“Cultural change isn’t just an HR responsibility, it’s an organisational responsibility. The most important thing for us as HR professionals to do is to hold a mirror up to our organisations about what they need to do to implement positive change and how they need to do it. To do that best, we first need to deeply understand our people and the change required.” – Clare Wright , Group HR Director for Jardine Motors Group, 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 Clare Wright at Jardine Motors group, who began her HR career as Customer Service Manager at Gilbert Lawton VW Audi before taking on a number of HR and Consultancy roles—including positions at Volkswagen UK, Stanley’s Casinos, the Shop Direct Group, Daisy Communications and E Front Global —ahead of returning to the automotive sector and joining the team at Jardine Motors Group in her current role in 2015.
Can you tell us how you got into HR and why?
I left school and went straight into work, and from there I got into HR by accident, really. When I first encountered HR, or Personnel as it was then, I was working in an operational role in a Volkswagen dealership called Gilbert Lawton VW Audi, and our Personnel system was literally our employee files locked in the accountant’s office. At the time, I was a Customer Service Manager, and we were working with Volkswagen UK on a leadership programme for the transition to a ‘bricks and clicks’ business model which incorporated both online and offline sales. As part of that programme, I started to network and talk to people about Personnel and HR in more depth.
Hearing about HR made me realise that we needed to implement an HR strategy to make better quality hires and alleviate some of the negative feedback we’d been getting from our customers, so I persuaded my boss at the time—who was also the owner of the business—to allow me to go and start my CIPD qualification. Even back then, I was able to see where investing in my certification would reap rewards for his business. He agreed, after lots of negotiation so I went and did my CIPD qualification whilst working, then studied 2 nights per week at Manchester university for my postgraduate qualification afterwards. At the same time, the business grew, and I actually ended up running one of our new locations as well as having overall HR responsibility for our sites
The credibility that came from both understanding how to run a car dealership and holding a formal HR qualification to back that understanding up meant that I was able to consult on HR with more credibility than ever before, which led to me being headhunted by Volkswagen UK to go and work with one of their consultancy partners on a large scale change programme to create a retail experience within their dealerships. The experience really honed my influencing and stakeholder management skills as well as my commercial skills.
Since then, I’ve tried to take on as many career opportunities as possible, which HR has been perfect for; people are people no matter what business you work in. I’ve gained experience across lots of different sectors—motor and high street retail, telecommunications, and global software—to advance my career. Regardless of how long I’ve stayed with a particular company, I’ve always gone into businesses that are about transformation and change, because that’s what I really love. Although I’ve been here nearly six years, there’s still so much opportunity at Jardine Motors, and that’s what keeps me interested.
I think my passion for HR came from my knowledge that if you understand your business and your customers and then align that to your people, you’ve got a successful company. In my first role, when we improved our people, our customer satisfaction and profitability significantly improved . I could see the difference HR was making right from the start, and that was really exciting.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that you’re seeing across the HR sector?
A key theme of ours recently has been increasing our gender diversity, and I’m really proud of our achievements there. Our whole executive team has been committed to and feel responsible for that change programme, so whilst I’ve been sponsoring and facilitating our inclusion strategy, it’s fully supported and has been implemented right through the organisation. It’s been hugely successful, and we’re now focusing on extending the same approach to our whole diversity and inclusion piece; not because we’ve got massive issues, but because we have the opportunity to change and develop our culture and our business through it, to make it an even better place to work and for our customers to engage with .
I think the uncertainty of COVID has been our biggest challenge. Working in HR throughout this crisis has probably been the toughest thing I’ve dealt with in my career to date. There has been complete uncertainty on every level, and our agility and resilience as an organisation has definitely got us through, especially during a tough reorganisation period. We still face the challenge of continuing to adapt to the COVID, lockdown etc as it evolves.
We’re currently looking at further developing our employee value proposition for the world we now live in, so there are still lots of great opportunities for change and development but we’re conscious that we need to have a contingency plan in place in the event that we have to change direction again. We’ve also had to work on ensuring that the organisation and our leadership teams understand that the situation is highly changeable and that we need to continue to adapt, as well as the importance of keeping people motivated and engaged enough to continue making progress but also remain agile and resilient.
COVID has been tough on industries and individuals alike, but it’s also enhanced our crisis management skills in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in unprecedented ways. We may have been talking about crisis management for years now, but nothing has ever tested it like the COVID-19 crisis.
Over the last three years, we have invested in the external support around resilience and quality of mind, and that has definitely helped our people cope with the crisis, as has the human approach we take towards our communications. Our wellbeing and resilience piece had a good foundation even before COVID, so we’ve just continued to build on that. Having a robust approach to mental wellbeing and resilience is vital when you’re working in uncertain conditions.
We’ve also now moved everyone who can work from home to permanent home working. We’ll be looking at providing opportunities to meet physically within the constraints in place when it’s safe to do, but in the meantime, we’re focused on providing that human contact virtually through communications strategies and ‘temperature checks’ that go beyond purely business-focused check-ins and make sure our teams are okay at a personal level. People have responded to really well, and we’ve found our video content and livestreaming particularly effective for securing engagement.
If I were to advise other organisations, I would say that business leaders do need to invest more in developing a culture of resilience. At Jardine Motors, we’re taking that to the next level by investing in the idea of psychological safety; continuing to drive the message that it’s okay not to be okay while also developing people to become more mentally resilient. Cultural change isn’t just an HR responsibility, it’s an organisational responsibility. The most important thing for us as HR professionals to do to drive that is to hold a mirror up to our organisations about what they need to do and how they need to do it. To do that best, we first need to deeply understand our people.
I think the COVID crisis has demonstrated the value the HR function offers our businesses better than ever, but we need to start thinking about how we can continue to leverage this. We need to ensure that HR teams continue to be seen as an integral part of the business, and keep asking ourselves how we’re adding value in HR. In my current role, I’m undoubtedly seen as a business leader in partnership with our CEO, Finance Director and Brand Directors, but that’s sadly not the case for all HR Leaders, even though the function should be integral to any organisation.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards a career like yours, or someone just getting started in their HR career?
From a grassroots level, I think people need to be more aware of the fact that the world of HR covers so much more than transactional things like processing new starters or managing disciplinaries. More than ever, the function is about managing culture and leadership strategies, so you have to really want to understand people and want to know what motivates them in order to succeed. Understanding behaviour is such an important part of HR that I would encourage anyone doing any sort of psychological degree to consider a career in HR.
That said, I would also say that a degree isn’t everything. I found getting a qualification at postgrad level was really good for providing extra theory to back up the practical side of things, but that practical side needs to be there first and foremost. Work experience can be invaluable when you’re trying to break into HR no matter your situation, because even if you have a great educational background, it can be really difficult to use the theory if you’ve got nothing practical to apply it to. None of my current HR top team went to university, but they’re all brilliantly commercial business partners with great work experience.
For those seeking to step up, I think that once you’ve broken into the HR field, it’s important to try and work for a range of organisations to expand your skills. While people issues tend to be similar wherever you go, the business and cultural contexts vary between organisations, and that’s what makes you really rounded.
To be really successful in HR, you have to be very commercial and have a strong organisational understanding. A people strategy has to start with the business first and evolve from there; you can’t truly put people first if you don’t think about your business and your customers.
The transition from operational roles to commercial HR is a great one—operational experience makes you far more credible when you transition into commercial roles because you know what you’re talking about as you have experienced it. If you’re thinking about moving into HR from a business route rather than a purely academic one, definitely get some operational experience first, but as I said, it’s useful all round.
For those specifically seeking to step up into a leadership role, I think your challenge is not only in understanding the business, but also demonstrating that understanding and being able to articulate how you’ve added and will continue to add value to your organisation. You need to demonstrate to the board and your leadership colleagues that you not only have the influence needed to improve organisational approaches and add value there, but can also drive change and act as a consultant for your business on what needs to be done to improve things for your people.
Don’t forget that nothing ever comes easy. If you want to succeed, you have a lot in, and that never ends. I’m at a very senior level now, but it doesn’t mean I work any less or that I stop learning
Clare has been working as Group HR Director since 2015, and provides leadership for all aspects of Jardine Motors Group’s HR function, strategic development, and transformation and change agenda.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.