Sony BPE annual turnover: 700 million
HR manager: Louise Tunbridge
Catching them while theyre green is key to shaping young minds. Thats the conventional wisdom but while its all very well adding to young peoples knowledge is it possible to motivate them?
The Hanover Foundation, a registered charity that has been providing motivational coaching to schoolchildren since 1997, obviously thinks so. And since the beginning of the year Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe (Sony BPE) has linked up with the foundation, providing financial support. Louise Tunbridge, HR manager, is the first member of Sony staff to become a coach.
The foundation was established in 1992 by a group of businessmen with experience of executive coaching. Serena Standing, director, hires people who have an extensive background in coaching or personnel, and trains them. They are then supervised as they go into schools once a week for 30 weeks for one-to-one sessions with GCSE pupils. She says: Schooling is based on the three Rs. Students are given instruction, and they regurgitate it in examinations. The Hanover Foundation puts in what is missing, and that is the motivation.
The company gets the kudos and very good PR
Sony is exactly the kind of company with which Standing likes the foundation to be involved. If someone from Sony comes into a school and takes an interest in a student, that student thinks, Well, I must have potential if Sony is taking an interest in me. Standing thinks that the foundation is good for Sony too: Gordon Brown and the Government are pushing companies to get involved in mentoring schemes, so our foundation is very appealing because we run it and they get all the kudos. We go into schools under their banner. They also get very good PR.
Through working with the Hanover Foundation, Sony will hope to build awareness among young people of what it is and does. You might say that everyone has heard of Sony, says Tunbridge, but few know anything about Sony BPE, because it is not the consumer part of the company.
A better insight into the potential of school leavers
Tunbridge has an extensive HR background. She held personnel roles with the Burton Group, and with Bowater, and has been at Sony since 1997. She believes that Sony will benefit on many levels from its association with the foundation: At a corporate level, the foundation helps students to understand what business opportunities are around, and to look for a more entrepreneurial aspect, rather than just aiming to get a job, which in turn is good for Sony. It will also help Sony to get a better insight into the potential of school leavers.
Recruitment is another area that will benefit. Tunbridge uses the analogy of a foreign holiday: You can become blinkered in an environment that you are very used to. Going somewhere else can refresh your thinking we can look again at how we operate recruitment-wise, and at the environment that we create for people when they arrive. When advertising jobs we can make sure that we use a language that school leavers will understand. We will try to inspire confidence in them, and through confidence they will be motivated.
