In this epsiode I'm joined by Dotty Day, a seasoned HR professional with over 26 years of experience, specializing in interim roles and organisational change. Dotty shares her unique career journey, which began unexpectedly when she took a temporary position at Boots Pharmaceuticals, leading her to discover her passion for HR amidst a corporate merger. Throughout the conversation, Dotty reflects on her diverse experiences across various organizations, including Capital One and Eon, where she ...
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In this epsiode I'm joined by Dotty Day, a seasoned HR professional with over 26 years of experience, specializing in interim roles and organisational change. Dotty shares her unique career journey, which began unexpectedly when she took a temporary position at Boots Pharmaceuticals, leading her to discover her passion for HR amidst a corporate merger. Throughout the conversation, Dotty reflects on her diverse experiences across various organizations, including Capital One and Eon, where she ...
In this epsiode I'm joined by Dotty Day, a seasoned HR professional with over 26 years of experience, specializing in interim roles and organisational change. Dotty shares her unique career journey, which began unexpectedly when she took a temporary position at Boots Pharmaceuticals, leading her to discover her passion for HR amidst a corporate merger.Throughout the conversation, Dotty reflects on her diverse experiences across various organizations, including Capital One and Eon, where she d...
In this episode I speak with Megan Kelsall, People and Operations Manager at Kelpi, a startup focused on sustainability through innovative seaweed-based materials. Megan shares her unique career journey, which began in the performing arts as a dancer before transitioning into the corporate world. She reflects on her ballsiness when working in a small business and convincing the MD that they needed a HR function because that's what she wanted to do.Throughout the conversation, Megan discusses...
In this episode I sit down with Ryan Cheyne who has been operating as a HR leader for almost 20 years. Ryan's began his career in retail at Argos, quickly rising through the ranks to become a store manager before transitioning to HR. He talks about a hugely pivotal time at Pets at Home, where he tackled high attrition rates and focused on creating a positive workplace culture. From this we learn about his belief that the most important thing in HR is creating amazing places to work. He emphas...
In this episode we delve into the significance of HR data, featuring Lara Holding Jones, who is the Founder of Pink Jelly People Consultancy. The thought of data analysis will make many run for the hills but through this conversation we learn about Lara's mission to make HR data engaging and accessible. It's not about becoming an analytics expert, Lara's focus is on practices such as learning what and how to input data correctly, simply become more comfortable and confident around data, but a...
The guest this episode is Amelia Bradshaw who has been in HR for over 20 years and working as a HR leader for over a decade, primarily working in the Tech sector.Amelia is currently looking for a new role and we discuss the challenges of navigating the job market in the current climate. Amelia's regularly posts some thought-evoking topics on LinkedIn and we delve into how and why she started to focus on her personal brand. We also get onto the role of AI in recruitment, discussing its current...
We're back with Season 5 and what a guest for this first episode. I'm joined by the LinkedIn legend that is Emma Djemil.If you don't know Emma then not only does she fill the LinkedIn feed with her TikTok dances, witty, and sometimes provocative statements but more than that she is on a mission to support females through their HR careers. In early 2021 Emma founded Be Unstoppable, her own venture to help women in HR be sustainably curageous and unstoppable in their HR careers. That means bein...
My guest on this episode is Jess Gray who has recently joined a solicitors as part of their outsourced HR team. However, we cover off so many interesting aspects and situations within this episode. Jess found her way into HR and Training after university and gained her Level 5 CIPD. It was always the plan to do some travelling though so she took a break in her fledgling HR career to go overseas and taught English in Thailand.When she returned home she found it incredibly challenging to s...
We have a first for the podcast - it's the very first time that I've had two guests feature on one episode.I'm joined by Gemma Ellison and Lisa LLoyd who are both returning guests from this series. Since my recording with Gemma in October 2023, the pair have teamed up to create Leadership Labs which provide a truly unique approach to helping leaders tackle issues and drive change.Both highly passionate about workplace culture they also recognised that the general formats for Leadership d...
My guest this episode is Jane Ferre who is an expert in all things Talent Management.Jane is such a fun and engaging individual who is prolific on LinkedIn so connect with her on there if you aren't already.Like many she didn't know what she wanted to do after university but secured a job at Euro Disney in Paris soon after it opened resulting in her dancing in the parade as Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast and having the time of her life!Eventually she moved to British Airways where she spen...
My guest this episode is Lisa LLoyd who could be considered an unconventional guest for me to have on. Whilst Lisa hasn't worked in HR per se, the work she does feeds into the HR ecosystem. In the spirit of bring as broad a variety of people from the HR world onto the show then her story definitely warrants a place here.Lisa studied Psychology at University, not knowing exactly what she wanted to do but feeling it would be something that could help her in whatever vocation she did ultima...
I'm joined in this episode by Julie Spicher who is Head of People & Culture for energy company Leep Utilities in Manchester.I've know Julie about 8 years when she was a HR Administrator and have watched her career flourish at quite a rapid rate over that time. Even back then she was someone who stood out so it's not surprising that her career has rocketed.I wanted to get Julie on to share her story so we could try and discover what it is about her that has enabled such fast-tracked career...
My guest for this episode is Steven Ingram who worked for the bulk of his HR career doing consultancy before launching his own business, Neurodiversity Together, in the summer of 2023.Steven has ADHD, autism, and a stammer. What I absolutely love about him and what you'll realise from this conversation is that he approaches discussions on neurodiverity in a different way. It's a more holistic and inclusive way for all concerned rather than focussing simply on any singular individual.Having go...
I've often referenced the HR Bingo sheet through various podcast episodes. That's the list of everything you can do in the HR spectrum and ticking off as many as you can.Well I think this episodes guest is the first person I've ever met who can probably stand up and shout "HR BINGO!"I was incredibly thrilled to be joined by Simon Shumann-Davies for this 101st episode.I would class Simon as being in the top percentile of HR professionals, simply based on what his market rate would be if he wer...
This is a landmark episode as it's our 100th!!Therefore a landmark episode requires a guest of equal stature and I'm delighted to be joined by Annette Andrews.Annette has an incredibly fascinating career story to share. From growing up and moving countries ( and schools) reguarly due to her Dad's job, she strongly considered joining the Army but a significant sporting injury meant that was no longer an option.Unsure of what she then wanted to do with her life, some summer work at a local hosp...
Joining me on this episode is Beth Orford who is the Head of People for a FinTech business called Everything Financial.Beth is an incredible guest as she changes the perspective on how we should look at not only our careers but HR as a function. She is someone who has learnt to understand what type of work she is suited to and therefore, just as importantly, what types of roles and environments she wouldn't be a good fit for. This has been something she has discovered over time but now she ha...
Joining me on this epsiode is Caroline Oxley who works as Head of People & Culture for a property investment company and is based in Greater Manchester.In her early HR career, Caroline worked in Facilities Management. What I found interesting was that people in HR always talk about delivering bad news, such as redundancies in the right way and being empathetic, however, Caroline shared a further nuance where in industries where there are high levels of TUPE transfers, such as outsourced s...
I'm delighted to be joined by Hayley Duckworth on this latest episode of the podcast. Hayley is someone I've known in a loose sense for a long time and have watched her career flourish. Like many, she began in recruitment but didn't enjoy the sales aspect to it so made the logic move into HR. Hayley has had some amazing opportunities to get exposure to some of the less-common HR activties such as mergers, TUPE transfers, and change/transformations. This leads us to discussing the HR...
This is the final episode of 2023 and I'm joined by Jo Mountney, who has spent the entirety of her career so far within hospitality and tourism, working for the largest theme park in the UK for 20 years.Jo initially began in operations before moving into L&D and then ultimately HR. She believes that her background in operations has been one of the most useful aspects for her career, as it has enabled her to understand the position of her stakeholders better.It becomes apparent that Jo has...
The guest this episode is Jane Ayrton who has been working in the L&D space for over 30 years.Her career has incorporated being in both self-employed and employed roles. In her most recent role, Jane was Head of L&D in a financial services business and worked with what she describes as 'the best team she had ever had the pleasure of leading'. Within that same organisation, they introduced Insights Discovery Profiling and Jane shares the principles of what that is but then explain...
My guest this episode is Daniel Balshaw who has built a HR career combining his two interests - technology and people.Dan was working in his local Sainsbury's store when he was approached by the HR team (personnel back then) to help with letter formatting, as simple as that now sounds, due to his IT skills. This was the early days of computers in the workplace so having the ability to work his way around a PC became advantageous.Sainsburys were one of the first large organisations in the UK t...
In this epsiode I'm joined by Dotty Day, a seasoned HR professional with over 26 years of experience, specializing in interim roles and organisational change. Dotty shares her unique career journey, which began unexpectedly when she took a temporary position at Boots Pharmaceuticals, leading her to discover her passion for HR amidst a corporate merger. Throughout the conversation, Dotty reflects on her diverse experiences across various organizations, including Capital One and Eon, where she ...
