My working life… HR manager

CLAIRE JOYCE is the human resources manager for Kiddi Caru. She oversees employment matters for the nursery chain’s 850 permanent staff working across 21 settings.

‘Human resources (HR), employment law and recruitment are pretty much the same wherever you go – they are extremely transferable skills. I didn’t have any childcare experience when I applied for the job at Kiddi Caru – I was looking for a different industry after spending ten years in the produce sector.

‘I’m based at head office in Basingstoke, Hampshire with my HR manager assistant. Two or three days a week I’ll be in the office from 8am. The rest of the time I’m out visiting nurseries.

‘HR is extremely broad. It’s up to me to keep on top of any changes in legislation that will affect our staff. Recently I’ve been dealing with the introduction of a higher minimum wage and the forthcoming apprenticeship levy. I have to flag up changes to senior directors in plenty of time to judge what impact they will have on the company, and how we roll out new policies. I’m signed up to alerts from the Government and read HR websites to keep up.

‘Because we’re a small team, we feed out responsibilities to regional offices. When it comes to recruitment, disciplinaries, or annual reviews, it’s nursery mangers who deliver these tasks. But HR provides the training and templates to enable them to do their jobs. Most of the paperwork, such as annual appraisal forms, was in place when I joined Kiddi Caru. I tweak them to ensure they are up to date.

‘I deliver management training – this is the strength I bring to the company. Training covers interview skills and leadership. In return I’ve had to learn about the Early Years Foundation Stage, Ofsted and early years qualifications, as I do get involved in hiring senior-level staff.

‘My job can be strategic. For example, we recently opened a new nursery in Matford near Exeter. I had to plan how it would be staffed. The recruitment landscape is challenging at the moment. Our aim to hire graduates from a local college didn’t materialise after lack of demand meant that only 20 people finished the course, rather than the 40 we were expecting. We had to use other means of recruitment, such as social media and tapping into existing qualified people in the area.

‘Ensuring we retain staff is an important part of my role. We provide monetary and other rewards to keep talented workers, such as a celebratory lunch for people who finish ten years of service. We support current staff who are unqualified to improve their qualifications. And we try to “grow our own” by exposing lower-level staff to higher-level skills, to encourage them to climb the career ladder within Kiddi Caru. We train apprentices and have two at each nursery.

‘My role involves many meetings. When I’m out visiting nurseries, I run communication meetings, which are another channel for staff to hear what head office has to stay without it being filtered by managers. At head office, I have weekly commercial meetings with the finance director, head of operations and the marketing manager. Every three weeks we get the regional managers in so we can hear their points of view.

‘I’m someone who likes to plan ahead, but the reason I like HR is that I don’t know what’s going to happen day-to-day. HR can guide people, and it’s nice to be the calming influence who keeps people on the right track. Employment law is very black and white, but HR is about people and their emotions. If we can support managers to make the right decisions for staff, we have a knock-on effect for that nursery to deliver outstanding childcare, which is what it’s all about.’

TRAINING

Requirements to work in HR vary. You don’t need to have a degree, but can study Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) qualifications to various levels. These can be completed while working. Ms Joyce says childcare practitioners at management level will already have many of the skills that HR requires.

CV

Employment history

2014-current: HR manager, Kiddi Caru Day Nurseries

2012-2012: Head of HR (shared services), G’s Group Holdings (part of Shropshire Group)

2007-2012: Head of HR, Langmead Farms

2005-2007: Management development trainer, Hampshire Constabulary

2003-2005: Database and training officer, Royal Naval Reserve

2002-2003: Training and development consultant, PDM Training Consultancy

1989-2002: Meteorological and oceanographic observer, Royal Navy

Qualifications

Chartered Member of CIPD since 2005

CIPD Professional Development Scheme, 2006

Ms Joyce holds several qualifications including a BTEC in Payroll Technician, NVQ 4 in Training and Development, NVQ 4 in Management and NVQ 3 in Business Administration.

Useful websites

CIPD, www.cipd.co.uk/cipd-hr-profession/hr-careers

National Careers Service, https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/humanresourcesofficer.aspx

Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), www.acas.org.uk