HR future leader
of themonth
I attempted to join Tata
as a fi nance/accounting
apprentice but the HR
manager at the company
assessed my application and
thought I’d be a good fi t as
an HR apprentice. Turns
out he was right, and 17
years later that leap of faith
paid off.
We have our bread and
butter tasks in HR that
have been and always will
be part of our agenda, but
we need to focus our
attention towards playing
the role that we should play
in making work better and
fairer for a modern society.
We need to thoroughly
understand and get to grips with
inequality, privilege, prejudice – serious
matters that require serious attention.
HR future leader Personal development
Name:
Mark Hendy
Job title:
HR manager
Organisation:
Forged Solutions
Group
This is hard stuff that we can work
on to improve UK businesses
that will make work a better
place, even against the current
political and economic
environment. And it’s not just
because focusing on these areas
adds value to organisations but because,
above all else, looking to fi x these concerns
is undoubtedly just the right thing to do.
long term and far reaching. Short term
and immediacy have become almost
dirty terms.
The unpredictable political and
economic environments that the UK
is now working within,
as well as the global
challenges that also affect
some businesses, means
organisations are working
on much shorter
timeframes than they
have been previously.
Survival is a very real aim
for lots of businesses and
adaptability is a core skill
that HR needs to have to
support our businesses
against these pressures.
I’m a keen advocate
of evidence-based
HR and I intend on
continuing to bang the drum. I believe
that the evidence-based methodology
of making business decisions through
the use of good sources and data
will continue to evolve HR as a
function and the profession as a
whole. I plan on continuing to play
my part in revolutionising how we work,
and I believe evidence-based HR is the
way forward.
When I retire HR will still be tackling
employee experience, workplace
discrimination and equality, and our
‘place’ in the boardroom. All of these
things are unlikely to go anywhere, and in
the area of workplace inequality some of
this is due to systematic entrenched
processes that will take time to unpick and
rectify. However, at the ripe old age of 34
and with a likely 35-plus years left in
work, I sincerely hope the place in the
boardroom discussion dies a strong death
long before I retire. HR
Mindset is going to be really
important for HR over the next fi ve
years. For at least the past 20
years ‘strategy’ has been
king, with a push
from within for
the profession to think
saw the end result. In my scenario it would be going
through the process of baking a loaf of sourdough
bread, stretching and folding the dough, and then
seeing the fi nished loaf at the end. Find something
similar that works for you. Give yourself time to access
that state and get to that point where you remember
the positive feeling you experienced when you
completed the task.
Then head back to your desk and while you’re still in
that positive headspace get yourself organised, decide
on one thing you’re going to do fi rst and just crack on
and do it. You’ll be amazed at how calm and productive
you feel.
You can have resource states for all kinds of things;
some memories that I’ve seen work well for people in
the past have included spending time with pets and
animals, cooking, working out at the gym, spending
time with friends and family, remembering times where
they’ve absolutely nailed a presentation at work or won
something. There are no limits here so there’s huge
scope to fi nd something that works for you.
I’ve also worked with clients who have struggled
initially to access any positive memories or resource
states too, so please don’t worry if this is you. There’s
nothing stopping you from constructing your own if you
don’t have one that you can immediately tap in to. For
example, you could imagine a scenario that you would
like to see happen – work on creating that headspace
instead of calling up a memory. This gets you into a
mindframe of positive visualisation that can be equally
effective and sometimes even more powerful when
done well.
We all have a library of these resource states inside us,
it’s just sometimes it can be hard to remember that or to
access them, especially if we’ve got stuck in a certain
pattern of behaviour or a routine. So why not give it a try
the next time you get stuck with something or start to feel
a bit off form, see if you can pull up a great resource
state to help shift you out of it.
Let me know how you get on.
Karen Beaven is an HR director, strategist
and author
hrmagazine.co.uk February 2020 HR 57
/hrmagazine.co.uk