“It’s a really interesting time to be in the People function, but equally a really challenging one. There isn’t a rule book for what’s happening in the world at the moment, but we need to step up and step forward for our businesses and our people.” – Lorraine Metcalf, Chief People Officer at Quantexa, 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 Lorraine Metcalf at Quantexa, who has had a wide-ranging and diverse HR career in which she has taken on a number of leadership roles including HR Director for Studios at Electronic Arts, HR Director at Cephalon UK Limited, Human Resources Director at Human Resources Interventions Limited, HR Business Partner at Cable & Wireless, and Global Head of HR Operations at CPA Global.
In November 2010, Lorraine took on a role as HR Director for UK and Ireland at Iron Mountain, before moving to Notonthehighstreet to serve as HR Director there in January 2012. In January 2014, Lorraine joined the Zoopla Property Group as HR Director, moving to the role of Chief Talent Officer in February 2017 before taking on her current role at Quantexa in October 2019.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
My career started as a PA. I worked for an entrepreneurial company at first, and it was one of those entrepreneurs who saw talent in me and encouraged me to think about developing a career in HR. Although the role had a lot of admin, there was also plenty of Personnel involved, and he told me he thought HR would suit me as a profession. Via the company, he sponsored me to do what is now an FCIPD qualification, and I undertook it at Farnborough College while working. Initially, I was a bit sceptical about embarking on a career in HR and just wanted to expand my skills, but I soon realised I actually wanted to work within a dedicated HR function. Following that, I met someone who gave me the opportunity to embark on HR on my own via a subsidiary, allowing me to challenge myself and work with a really diverse group of people.
I’ve been incredibly lucky throughout my career to meet people who have introduced me to great opportunities, and the same was true of my predecessor at Electronic Arts, who I met at a recruitment event. EA were hugely progressive from a People perspective at the time—I’m still using things I did then in my practice now. I spent nearly 10 years with the company because I had so many opportunities there that gave me such a great grounding both centrally and when working with our client groups. They really valued people and put in a lot of People initiatives, and I couldn’t have asked for a better learning environment. Experiencing the development side of HR there was definitely the turning point for my career, as I could see the value that I could offer and the difference I could make, and that the people I worked with really valued the work I did. However, as the market began to consolidate under us, I knew I wanted to explore other niches and needed a new challenge.
Shortly after, I stumbled across an opportunity in a biotech company, and I really clicked with the person interviewing me. I had never worked in pharma before, but he decided to offer me the opportunity as he could see that my experience with the skills that needed to be applied to the role outweighed my lack of background in the pharmaceutical industry.
Once I had accomplished everything I could in that particular role, I then took on a few interim roles to try different things, and it was through an interim role that I fell into Cable & Wireless. Again, it gave me plenty of opportunities to implement changes and demonstrate what good People practice really is.
I also did a couple of corporate HR roles, which were interesting, but not the direction I wanted my career to continue in. I then went to Notonthehighstreet, which was a fun role that enabled me to give back with my HR practice, and in 2014, I joined the team at Zoopla.
Zoopla was incredibly fast-paced which isn’t for the faint-hearted, but I got so much opportunity there. In the time I was with them, we went public and IPO’ed, doubled our headcount size, did eight acquisitions and integrations, sold to private equity, delisted, and changed our whole strategy. The whole private equity process was an amazing opportunity. There’s something satisfying about making yourself redundant for the greater good and doing the right thing for the business and the investors.
I took a summer off to recharge my batteries, and then through a contact from my Notonthehighstreet days, I was introduced to the opportunity at Quantexa. I went through the interview process, and on my last official day at Zoopla, I was offered the job.
When I joined Quantexa, I saw a lot of the same qualities I had seen at Electronic Arts. I don’t think Quantexa realised how progressive they were from a People perspective. That’s a great luxury for me; the door is held wide open, so the only thing stopping me is my own imagination, creativity, and time. You only need to demonstrate the benefits to secure buy-in, and I’ve always been very transparent about pros and cons and giving the whole picture. We’ve done so much since I joined in October 2019, and my People team are brilliant—commercial, switched-on, connected with the business, super excited about the opportunity they’ve got, and passionate about what they do. When you factor in that I’ve got a CEO and a leadership team who are very People-oriented and open to learning and being challenged as well as the chance I’ve had here to consolidate a lot of my learning and experience, it’s been the perfect opportunity at this point in my career.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
The current time we find ourselves in is a fascinating one, but I think it will become quite polarising. I think our industry will have People functions that add real strategic value at one extreme, and at the other will be those People functions that will never get themselves out of being an admin function. This will be quite a determining time for us. I think COVID has probably put the most pressure on the People function over anywhere else in business, whether that’s through the demands on communication, engagement, or the choices we need to make moving forward. Our sector has really come into its own on the one hand, but been put under the microscope on the other.
It’s a really interesting time to be in the People function, but equally a really challenging one. There isn’t a rule book for what’s happening in the world at the moment, but we need to step up and step forward for our businesses and our people. Now’s the time when everyone needs to come together and think about how we work through this.
Finding the direction of our policy during COVID has been a challenge for us at Quantexa, but we’ve been committed to keeping our staff safe and offering them structured support in an environment suitable for them. We’re a global organisation, so we do have different government and state advice to take into account. We’ve extended the option to work from home until March even before the latest Government advice. We’ve done a lot to set the office up to be COVID-compliant and are very careful when it comes to safety and sanitation for those who have missed the social culture and want to return to our office spaces, but there are some people with concerns around getting to work that we wanted to be mindful of as well. For us, it’s important to listen to the needs of all our people and cater for them as best we can. I don’t think everyone will want to be in the office five days a week now that we’ve worked from home for so long, and we need to be flexible enough as an organisation to facilitate a blend of office and remote working.
Aside from COVID we, as an industry, are also focused on getting women into the tech sector via education routes, and we are actively working to target and address that. Seeing the benefits of that work has been great.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
I think what you’ve really got to do is look at yourself in the mirror and ask, ‘What am I good at, and what am I not so good at?’ The key is always to play to your strengths and be very honest. I’m not saying we can’t learn and expand our skills, but for me, collaborating with people who have skill sets that you may not have can help you overcome those pain points, and celebrating that difference is key.
In the People profession, it’s really important that we’re able to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, and networks are a vital tool for that. In addition, working in HR can be quite lonely at times, and while what we’re dealing with can often be very confidential, having an experienced network who can give you general advice you can then apply to your specific situation can be a great support.
When you do have situations that call for difficult conversations with people, something I’ve learned over the years is that you always need to make sure you’re coming at them from a place of good. I have been able to challenge people and really call them out because we have both known the intention is good, whereas oftentimes people challenge to make themselves feel better or others feel worse. For me, it’s about encouraging people to be the best they possibly can and finding out what success looks like for them, then helping them get there.
The other important thing is to have a flexible approach to your HR practice. Everybody’s different, and in the People function, we need to treat people the way they want to be treated, not the way that we might want to be treated or think that they would want us to treat them.
As I mentioned earlier, I think we’re in a fascinating time from a People perspective. I’ve lived through being a purely Personnel function and the fight for a seat at the table, and I’ve always been of the view that we as HR professionals need to focus on demonstrating the value that we deliver to drive change and achieve the future for HR that we want to see. Even now, I consider myself to be a business partner, so a big part of my role is about finding out what my business pain points are and where I can add value. I would advise any HR professional to do the same, as well as find a way to become commercial. Understand your business and the problems you can solve within it to get the buy-in you need to lead—you can’t be on the periphery.
Overall, though, I think that the HR and People space is a hugely exciting place to be, and a great place to advance your career. For the right people, our current situation makes a time full of opportunity in which the People function can have a hugely positive impact. Now’s the time where we really step into our own, but it comes with a lot of hard work.
Lorraine has been working as Chief People Officer since October 2019, and provides leadership and support for all aspects of Quantexa’s evolving People function.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.