Every week, we ask an HR Director about the greatest challenge they have faced and how they dealt with it. This week, we hear from Ann Pickering, Head of Human Resources for O2 UK.

“In one of my former HR roles at a major financial institution, I had to address an audience of 500 employees and inform them that they were to be transferred, pursuant to TUPE, to an alternative organisation. As this was very new to them, the reception was very hostile indeed. I needed to be sympathetic to their understandably emotional response, whilst making it crystal clear that this was a decision that could not be overturned, no matter how unhappy they felt.”