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?!.........
