Wyboston Lakes Ltd is the UK’s largest privately owned single site residential conference and training centre, we have three conference centres on site, restaurants, bars, golf course, gym all set in 350 acres. Nevertheless, there are negatives to a career in the hospitality industry, with unsocial hours as we are open 7/7, it is labour intensive work and the rewards in the industry are not as high as elsewhere, say in supermarkets. People that are drawn to the industry are truly people people, who love providing excellent service, but some people cannot adjust to the shifts or do not see it as a career. Some are only here for gap years or to learn the language or whilst they decide what to do and although turnover in the last 12 months reduced considerably, it is still high in comparison with some industries. So attracting, retaining and engaging the best people will be a key focus area.

Having listen to Jackie Orme at the presentation last week, I am hoping it will be seen to be closely aligned with the business and involved in key decisions and not just a reactive and paper-pushing role.
However, having worked in medium sized businesses, some with multiple locations, I hope that it will be recognised that whilst there are advantages of centralising the HR function, there are many managers out there with less people management experience, and their need for a bit of “hand-holding” and face to face support should not be forgotten. HR should build people skills in managers and supervisors not only through having clear procedures, but developing their knowledge and confidence in handling issues and helping them take ownership and responsibility for doing things right by their people.

There has been a lack of or reduction in demand and much pressure on prices, as clients try to reduce their costs on training and conferences. Shorter courses, less overnight accommodation. Less budget for them to spend. This impacts on the ability to get returns. It is happening globally.
Because we have three distinct venues offering different propositions, we have been better placed than most to counter the effects of the downturn. Several clients have transferred to another of our centres where that suits their situation better.

No, but this is fine with me. Wyboston Lakes is a family business and I am on the senior management team that meets monthly to discuss everything that is going on. I am happy that my opinion counts and HR is involved in the key decisions.

20 years or does that make me sound too old?

As a trilingual member for a European insurance secretariat in the City. The language aspect was great but the workload was low and unchallenging so I have always worked in commercial companies since then.

It more happened to me – I was working for a small but fast growing pharmaceutical company, in a very generalist role for the managing director, and one day he just asked me to set up an HR function from scratch. I immediately began my CIPD and heavily used the college library and the information gleaned from my fellow students to set up competency based recruitment, performance appraisals, handbooks, policies etc. As the company continued to grow and acquire new companies at home and overseas, eventually become a FTSE 250 listed company, I continued to learn and headed up the group HR function. The pace of growth was very very fast. A wonderful opportunity and experience.

It has grown up a lot. There is far more centralisation. I have worked in companies with an HR to staff ratio or 50:1 to 800:1. It seems to have gained more respect as a profession.

I have always been a self-starter, driven to get results and achieve. I can’t imagine being any other way.
It is encouraging when you have helped others develop and grow, building their own people skills. That helps.

Not a lot…owls… foxes…..?

Wyboston Lakes is a great place to work. Not only the site, which is 350 acres in the countryside, with five lakes, a golf course and a nature reserve, and beautiful conference centres but the people here are so friendly and helpful and a great team to work with. I have always been very loyal to where I worked and without wanting to sound without ambition, I have not mapped out a next career milestone. The only thing I do miss is the international element of HR.

People develop their own careers.

No or not in HR. When I was in pharmaceuticals, the chief executive, Terry Sadler, gave me every encouragement and support to develop HR for the group, and also involved me in all aspects of the business. I grew a huge amount in my time working for Terry - it was a great culture for everyone to work in. Terry was a great leader and inspired a lot of loyalty from everyone.

We thought we had just trained our people to use a new swipe card system to replace our old fashioned clock cards. Using a dummy system, we had stood by everyone and watched them swipe their card down through the reader and press the right buttons and we sent them off with their new cards.
One individual rang and said the machine was not allowing him to go home and he wanted to go home and was getting quite irate that the company wouldn’t let him stop working. He said he really wanted to go home. When someone went down to see what was happening, he had used his card to swipe out whereupon the display said ‘you are swiping out, do you want to continue?’ In his case, ‘no’ was not the right answer…….

I would love to say at the gym, but unfortunately not. I love travel and have trekked in Nepal and visited China, India, Thailand, Morocco, Egypt, Australia. I also take part in the company’s annual charity walk – this year in Derbyshire. So it might be with my walking boots on.
Working in the hospitality industry – we have three restaurants, bars and a 400 bedroom hotel operation – I do enjoy watching how hotels and restaurants I visit are operating. Appreciating what we do well or where we can learn.

Two pieces actually.
I believe it is best to have another area of expertise commercially before joining HR. It gives you more credibility in the business. You need commercial acumen to be effective in HR. People should always remember we are here to make sure the business runs smoothly now and in the future from a people perspective – the business is not there just to complete our forms and questionnaires and tick our boxes. Any HR initiatives have to deliver for the business.
If planning a career in HR, it is helpful if you can get generalist HR experience in a smaller company as well as maybe a more specialist role in a larger company with more sophisticated systems and reporting. HR can be a very different role and you need to learn from both before deciding which suits you best.