Is This Room Free?

We're taking a slightly different route with this episode and my guest is Janet Hadley - the very first non-HR guest!

However, the work that Janet does is incredibly relevant to the HR profession and so the justification to have her as a guest was a no-brainer.

Janet is the Founder of Choose Sunrise, a business that she launched in May 2022 to raise awareness about alcohol in the workplace, remove the stigma of alcoholism, and work with organisations to develop bespoke solutions to promote alcohol-safe workplaces.

This is a really open and honest conversation where both Janet and myself share our own relationships with alcohol, but there are also plenty of listeners who will be able to identify with the various topics we discuss. There was even a lightbulb moment for myself when I identified with some institutionalised practices regarding alcohol that I've adopted into my own business.

This is a must-listen for any HR professional to help understand the issue that alcohol has within our society and ultimately the workplace. For example, did you know:

5% of all workplace absence is alcohol related

32% of employees have attended work with a hangover in the past month

20% of workers have drunk more than they wanted to due to pressure from colleagues

40% of all industrial accidents are linked to substance abuse

50% of all sexual harassment claims involve alcohol

On 3rd May 2023, Janet is hosting a Teetotal Tasting Event in Leeds, England where guests will leave with a new favourite alcohol-free drink and some tips you can put in place to help you create an alcohol-safe work place, without killing the buzz!

Here is the link for anyone who wants to attend - https://choosesunrise.co.uk/register

For anyone who would like to connect or follow Janet / Choose Sunrise then here are the links:

Connect with me on Linked In

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/choosesunrise

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/choose_sunrise/

Listen to the Podcast - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/choose-sunrise

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My guest this episode is Rachel Wilson Rugelsjøen who is the Founder
and MD of Level Up HR, a HR consultancy helping businesses and HR
functions to level up and get results through people who thrive.
However, Rachel's back story is a truly fascinating one.

Having done a Psychology degree and then a Masters in HRM, Rachel did a
one-year study internship at Copenhagen Business School. Here she met
her now husband and decided to try and get her first HR role in Norway
rather than returning to the UK. However, this was significantly more
challenging than she had anticipated but ultimately she got there.

Eventually Rachel and her husband did relocate back to the UK and she
was headhunted for a Senior HR role with Merrill Lynch whilst still
relatively early in her career. From there Rachel has gone on to work
for some huge, global organisations such as Barclays Capital, Cognizant
and The Norwegian Oil Fund.

Rachel shares some incredible insights during our conversation and she
is a truly inspirational HR professional. This one isn't to be missed!

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Joining me as my guest this episode is Gemma Isherwood who currently works as Global Head of HR for a business unit in a large, international organisation. Gemma is originally from the UK but, interestingly, has never worked in HR there.

Having studied Biomedical Science at university she didn't fancy life working in a lab and found her way into recruitment. However, her degree did turn out to be beneficial as Gemma specialised in Healthcare and Life Sciences. An opportunity came up to move to internal recruitment but it meant a big life choice for her and her partner as it was based in Holland. 

Eventually Gemma transitioned over to HR and has worked in a number of international roles, all for the same company. Wanting to move again, now as a family, they moved to Philadelphia in the US in Jan 2020.

Within our conversation Gemma shares what it's been like not only to work internationally (and all the ups and downs that has with it) but the personal side of living in different countries too. 

This is such an interesting and fascinating conversation and really helps you understand what a global HR career can look like. Gemma is such a fun and down to Earth individual which made it a thoroughly enjoyable chat. I hope you enjoy it.

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After a long wait, I've finally managed to get someone from the Talent Acquisition / Internal Recruitment space onto the podcast. And what a guest in Trish Young I have for you!

Trish is originally from Northern Ireland but went to university in England and decided to stay once she'd graduated. Having done a Business Management degree she wasn't sure what would come next but learnt about a career in recruitment at a Jobs Fair. Trish admits it was a bit of a car crash and that she wasn't quite suited to life in a staffing/recruitment agency. 

However, it wasn't recruitment itself that she didn't enjoy more the sales aspect. So a conversation with a former client led her to a Talent Acquisition role and then the ultimate move to in-house.

For anyone wondering what exactly life looks like for an Internal Recruiter then this is a must-listen episode. Trish shares just how many facets there are to the job, what it takes to become successful in this type of role, and how she's learnt the importance of using data as a tool.

Trish was great fun to talk to and we really lift the lid on the world of internal recruitment so I hope you enjoy listening.

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On this episode I'm joined by Justin Dorsey who currently works as a Lead HR Consultant for an outsourced HR provider in Dallas, Texas. 

I've been connected with Justin for a while on LinkedIn and he is someone who posts really interesting and thought provoking ideas so he naturally caught my attention and someone I was very keen to get onto the podcast.

Justin has a very interesting introduction into HR. He was working in the Finance Team for a cell phone retail business when the HR Director left and Justin put his hand up and offered himself up for the vacant role..... with absolutely no previous HR experience. Want to find out how that worked out? Well you'll have to listen to the episode to find out, of course. However, Justin is still in HR so it can't be all bad.

Throughout our conversation, Justin shares his view on HR and how he believes we should always be re-assessing our ways of working to ensure we're always raising the bar and pushing ourselves further. 

In his current role, Justin has gone from in-house HR to working for an outsourced Consultancy, meaning he now works with a range of businesses on an ever wider range of HR topics. It's something he absolutely loves so we explore the difference between the two (internal and outsourced) for anyone else keen to understand that side of things.

Justin is an inspirational HR leader who is always pushing the status quo and an hour probably didn't do justice to the further insights we could have gotten from him. However, this is still a fantastic episode so I hope you enjoy listening.

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My guest for this episode is Jenn Wells, People Operations Lead for a cyber security business, based in Dallas, Texas.

Jenn's story will be familiar to so many people. Not being overly academic, she went straight into employment after school but wasn't sure what she wanted to do for a career. Like a lot of people she went into administration and found that she got a bit comfy and stayed in some roles longer than maybe she should have.

Her first insight into the world of HR came when a colleague was going on maternity leave so Jenn offered to cover her HR role. However, it wasn't until later in her career, working for a nation-wide US business, that she built up a relationship with the HR Director and got on so well that she asked if she could be part of the HR team. This was when Jenn's career really kicked off.

Jenn is very active on LinkedIn and it's clear to see how much passion she has for HR. Despite not having worked in HR for her whole career, Jenn's superpower is being able to bring a breadth of experience from the operational side of a business. Her approach to her HR career is essentially a motto for life - treat others the way you'd want to be treated yourself.

I loved talking with Jenn and she's really easy to get on with, something I anticipate comes across when you listen to our conversation. So.... I hope you enjoy it!

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On this I'm joined by Jenny Cook, People Director at a specialist fleet company in the UK.  I've known Jenny a long time and we've been trying to set up this recording for almost two years so I'm really pleased we've managed to get her on as a guest at last.

Jenny is someone who hasn't been pigeon-holed to one specific industry but has worked for a real breadth of companies in a variety of sectors. This is actually one of the topics we discuss, why some organisations insist on previous sector experience when they are recruiting but does it really matter? We also talk about thinking outside of the box when trying to recruit into certain roles in your organisation and looking for transferable skills rather than a like-for-like, and how this can open up a wider talent pool for you.

Jenny is someone who has energy in abundance (or Jenergy as she has rebranded it)! She is passionate about ensuring that the teams she leads understand the importance of being approachable and engaging, especially in an organisation where employees are spread around the country and might not have a lot of interaction with the HR team. 

Jenny has a fantastic reputation amongst her network and it's clear to understand why. This is a fantastic episode and we have a few giggles along the way so I hope you enjoy listening.

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The guest on this episode is Mike Shaw who has spent the past six years working in Learning & Development. However, prior to that he has spent two decades working in the Education sector as a teacher and then in various Senior Management/Leadership positions.

In this episode we find out why Mike decided to make the transition, the challenges he faced, but how the power of building up a network ultimately led to successfully securing a position as a Head of L&D in a large corporate business. 

We talk about how important it is when you come from somewhere like a non-traditionally corporate background to reframe your CV to overcome prejudice and lack of understanding by recruiters and hiring managers but what benefits someone who is doing a career change can bring.

Mike's career has been built on the rule of 'do the job until you've feel you've done it as well as you can or you feel you've outlived the whatever you were brought in to do'.  We take this concept and explore how businesses, HR, and line managers should be doing more to have open and honest conversations with employees to address those factors that can potentially lead to someone leaving.

Mike is a fascinating individual who has been able to identify what he enjoys doing most and keep that as a 'core' through his career, whilst taking some interesting twists and turns with the decisions he has made. I hope you enjoy listening as I loved doing the recording.

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Joining me this week is Rebekah Zetts, a HR Director living in Dallas. 

Rebekah's journey is a fascinating one as she has only worked in HR for a couple of years. However, in that short space of time she has progressed to HRD and I was curious to find out how. 

Rebekah has a background unlike most. She spent a year in France before taking International Studies and French at university. After graduating she moved to South Korea and taught English for a few years. After returning to the US and continuing her teaching career, Rebekah questioned whether this was the right vocation for her. She wrote down all the skills she had acquired and realised they matched those required in HR, so she went back to university to gain the theoretical knowledge needed to support a career transition. 

Whilst studying, Rebekah started networking and found this was hugely beneficial. She combined attending events with developing her LinkedIn network, sending messages and introducing herself to others in the profession. All this networking led to her securing her first HR role and she hasn't looked back since.

A combination having a unique non-traditional perspective on HR, being able to leverage on the knowledge of her wider network, having the opportunity to get some amazing exposure to strategic projects early on, and absolute hard work have all been ingredients to helping Rebekah accelerate her HR career from first job to HR Director in such a short space of time.

I had such a great time chatting with Rebekah about her whole career journey and there are some amazing insights shared. I hope you enjoy listening!

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Joining me on this episode is Alison Dixon who is based in Austin, Texas and working as Global Head of People Operations for a tech business.

The more of these conversations I have, the more common it seems that my guests have all entered HR via an unorthodox route. Alison is another prime example of this. Having entered the job market in the middle of the global recession in 2008, there were literally no jobs.

Alison did eventually secure a job, working in Fundraising for a local high school. She continued down this career path for a number of years before having the opportunity to do a Masters degree in Organisational Design. This gave Alison exposure to the world of HR and she was fascinated by it. Her perception of HR until then had been one of the 'morality police' and she was now seeing it in a very different manner, and she was hooked!

Alison has gone on to have what I would class as an accelerated HR career, progressing to a leadership role in only five years. Getting under the skin of how she has managed to do this it can partly be attributed to her approach to HR. Because she had no preconceptions about how she should act as a HR professional, Alison was both vulnerable and authentic. She was honest when she didn't know the answer to something and built trust by being imperfect and authentic. She was also inquisitive asked questions to get under the skin of the business in order to understand what was really going on in the teams she supported, therefore enabling her to better assist them.

Alison is really refreshing and honest in this conversation and I believe there are some reflections we can all have by listening to her thoughts on the delivery of modern HR practices. I hope you enjoy listening!

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