Is This Room Free?
Welcome to Is This Room Free? In this podcast I will be talking to HR professionals and listening to the stories of their careers. I will be finding out about the journeys they have taken and what they learnt along the way. The purpose is to help others in the profession identify and understand the various paths available and take inspiration from my guest speakers. Whether you are someone who is looking to get that first step on the HR career ladder or an aspiring HR Director, I hope you get value from these conversations.
Is This Room Free?
Caroline Oxley - Head of People & Culture (how HR varies in different sizes of business and under different ownership types.... and the nuances of doing TUPE transfers)
Joining me on this epsiode is Caroline Oxley who works as Head of People & Culture for a property investment company and is based in Greater Manchester.
In her early HR career, Caroline worked in Facilities Management. What I found interesting was that people in HR always talk about delivering bad news, such as redundancies in the right way and being empathetic, however, Caroline shared a further nuance where in industries where there are high levels of TUPE transfers, such as outsourced service delivery, and contracts changing hands every few years then it's even more important to 'do it right' as it can impact business development and there's a liklihood of your encountering people you've had tough conversations with further down the line.
Caroline is someone who has experience of doing large scale TUPE (one company went from 6 people to circa 1400 in the space of a few months!) and she talks us through what is involved, how to successfully navigate it, but also what type of person might be better suited to it. Therefore, it's incredibly helpful to listen to Caroline explain it all if you're someone who has never done it but is curious about it.
As with many of my guests, Caroline is also a Mum, and she talks about having to leave a job she loved due to the amount of travel required and her feeling like she wasn't being the best Mother she should be but then torn about not being the best working professional she should be too.
However, this change was significant for Caroline as it re-positioned her as a HR professional who moved from having worked for large companies to getting experience of working in much smaller operations which required a different type of HR.
This is a wonderful journey, understanding what HR can be like in organisations of different sizes and ownership. There's a lot to take away so I hope you enjoy it!