“[D]on’t give up—if you keep knocking on doors, opportunities will come at some point. Things may be exceptionally challenging at the moment, but there are still roles out there.” – Sarah Lomas, Head of HR and Recruitment at Rushcliffe Care Limited, 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 Sarah Lomas at Rushcliffe Care Limited, who began her career in the recruitment sector working as a Recruitment Consultant at Adecco UK. In November 2000, Sarah joined the team at Berkley Scott as a Client Support Manager, later returning to Adecco UK as Branch/Recruitment Manager. In February 2007, Sarah transitioned to the role of HR Advisor for the North at Building Design Partnership (BDP) Limited, ahead of becoming Recruitment Executive for SSP Group PLC.
In January 2011, Sarah became a Criminal Justice Support Worker/START Worker with the Spotlight IOM Community Safety Unit, remaining in the Social Work sector in her subsequent role as Business Manager for Social Work in the North at pulsejobs.com. In January 2016, Sarah became Resourcing Business Partner for Priory Healthcare and Partnerships in Care North at the Priory Group, later continuing her time in the Recruitment sector through her roles as Recruitment Manager and in Resourcing Business Partner Support Services at Elior UK.
Sarah took on her first Senior HR Leadership role as an HR and Healthcare Director in June 2019,ahead of transitioning to her current role in September 2020.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
My background has always been within recruitment; I fell into recruiting working within a recruitment agency at the age of 23. I was in totally recruitment-focused roles within the agency environment for a long time, but I started to feel I was burning out after a point, so I decided to look into a more generalist in-house role. As part of that search, did my CIPD in 2006-2007, and then secured my first in-house recruitment and HR generalist role at BDP.
I’ve always had a passion for HR—people are fascinating to me, and I have a bit of a Miss Marple streak, so I enjoy the piecing together problems and solving issues that comes with it. On top of that, I had a really good manager who had always inspired me, and when she went into HR, I found myself wanting to follow in her footsteps. She was always very friendly, very approachable, and very human, and I wanted to emulate that in my own HR practice, because traditionally HR hadn’t always been friendly or approachable at points in my career.
I loved that HR brought with it a new way of thinking and working and was all about the people, so I felt it was a natural progression for me to go into the field. I really enjoyed my role at BPD and the way it challenged me. It was originally on a temporary contract basis, but I stayed on and was going to go permanent until my HR Director resigned and the leadership team made the decision to take the function back into London, so my role in Manchester was no longer there.
I did find the transition from Recruitment to HR challenging at times, though. My CIPD qualification was more difficult to do because I wasn’t in an HR environment and had to use speculation and the experiences of friends in the HR to gain some insight. Even when I did get into the role with my qualification, people didn’t always feel that I had the right experience for the job, regardless of the fact that what I was doing in recruitment had an HR advisory capacity in the same breath. The other challenge for me was taking a drop in salary to transition to where I wanted to be, as the change was quite significant. In spite of all that, though, it can be done.
My current role brings both the Recruitment and HR side together. I was originally more recruitment-focused, but I could see that Rushcliffe needed support in the HR function as well. I suggested that they took somebody on permanently who could cover both aspects, and they offered me the opportunity. It can be very challenging; both the Head of HR and Recruitment aspects are full-time roles in themselves, and there’s a lot to do to get systems and processes in place for both functions and supporting the business in understanding what’s required, as they’ve never had HR or an internal recruitment function before. However, the role gives me a great overview of both functions, and dealing with such a wide range of people makes every day very interesting. It’s a fantastic opportunity.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
For Rushcliffe Care, COVID is a very significant challenge at the moment. Being in the healthcare industry, we aren’t furloughing anyone, we have colleagues who are shielding. While in some respects that means that we’re lucky as not at risk of closing or losing jobs, our biggest worry is for the families being affected by COVID—not just in terms of our residents, but also our at-risk members of staff who we are only able to provide sick pay.
This is a very challenging time for everybody in healthcare, let alone recruitment and HR, but from an HR perspective, the demands of testing everyone every week and filling in extra documentation for the Government has increased our paperwork and workload tenfold, and we don’t have the staff capacity to manage that long-term. Finding a way to meet those demands and keeping our staff safe while also managing the financial pressure of that is our top priority.
We’ve been fortunate enough to have protected all our residents and staff so far, but the COVID crisis has really turned HR on its head, and we don’t always know straight away what to do for the best. Even now, we’re having to check policies with Government all the time to ensure we’re staying compliant as things change from one minute to the next. It’s difficult dealing with the unknown and how long this is going to go on while trying to keep protecting not only our people and residents, but also jobs, for as long as we possibly can. As a result, we’ve had to slow down our projects and plans for the year, which has been a challenge as well.
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 looking to transition from recruitment into a more generalist HR role, it won’t always be easy, but it’s important to keep persevering and pushing.
My advice to anyone would be don’t give up—if you keep knocking on doors, opportunities will come at some point. Things may be exceptionally challenging at the moment, but there are still roles out there. Carry on pushing, learn as much as you can, do as much training as you can, and keep on top of your knowledge as much as you can. In our sector, the law changes all the time, and it’s vital to keep on top of it.
I would definitely also consider furthering your learning through a CIPD qualification. The expansion of your knowledge through education is key, but you also get the chance to build up a really good network through it as well. If that’s not an option, there are still ways to succeed in HR without the qualification—and there are people who have been in the sector for many years who don’t have qualifications, but to me, it’s a brilliant additional support to have.
Sarah has been working as Head of Recruitment and HR since September 2020, and provides leadership for all aspects of Rushcliffe Care Limited’s Recruitment and HR functions, heading up the continued growth of both functions and the ongoing implementation of a range of systems and processes within them.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.