“For me, the way to succeed in HR is to make yourself invaluable by bringing a different voice to the table. I’ve worked with some really good senior HR people who gave me the opportunity to sink or swim, and thankfully, I swam in most circumstances.” – Milly Richardson, Head of People at thortful, speaks to us about developing a career in HR Leadership.

 

As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some HR Leaders to share the secrets of their success.

This week, we had a great conversation with Milly Richardson at thortful, who started her HR career as an HR Consultant at Unum before moving on to join the team at Thomson Reuters as HR Manager, later ascending the ranks there to the role of HR Business Partner for Real Time & Network Technology and HR Business Partner for CTO. In September 2012, Milly became the HR Manager for Northern Europe at Criteo ahead of joining News UK in May 2013 as HR Business Partner for Technology, and later becoming Talent & Development Manager.

In January 2015, Milly became Talent & Development Manager at Hearst Magazines UK, before transitioning to the roles of VP for People at YLD, Head of Human Resources at 7digital, and People Director for UK & Ireland at WeWork. In July 2018, Milly moved to TheHRhub to take on the role of Consultant,  before progressing to the role of  Associate Director there moving to her r current role in September 2020.

Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?

Before I started in HR, I spent a considerable amount of time running a small village shop and post office with a relative.  Over  my seven or eight years there, I became a trained postmaster and we grew the business together. It was a lot of fun, but when i was  approached  about becoming a proper business partner, I realised that it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and that I needed to start thinking about my long-term career.

I went to a recruitment agency who’d been advertising customer service roles, because the move from retail to office-based customer service seemed like an obvious one. When I was there, I was asked if I’d ever considered working in Recruitment. I explained I hadn’t, but the agency thought I would be really good at it and offered me a job with them as a trainee Recruitment Consultant anyway. I took it, and started doing general office recruitment for lots of administrative customer service and Sales roles. It turned out not to be for me, but I stuck at it for 18 months. 

Towards the end of my time at the agency, a lot of roles were coming in for HR Advisors and HR Administrators, and as I was placing people, I realised that the roles took the People, Talent, and career development side of Recruitment that I loved and left behind all the stuff that I didn’t like. I started to look into it further, and ultimately fell into HR myself. I didn’t know of the sector before I started recruiting for it, but as soon as it came up on my radar, I knew it was what I wanted to do.

Getting into HR itself was a challenge, and I did apply for lots of jobs before the right opportunity came up,  but I was fortunate to live in Basingstoke, where competition for HR roles was much less stiff than in somewhere like London. My first role in HR was at an Advisor level—I was able to jump the HR Administrator step entirely due to an employment law qualification I’d done as a recruiter.

The job was with a very small HR outsource company that did HR for lots of different companies. It was a bit of a baptism of fire to go from never having done HR before to doing it for lots of different companies at the HR Advisor level, but it was really good fun and I learned a lot in a very short space of time. It was demanding, but a fantastic experience.

I think my most career-defining role came at Thomson Reuters. I was originally recruited to a fairly junior-level role, but within a year and a half of being there, I was the global HR Business Partner for Technology looking after 3500 people in 30 different locations across the world. I definitely didn’t have the experience or the capability to do the role alone going into it, but I had the support of the CTO, the senior HR team, and everyone around me. That made it feel safe for me to push myself and fail comfortably if I needed to. It was an amazing chance to grow, and if it wasn’t for that experience, I don’t think I would be where I am now.

When it comes to my current role, I’m really fortunate to have come to an organisation that’s working. I’ve joined others in the past that needed to change or do something differently and had brought me in for that, whereas thortful is a very different offering. We’re already doing really well, so my focus is on how I can make things better rather than fixing things, and that’s a very positive place to be in. I’m very lucky, because I definitely have a seat at the table here, and our founder really cares about people. That was my key driver in joining the team—I wanted to work somewhere that wasn’t just about turning a profit.

Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?

At thortful, our main challenge lies in keeping the team happy and connected during COVID. We’re fortunate in that we’re an online business, so it has been easier for us to make the transition to our staff doing the things they’re used to doing without having to leave their homes than it has for other organisations. Ultimately, we build connections and connect people to other people, which is very lacking in the world at the moment. Fortunately there is still a demand for greetings cards which means we’re not having to face the challenges that other businesses are;  in terms of furloughing staff, making redundancies, and so on. 

That said, we’re a very culture-driven organisation, and not being able to have people together physically has been a big challenge for us, as has ensuring that we continue to support our independent creators. They are definitely an extension of our team, so it’s important to us that we look after them and their businesses and continue to help them grow as much as we can, as well as continuing to communicate with them and build a sense of team in the current climate.

Looking into the future, I think growth will definitely be a key theme for us moving into 2021. As well as the recruitment of temporary customer service staff for occasions periods, we’re looking to grow in our tech capability and product management. 

In terms of the HR function, I’m the first HR hire thortful has ever had, so I’m setting everything up from scratch. My big, bold plans are to get all the basics in place—I believe there’s no point going for the fancy HR stuff if the fundamentals aren’t there to build upon. It’s about having really good onboarding, and it’s about how we communicate with and listen to our staff. We need to turn to them to find out whether they’re engaged and their thoughts on how they’re being managed and rewarded for what they do. We also need to be asking whether managers themselves are being supported and feel they are able to access the right training for themselves and their teams.

What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?

If you’re just getting into HR, my first piece of advice would be to find a senior HR person whose beliefs about what HR is—and what it isn’t—match up with yours. You will either join a traditional HR team where you’re adding value by providing a transactional service to the business, or you will find an HR person who believes in challenging, partnering, being agile and flexible, and is a senior leader in their own right—not just supporting what everyone else is trying to do.

I would also say that if your aspirations are to work in smaller tech-based organisations or you’re looking for something different to traditional HR, Agile HR is an extremely valuable skillset to have. It’s a non-CIPD, slightly less conventional qualification that will likely give you an edge in the tech sector. Given that the majority of tech companies are working in an agile way around software and product development, HR professionals who can work in a similarly agile fashion may well be more appealing to them.

I’m not traditional as HR Leaders go in that I’m not CIPD qualified and I don’t have A-Levels or a degree, but I’ve still worked hard to get myself where I am. For me, the way to succeed in HR is to make yourself invaluable by bringing a different voice to the table.  

Finding a senior HR Leader whose outlook matches your own really can make a difference. I’m very fortunate that the mentors I’ve had throughout my career have been senior leaders I shared the vision of, and that they have given me opportunity after opportunity. The CTO at Thomson Reuters was a particularly amazing mentor. He really used to throw me out of my comfort zone, but his support gave me confidence to try new things that I might never have had otherwise. Good mentoring was a huge part of getting me to where I am now.

Milly has been working as Head of People since September 2020, and provides leadership across all aspects of thortful’s HR function, which she continues to grow and evolve through her leadership role.

If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.