Human Resources - Profiles
Dawn - HR Business Partner
Amanda - Recruitment Manager
Dawn – Human Resources Business Partner
I joined Nestlé in September 2001 on the graduate scheme in HR. As someone fresh from university the graduate scheme provided me with a great opportunity to gain experience in a number of different parts of the HR function and gave me ‘real’ responsibility from the start.
I started my time at Nestlé working in our Recruitment team in Croydon where I was given responsibility for the recruitment and selection of individuals for 2 or 3 customer groups within the business. After 8 months in this role, I moved to Staverton in Wiltshire to take on an HR role at one of our factories. Working in our Chilled Dessert factory provided challenge and variety. I was specifically responsible for elements of technical training and development, had operational responsibility for an outsourcing project and dealt with general HR issues on a daily basis.
In February of 2003, I moved to our York offices to work in the Information & Advice Centre (IAC) providing support to line managers and employees across the business. The IAC at this time was in the process of integrating HR administration activities from across the business into its structure and I was involved with the handover of activity from the Staverton HR team as well as having line management responsibility for the ‘New Starters’ team.
After 9 months working in York, I moved into my first permanent role after the graduate scheme, this time back in Croydon working in the Learning & Development team. I had not had any real training experience, but had known for some time that this was an area that I wanted to get involved in. Nestlé were extremely supportive and the role in L & D provided me with a fantastic development opportunity. I stayed in the team for two and a half years and over this time was involved in individual, team and functional development programmes. I had specific accountability for Supply Chain functional training, was involved in the re-launch of our core skills programmes with responsibility for the development of several key courses and was involved in a project to review the Company’s approach to induction.
In June 2006 I wanted a new challenge and an opportunity came up to take a secondment, covering a colleague’s maternity leave in the HR Business Partner team. Again, I had limited experience in this area, but was given the opportunity to develop and learn and spent 9 months providing strategic HR support to several of our corporate teams. The BP role is a challenging role and requires not just an understanding of HR, but also the ability to build relationships and to really understand the needs of the business. When the secondment ended, I took the decision not to return to L & D, but to take a further nine month secondment into a different BP role (this time working with Sales) to further develop in this area.
Over my time at Nestlé I have worked across a broad variety of roles and have been provided with challenge and support in equal measure to enable my development and career progression. Who knows what’s next?!.........
Amanda - Recruitment Manager
Prior to joining Nestlé I went to university to study Performing Arts, and then held a diverse range of roles, including working in a cattery and chamber-maiding on a Greek island! Other roles included a recruitment agency and latterly a multinational pharmaceutical company, where I worked in both specialist recruitment and generalist human resources roles. I joined Nestlé’s recruitment team in June 2001, initially on a 2 month temporary assignment as a Recruitment Specialist, based at our Head Office in Croydon. Nestlé was preparing to introduce a major restructure in HR, which saw the establishment of Centres of Excellence (Recruitment, Learning & Development, Employee Relations etc), HR business partners, and a centralised Information & Advice Centre. During this transition period I recruited a wide range of roles, including financial, sales, marketing, supply chain and administration. I loved the job, the company and the people I was working with, and was delighted when I was offered the chance to join the team on a permanent basis.
My first role was as a Recruitment Specialist (Commercial), recruiting sales and marketing people for a range of Nestlé businesses – Beverage, Chilled Dairy, Food, Nutrition, Purina and Foodservices. One of the most exciting aspects of the role was joining the team right at the start, and so being involved in shaping how the team developed. We knew what we wanted to achieve: operating in a similar fashion to an in-house recruitment agency, we wanted to be recognised as best in class in terms of our ability to attract the best people for Nestlé. Being part of the team that has made that journey has been challenging, occasionally frustrating, and definitely the most fun I’ve had in a job!
After a couple of years I was offered the opportunity to go into another area of HR on a secondment basis. I worked as a Business Partner in Foodservices, involved in a range of projects including restructuring part of the sales function, managing the employee opinion survey for the business, and redefining the roles, grades and salary ranges for all field based staff across two businesses. A lot of fun, a lot of challenge. After seven months I returned to my previous role, but not for long! I was then asked if I would relocate to our York site, as Recruitment Manager of the Northern based recruitment team. I moved up in April 2005, and am now responsible for ensuring that we have the resources in place to deliver the recruitment needs across a range of businesses, factories and functions. About 50% of my role involves projects with a UK-wide impact, such as graduate recruitment and online testing; the balance of my time is spent doing hands-on recruitment and ensuring that my team have the resources and support they need to both deliver in their role and to develop their skills and interest areas.
Recruitment Services is a fast-paced, pressurised environment where we’re constantly looking at how we can do our job better, faster, cheaper and add more value to the business – I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved since Recruitment Services was established, and we have a lot of fun along the way too! And as for the future…who knows? The only point I can be sure about, is that change, opportunity and challenge is always round the corner!
