Name: Rachel Burlton
Current position: Development director
Organisation: Common Purpose

What roles have you held
I run RealEdge, Common Purpose’s new leadership development programme for London’s high potential emerging leaders. RealEdge gathers a diverse group of high performers from the public, private and voluntary sectors and takes them outside their familiar environments for a behind-the-scenes exploration of leadership in action. Before that I worked at the Co-operative Group, in marketing and procurement roles in their supermarket and banking businesses. 

HR POWER

What attracted you into the world of HR
I believe that organisations and society will benefit by drawing out the talents of the people in them, and I wanted to help do this.

What are your key skills?
I think that my key skills are being able to understanding what a diverse range of people want to get out of their work and what an organisation needs from them, and finding a way forward that meets both these needs.

I also think that I am good at providing new and challenging personal development opportunities that allow people to grow as individuals, employees and members of society. I am increasingly aware that the line between the two in increasingly blurring, especially among those who have entered the workplace in the last five years.

What areas of HR do you specialise in?
Leadership development and talent management.

What value do you think HR plays in an organisation
It plays a crucial role in developing an organisation’s gold, its employees.

Is the name HR as a function still relevant - what would you rename it to
I don’t like the name human resources and prefer to use words such as people resource or talent. HR suggests that people are just a cog in a machine whereas I believe that we should look at the whole person and help them fulfill all of their potential.

LEADERSHIP

What kind of leader are you - describe your leadership brand?
I am straightforward, committed, fun and visionary.

How do you / would you develop talent?
In addition to hard skills, it is vital to invest time and money in developing softer skills and considering supporting employees in low cost, high impact external development opportunities. This will help them develop leadership positions in broader society where their soft skills will be honed. Skills they will then bring back to the workplace, eg. primary school governor, youth group leader.

How do you reward your staff
I take them out for dinner. I also give them development opportunites that provide them with a diverse range of external experiences and the chance to meet and connect with a wide range of people.

What do you think are the most popular rewards and benefits
Development opportunites that give them a chance to develop greater self-awareness and confidence and a sense of personal fulfilment which complements their professional development. A regular injection of ‘bite-sized’ learning they can apply in their careers is also popular.

What do you think HR professionals need to get better at doing
They need to develop their employees as whole people and not just as transactional managers. Common Purpose recently ran research into the career traps and barriers limiting junior and middle managers and keeping them from fulfilling their potential as leaders of tomorrow.

Asked what type of training they thought would help them develop their careers and enable them to feel fulfilled in their job, there was a strong belief that peer-to-peer learning and external experiences would help them, with over half of young managers wanting increased access to diverse experiences and new people outside their own sector.

There was also a stark lack of support for them in seeking this training, with 84% saying that their employer hasn’t helped them. So, HR professionals need to listen to their emerging talent more and provide the development opportunities that they want.

How are you driving change?
I am leading the design and delivery of Common Purpose’s new leadership development programme, RealEdge. The first programme is currently being run in London now but it is being rolled-out internationally.

How do you keep ahead of trends?
Through my relationships with participants and graduates from Common Purpose programmes.

How do you think you’ve already helped to shape the HR profession?
I think that RealEdge will provide HR professionals with a unique way to develop talent that will help drive their organisation forward, providing it with new sources of innovation and inspiration as well as provide its talent with the development opportunities that they want. It will help them develop human capital as individuals and deliver a greater resource through the power of the participant network.

What is the greatest threat to the HR industry
There is a danger that ‘high potentials’ are seen as merely a reliable pair of hands who will get work done quicker and more effectively than others. Not only is it short-sighted not to take full advantage of all of the abilities, ideas and energy that high-achieving staff can bring to an organisation, it is risky too. It is usually the most able who want to stretch and test themselves, so if you don’t they will look for an organisation that will.

To counter this, RealEdge provides emerging talent with the chance to see the bigger picture for the organisation, not just their department or section. It provides them with opportunities to connect with people in other sectors.

What's the most important professional lesson that you have learnt so far
Be yourself, find an organisation that you love and just go for it.

What inspires you
People who balance being authentic to themselves, integrity to their organisation and delivering results.

What would you eliminate in the workplace
Silos.

What significant HR achievements would you like to be remembered for
Helping people fulfill their potential and push out the boundaries and horizons. That I played a part in the development of the next generation of the UK’s outward facing leadership talent.

IN THE BOARDROOM

How do you intend to put HR at the front of every boardroom agenda
I am working to ensure that HR directors are aware of the organisational benefits of taking off the harness and allowing their talent to grow in their ways that they want to.  

What has been your greatest challenge in the boardroom
I think that helping people understand the dangers of rigid development for ‘high potentials’. I work hard to explain the benefits to the organisation of giving their talent the freedom to grow outward so that they can then feed the knowledge, insights and connections they make back into the organisation.   

What is the quirkiest HR people initiative you have ever introduced
Everything I do is quirky!

What’s on your boardroom agenda
Developing outward facing leaders, it is crucial to organisational growth and innovation.

IN 2018…

What will the role of HR look like?
Organisations are no longer competing on products and services, it is all about supply chains and the greatest single value-adding factor is human capital. HR will be recognised as the only differentiation between organisations.

What will the world of work look like?
It will be increasingly fragmented yet connected at the same time.