the messages people hear, and creating space for honest questions. It also means listening, not just through surveys, but through regular conversations in teams and offices, and then translating that feedback into practical actions that leaders can stand behind.

We’ve achieved our lowest attrition in many years, and our highest engagement scores. That suggests we are focusing on the right areas and that my team are truly supporting the business to create a positive environment. I’m also lucky enough to work with an amazing senior leadership team who are all very people focused and want HR at the table.

Q: You can change one thing about HR – what is it?

A: If I could change one thing about HR as a profession, it would be to simplify how we sometimes approach policy and process. Complexity is often driven by legislation or good intent, but we can occasionally over-engineer solutions. The result can be something that is technically correct but hard for people to understand or apply.

I’m a big believer in designing HR around the people experience – clear, accessible and practical. When processes are easy to navigate, managers feel more confident, employees have more trust, and HR can spend less time interpreting rules and more time partnering with the business. Put simply, if we can make something simpler without losing fairness or compliance we should.