What is your definition of HR?
Essentially its the tool that helps us realise the full potential of the boards objectives through our people. HR achieves this by developing and changing management behaviours. These then feed through into a change of behaviour in staff. HR informs everything we do. It would be crazy not to have it represented at the highest level on the board.
In your view, what is the role of an HR director?
They must be there to support the board through sound HR policies. But they must also influence the board constantly, reminding them of the people issues. This does mean a degree of challenge and sometimes the role can be cast as the boards hair shirt or, at the very least, its conscience. But it works all ways. A good HR director can help influence management and through them the staff to ensure that everyone is aligned with what the board has
set out to achieve; in effect they carry the message to the troops. In the final analysis it is about developing and retaining the best people to achieve objectives.
Give an example of a situation where you could not have achieved your aims without HR?
Debenhams has recently been through a major restructuring of its head office. The idea was to align what we were doing at head office with the newly developed board strategy. Such a major change could not have been achieved
without the professionalism of our HR team. We now have a central organisation that can truly support our people in
the stores.
Describe the biggest HR cock-up youve seen in your career. What impact did it have on business performance?
I can think of instances in other organisations where, when HR used to be known as personnel, they went about things all the wrong way. Charged with boosting employee morale, huge personnel departments would in fact serve to demotivate rather than encourage. This was usually because of remoteness, sometimes seen as arrogance, and came from not truly understanding the nature of the business and its objectives. Often personnel people were seen as different animals to the rest of us, as people with a completely different set of objectives.
What are the three most essential skills an HR director needs?
Influence is key. It is vital that HR directors are able to make their voices heard in such a way that their views are ranked alongside those of other members of the board. They should have the skills that you would expect of any other director. Once the board has made decisions, HR directors should then be able to use those influencing skills with their team to ensure that they too understand what is required.
Next is leadership. This is talked about a lot but in essence it is the ability to act as the focus of activities for which you are responsible, and to create teams capable of taking decisions within a framework that leads to everyone pulling in the same direction.
Clear communications are also vital, at all levels both written and spoken. It is also important to know when to communicate and how.
What are the five most important HR tasks in an organisation?
Organisation design we need to have a robust structure in which everyone knows where they fit. But it has to
be flexible and on occasion be capable of going through radical change to cope with the changing demands of the business.
Pay and rewards recruitment varies with geography. In London and the South East, for example, where disaffected staff can quite literally walk down the road and find another job, there are particular challenges in recruitment and retention. In other parts of the country the problems are different. We need to have a pay and rewards system that is seen to be fair to all while adapting to local needs.
Resourcing finding new staff and keeping them is a challenge. A good HR professional needs to be well informed about the employment marketplace to ensure Debenhams is in pole position when it comes to attracting the right people.
Learning and development we are particularly keen on developing real leadership skills among our people. This is all about individual managers taking more responsibility for their staff. Through leadership we can
genuinely move up a gear in the way we do business.
Employee relations and communications with 23,000 staff this is a big challenge. But they are all individuals and need to feel they know what is going on especially when it affects them directly. Clear communications strategies and policies coupled with excellence in personal communications skills are essential.
Is there a commercial benefit to developing a specific organisational culture?
Of course, but there can only be a commercial benefit if the culture supports the strategy. There needs to be constant vigilance to ensure that HR policies dont become detached from what the board is trying to achieve.
If you could ask an HR team to achieve one thing, what would it be?
The development and retention of key people is vital. We want our HR team to act as wise counsellors and offer help and guidance. But the managers have to do the work. We have moved away from hire, fire, reward and so on being regarded as something to be abrogated by the individual manager and passed over to the human resources function.
How do you measure the success of HR?
At Debenhams we have very clear methods. We measure labour turnover and stability but, above all, we measure productivity. Debenhams is no different from any other
business. A small incremental development in each of our 23,000 people can result in big improvements. Without HR functioning effectively from the very top of the organisation we just would not be able to achieve the stretching targets that we have set ourselves.
