Case studies: HR manager: Nicola Brown

Nicola has a BA in History from the University of Southampton and is currently undertaking a postgraduate qualification in human resource management.

I joined Enterprise on the graduate management training programme after I saw their advertisement. I progressed through the scheme and moved originally into a training role in our London group and then over to the contact centre as a training supervisor. From there I became more involved in recruitment and the general areas of HR and was promoted to HR manager of our shared services function in 2010.

There is no typical day in my role and today was a good example. This morning I had a one-to-one development meeting with our UK financial director. I then worked on the HR policy for our home working initiative and various different elements of the first part of its implementation. This afternoon I was working on the figures from last quarter’s recruitment in terms of successful referral sources, and a marketing plan and re-forecast for the next quarter as we are growing so quickly. I am finishing off my day investigating a department performance management strategy.

My role has changed immensely from when I started with the company in the rental branches. My career ambition is to become the best in my field and I would like to ensure that I continue to work effectively with the departments I have dealings with in order to contribute to business growth and success.

The amount of autonomy that I have within my role is fantastic and incredibly satisfying. My organisation has every confidence that the initiatives I recommend and the action I suggest taking will be effective and that’s a really rewarding feeling.

I thrive on challenges and see them as opportunities. Sometimes my role can be challenging. There is a certain amount of reacting to situations that arise, no matter how pro-active you try to be. As such there are usually many tasks to address at one time, however this is also what makes my job one of the most interesting roles that I know.

One of the best things about working in this role is the absence of bureaucracy and the ability to see a way of improving your business and go ahead and implement it.

I would tell other students and graduates who would like to get into this career to work hard, differentiate yourself, get work experience where you can. And in the words of Winston Churchill: ‘Never, never, never, never give up!’

Choose the right company that will see you as an individual and recognise where your skills set best lies in the company and don’t be afraid of getting things wrong – it will quickly teach you how to get it right.

AGCAS

Sourced by AGCAS editors

Date: 

March 2011

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