Job title: HR controller
Company: Comet
Job responsibilities
Being part of a team that ensures Comet delivers the best for its customers.
Previous jobs
Retail banking at NatWest; retail management, management development, strategic and corporate planning and personnel and development roles at Nationwide Building Society.
What attracted you to HR?
As a key business partner, HR has to be commercially-focused and be well informed thats part of the fun.
Which of your previous jobs have had the most impact on your current role and why?
Working within front-line retail, building an understanding of the customer and the challenges employees face; and strategic/corporate planning which developed my organisational and business management awareness.
What are the skills that you need to succeed in your current job?
A thorough understanding of business operations, an ability to develop and deliver pragmatic solutions to complex business issues, enough insight and intuition to cut to the chase and, of course, bags of energy and a thick skin.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The pace that is inherent in retail and the people with whom I work. Comet has a fantastic team thats growing in strength.
What do you least enjoy about your job?
My main frustrations are time and pace: theres not enough of the former and Im always striving to increase the latter.
What has been your greatest achievement in work?
Building a world-class retail HR team at Nationwide and Comet.
Who has been the greatest influence on your work?
There have been a number. The people I have worked for have stretched and challenged my thinking; those Ive worked and studied with have broadened my outlook and knowledge.
What advice would you give people starting out in a HR career?
Build your business knowledge, from commercial, supply-chain and financial operations to front-line, customer-facing experience so it supports your HR decision-making.
What is the most important contribution that HR makes to business?
HR will only fulfil its potential when it drives organisational issues based upon a deep business understanding. Then it can act as a catalyst to release organisational potential.