Senior HR profiles
We profile senior HR professionals within the top stories section on Changeboard's homepage. Want to take part? Have you, your colleagues or team been able to demonstrate commercial and strategic HR know-how? If so, we'd love for you to share your HR successes within the Changeboard community.
You can either answer all the questions in full or pick and choose which ones you want to answer. Simply copy and paste the questions below into a word document. Email your completed profiles to the editor, Natalie Cooper, at: natalie@changeboard.com.
Your path into HR
- Name, current job title, company name
- Where were you before now, how long for and what role did you play
- What was your first ever job
- How did you get into HR
- How did you get to where you are now
How do you deliver strategic HR?
- Background about your current company
(History, how many locations, how many employees, annual turnover) - What are your current responsibilities
- Why is HR a critical business function / how can HR be used as a strategic business weapon
- What do you say to those cynics who say that HR is just purely a transactional led function and HR does not deserve a seat in the boardroom
- What value does HR bring to the boardroom
- What should the CEO expect their HR director to deliver on
- What types of questions should the HR director not be afraid to ask
- How do you develop your people
- How do you define career development within your organisation / map out career pathways
- What is your next big HR project
How do you attract talent
- How do you fill your talent pipeline that runs into the business
- What recruitment strategies do you have in place to build future talent pools
- How do you sell your organisation as a great place to work to attract talented people
(employer branding strategies; social media, web presence, milk rounds etc) - Why should future talent come and work for you instead of your competitor
- How has the economic climate changed the rules when it comes to recruiting talent
(i.e. are talented individuals now looking to work for more transparent, values-led organisations)
Business ethics
- If the HR team was to be removed from the business, would this have any impact, why/how detrimental would this be
- What about the values of business ethics and helping employees to be more socially responsible (CSR) to their local community, developing nations, charity fundraising and supply chain selection
- How do you overcome challenges of meeting expectations of a multi-generational workforce
- What steps do you take to plan for the future of the business in time of turbulence/change
- What’s the future of HR
About you
- Who inspires you
- Who is/was your greatest mentor and why
- How would you describe your style of leadership
- What has been your biggest career achievement to date
- What keeps you awake at night
- What are you passionate about
- Tell us something about yourself not many people know
- What’s the toughest interview question you’ve ever been asked…and your answer
- Favourite business book(s) of all time
- Stevan Rolls, head of HR (UK), Deloitte
- Melanie Osborne, HR manager, Oxford University Press
- Mark Raymond, HR director, MAHLE
Strategic HR examples
- Katherine Stone, global talent manager, Unilever
- Jerry Tims, vice president HR, FedEx Express in Europe, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent & Africa