The Role of a Chief People Officer in Today’s Business Landscape

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In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, the role of a Chief People Officer, is more important than ever. The Chief People Officer (CPO) is a key executive who is responsible for managing a company’s most valuable asset – its people. In this article, we’ll explore the role of a CPO and why it’s essential for businesses to have one.

Who is a Chief People Officer?

A Chief People Officer is a senior executive who is responsible for developing and executing HR strategies that support the overall business objectives. The role of a CPO has evolved significantly over the years, from being a traditional HR head to a strategic business partner who helps drive organisational success. The CPO works closely with the CEO and executive team to align HR policies with the company’s vision and mission.

What are the responsibilities of a Chief People Officer?

The role of a Chief People Officer is wide-ranging and varied, depending on the company’s size and industry. Here are some of the key responsibilities of a CPO:

Developing HR strategies that align with the company’s goals and objectives.

Creating a culture of innovation and collaboration that supports employee engagement and retention.

Identifying and addressing talent gaps within the organisation.

Developing and implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Managing employee compensation and benefits programs.

Developing and delivering training programs that support employee development and growth.

Ensuring compliance with all HR-related laws and regulations.

Why is a Chief People Officer important?

Having a CPO is critical for any business that wants to attract and retain top talent. The role of a Chief People Officer can help create a workplace culture that supports employee engagement, which can lead to higher productivity, lower turnover rates, and increased profitability. A CPO can also help companies navigate the complex landscape of HR regulations and compliance issues, ensuring that the organisation stays in line with all applicable laws and regulations.

How can we help to get this right?

As an executive search business specialising in HR recruitment, we use various tools and strategies to differentiate between an average and a highly talented Chief People Officer (CPO).

From an executive search perspective, managing the process of differentiating between an average and a highly talented CPO involves a structured and rigorous approach. This includes identifying the key competencies and experience required for the role, developing a job description that accurately reflects these requirements, identifying a diverse pool of candidates, and using a range of assessment tools and techniques to evaluate each candidate’s suitability for the role.

By following a well-structured process, we can help our clients identify the best candidate for the role and ensure that they make the right hiring decision.

Industry expertise: Our Managing Director James Cumming has worked in senior HR appointments for over 15 years. We have in-depth knowledge of the HR industry and the latest HR trends and best practices. We can use this expertise to assess a candidate’s knowledge of the HR landscape, their ability to innovate and adapt to change, and their understanding of how HR can contribute to overall business success.

Behavioral interviewing: One of the most effective ways to assess a CPO’s skills and competencies is through behavioral interviewing. This technique involves asking candidates to provide specific examples of how they’ve handled past HR-related challenges, such as talent management, culture development, and compliance issues. By digging deep into a candidate’s past experiences, we can gain a better understanding of their problem-solving skills, leadership style, and strategic thinking abilities.

Assessment tools: We also use a range of assessment tools to evaluate a CPO’s competencies, personality traits, and work style. These tools can include psychometric tests, cognitive ability tests, and personality assessments. By analysing the results of these tests, we can gain a more objective view of a candidate’s potential fit for a role.

Reference checking: Another critical tool we use to differentiate between an average and a highly talented CPO is reference checking. We reach out to the candidate’s former bosses, colleagues, and subordinates to gain insight into their work ethic, management style, and overall performance. Reference checking can provide a more comprehensive view of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses and help us determine if they would be a good fit for our client’s organisation.

Our focus on long-term partnerships

At re:find we believe that recruitment is not a one-off transaction but rather a long-term partnership. We aim to build long-term relationships with our clients, providing ongoing support and advice to help them find and retain the best talent for their organisation.

We understand that every organisation is unique and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to recruitment. That’s why we offer bespoke recruitment solutions that are tailored to meet the specific needs of each client. Whether you need help with a single hire or a full recruitment campaign, we can help.

We are committed to providing our clients with the highest quality service. We take the time to understand your organization’s culture and values, as well as the specific skills and experience needed for each role.

For more information please get in contact with our Managing Director, James Cumming.

How to increase commercial awareness

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Over the last few years, you may have noticed more companies are advertising for commercial awareness when hiring prospective new employees.

I can tell you from personal experience, that lack of commercial awareness is one of the key reasons that good candidates are rejected at interview stage. “They were really great, but just lacked the commercial edge we were looking for.”


So what exactly is commercial awareness and knowledge, and is it something that you can learn?

First of all, yes, anyone can learn commercial awareness and knowledge. It does, however, take hard work and dedication to become good at it. It should be noted that commercial knowledge isn’t the same as general knowledge.

Commercial knowledge refers to a sound understanding of what a business does, how it makes its money, the market in which it operates and how you and your role can fit into it. Often this means considering things such as, how you can increase revenue or market share, customer service levels, improved productivity levels, a better and more efficient team environment, great levels of quality assurance, less waste – I think you get my drift here!


If you want to actively increase your commercial knowledge you can consider these top tips to help you get it right:

  • You must understand what a business does and have a good understanding of its competitor environment.
  • Do your research and look at their online presence e.g. Glassdoor, LinkedIn groups, Twitter, Feefo. These can give indicators of customer service levels and employee satisfaction rates.
  • Look out for important events. Are there any future projects a company is about to begin working on? What have they done in the past?
  • Be aware of how economics can affect that business.
  • Think about the challenges that a business could be facing and formulate ideas on how you can help solve them.
  • If you’re at an interview, a great way to demonstrate your commercial knowledge is to have a couple of ready-made questions prepared.

There is no quick fix for getting commercial awareness but by putting the effort in, potential employers will give you kudos for trying, even if you don’t get it 100% right! Good luck.


James Cumming is our MD, Interim and Transformation Search specialist. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Why do executive search consultants always knock internal recruiters out of the park?

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Why do executive search consultants always knock internal recruiters out of the park? There’s one very simple answer: they have more time and resource. There is no way that an internal recruiter can do the work an exec consultant can on a role.

If you are interested in learning more about the executive search industry you should check out our guide to executive search.

Internal recruitment

Internal recruitment can be tough! Most internal recruiters will be running around 25-50 requisitions at any one time. They also do a lot of work around direct sourcing initiatives, talent strategy and hiring metrics. If that wasn’t enough, they might also manage a team and must attend a number of internal meetings.

If you are running 25 searches and using a number of channels to source – even with the help of technology – you are going to be very busy. Also, these jobs will likely be across a number of different job categories and locations, making it more challenging. There isn’t the option to walk away and decide to work with someone else either – they have to fill them all!

Executive Search

As an executive search consultant, I don’t normally run more than 3 roles at once. Plus, we have an internal resourcer to help us in finding those hard to find candidates. I typically spend at least 3 weeks doing research, I’ll then speak to 100+ people for an assignment, meeting with at least 8 of them. There is no way an internal recruiter can justify spending this amount of time on just one assignment.

Many internal recruiters will be much better recruiters than I am, but the one thing that I bet they don’t have is time to focus on every requisition they work on. With what little time they do have, it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to do the same amount of work on one vacancy, as it just wouldn’t make commercial sense for them to do that.

Partnership

That’s why the best internal recruiters know the value of having trusted executive search consultants work with them. This allows the internal recruiter to focus on the roles that they can fill quickly and successfully. This Increases candidate experience, reducing time to hire and reducing agency spend.

Our clients often come to us with challenging briefs. Whether they’re not fully defined, are new into the organisation, are confidential or require a discreet search. We can offer them a robust system that enables us to find the best in the market, whilst being approachable and easy to work with.

You can download our eBook – 7 steps to executive search here.

If you would like to find out more about re:find and how we can support you and your business then please get in touch.

James Cumming is our MD, Interim and Transformation Search specialist. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Wellbeing in the workplace

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Wellbeing in the workplace is fast becoming just as important, if not more so, than salary or career progression. One issue at the forefront of this is mental health in the workplace. We are all aware of the importance of wellbeing, but could we be doing more?


Surveys over recent years have shown the true impact of poor mental health:

  • 1 in 6.8 people experience mental health problems in the workplace (14.7%) 
  • Evidence suggests that 12.7% of all sickness absence days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions.
  • Deloitte says poor mental health in the workplace is equivalent to almost 2% of UK GDP (in 2016).
  • 89% of workers with mental health problems report an impact on their working life.
  • Just 13% of employees would be comfortable talking about mental illness at work.
  • Last year, poor employee mental health cost UK employers £42bn.
  • The return on investment of workplace mental health interventions is overwhelmingly positive, with an average ROI of 4:1.

Our Thursday Brunch event on ‘Mental health strategies for a crazy world!’ looking at the stats above and speaking to our guests about what we can do to help our own mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

We found that: 

  • Kindness and wellbeing have a significant impact on culture and the engagement of colleagues.
  • Our brain is our most powerful tool, yet we are not taught how we can manage it to get the best out of it. This needs to change. 
  • The fear of failure and constantly striving for perfection are massive contributors to poor mental health – but is in our control if we are aware of it.

So what can employers do to support an employee with their mental health and wellbeing?

Discuss
Ensure that you create an environment that is open, that encourages staff to discuss their challenges and problems. Have a culture of openness that allows you to go beyond a person’s workload, instead, it delves deeper into their role responsibilities and the opportunities that they would like to see appear. We know that 13% of employers would feel comfortable talking about their mental health and that percentage needs to be much higher!

Educate
Know what to do if a mental health problem arises within your workplace, such as where to direct the employees if they require specialist help. Also, educate yourself and staff on various mental health problems, so you can see the trigger. Always remember to be sensitive.

Be clear
The groundwork can be set from the minute a new recruit starts, just by letting them know that if any problem arises, big or small, that they can discuss it. It doesn’t take much to make an employee feel supported or to create a culture of openness, especially if it means it decreases the chances of mental health problems in the workplace. You could create a wellbeing policy with relevant support links and contact details, which is always available to employees. 

We have recently become a ‘Mindful Employer’ – we recognise that in the UK, people experiencing mental ill-health continue to report stigma and discrimination at work. Having signed the ‘Charter for Employers Positive about Mental Health’, we are committed to creating a supportive and open culture, where colleagues feel able to talk about mental health confidently, and aspire to appropriately support the mental wellbeing of all staff.


As an employer, we have made an on-going commitment to:

  • Provide non-judgemental and proactive support to staff experiencing mental ill-health.
  • Not make assumptions about a person with a mental health condition and their ability to work.
  • Be positive and enabling all employees and job applicants with a mental health condition.
  • Support line managers in managing mental health in the workplace.
  • Ensure we are fair in the recruitment of new staff in accordance with the Equality Act (2010).
  • Make it clear that people who have experienced mental ill-health will not be discriminated against, and that disclosure of a mental health problem will enable both the employee and employer to assess and provide the right level of support or adjustment.

 It’s so important to make sure you have a balance between your work and home life – we’re big advocates of it here.

If you’re struggling with your mental health at work or in general – mental health charity MIND can offer lots of help and support. Here are tips for staying well at work. 


If you would like to find out more about re:find and how we can support you and your business then please get in touch.

James Cumming is our MD, Interim and Transformation Search specialist. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

How to stand out from the crowd with a commercial and impactful CV

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So, how do you stand out from the crowd with a commercial and impactful CV? Given there are over 400 applicants to each job advertised, I wanted to rehash one of my old blogs to give some updated tips…

There are lots of differing opinions out there on how to write a CV. It’s up to you to make your own mind up on what works for the role you are applying for – but the thing is, you need to have impact and quickly.

Writing a killer CV is all about selling your experience better than everyone else who sits in that pile on the recruiter or hiring managers desk! How do you expect to differentiate between yourself and all the other applicants who have all likely done a similar role to you?

The past 5 years of experience are typically the most relevant, this is the experience that employers will want to discuss and should form the bulk of the CV:

Focus on outcomes rather than inputs

Every project manager manages key stakeholders, but a great project manager influences them to ensure delivery of the project on time and within budget.

Great people make a difference in their role

Yes, businesses hire people to do a job, but what gives you the edge? Having an impactful CV is important. Think through what have you done in past roles that has added value? Use business metrics to quantify the impact and to demonstrate your commercial understanding.

Tailor your CV for the role

Make sure you have read the job description for the role you’re applying for and highlight relevant areas of your experience that match this (yes this is basic stuff, but it often gets missed). You can do this in a cover letter (I don’t think many people read them these days) so my advice is to ensure you put it in the CV (it is okay to have more than one CV that focuses on different aspects of your experience).

Get someone senior to critique your CV

Before you send it anywhere, get someone more senior than you to read your CV, would they hire you based upon it? Make sure you allow them to be critical. If not, why not? What’s missing?

A CV is not a job description

Don’t just copy and paste it in there, people can tell!

Do not write recruitment clichés

No one likes cliches so leave them out of your personal statement i.e. team player/can multitask.

Be conscious of the length of your CV

2 pages is a myth but any longer than 4 pages is a bit much… if you’ve only been working for a few years it doesn’t need to be very long (remember less is often more) and if you’re an interim with multiple contracts or have a long career history – limit yourself to the past 5 years (and summarise the rest in one-liners).

Finally, get yourself out there

There is no point writing a killer CV if no one’s going to see it. A lot of the best jobs on the market aren’t advertised, ensure you are tapping up your network and people you ahev worked with previously (LinkedIn) is an awesome non-intrusive tool for this)

To discuss further or to get help with your impactful CV you can email me on James@refind.co.uk.

You can view more about James Cumming our change and business transformation specialist here.

Employee onboarding – warm welcome or completely clueless?

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We know how important onboarding is for our candidates. The wrong experience can have a hugely detrimental effect on a new starter. The process ensures new employees receive all relevant information and understand how the company works and what is expected of them. This information allows them to transition from a new joiner to a productive team member, and so is a vital process within any organisation. 

So how does it change in a fully remote working world?

Really, it shouldn’t affect the fundamentals:

  • New equipment
  • Communication
  • 121s
  • Introduction to the team
  • Training and coaching

But it does mean being organised and ensuring that everything is prepared way ahead of the new team member starting. Equipment needs to be ordered and sent to their home address, an introduction to the business, the team and regular 121s need to be diarised and the induction needs to be planned out and communicated clearly.

It’s not just about the new starter

It’s not just about the new joiner either, your onboarding process can affect existing team members who will register the way a new employee is treated.

Onboarding begins before the new team member starts – both internally and externally. Calling the new employee is clearly important to let them know the basics, but also letting the existing team members know what is happening.

Returning to work onboarding

My wife, Gemma, wrote a blog about onboarding, with a difference – the importance of onboarding returning maternity leavers. “Yes, they’ve always been employed and aren’t “new’, but when I returned to work after 10 months out, a lot had changed, and I mean a lot. It was almost like returning to a new business. This, coupled with the fear of returning to work, was surely a recipe for disaster.”

Some key points are addressed about being introduced back into the company/role after a substantial period away, including new technology, new faces and new structure. You can read the full blog here.

In any capacity, onboarding is important to your business – it makes for happy employees and better business efficiency, as it gets employees up to speed quickly.

To have a chat about your experiences with onboarding or returning to work you can contact me on carl@refind.co.uk.

You can view more about Carl Hinett our Executive search of HR professional’s specialist here.

So, what’s with all the cow puns?

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So what the hell do cows (and cow puns!) have to do with recruitment? I often get asked what the deal is with re:find and cows – you may have been wanting to ask yourself if you’ve ever visited our website.

Well, unbeknown to most people, my family are Scottish dairy farmers! My family continue to run a few farms up on the West Coast. So, you could say it’s in the blood. But even though working in recruitment is a far cry from the fields of Scotland, I’ve never fully left behind my admiration for these fantastic animals.

Even my favourite artist is cow-themed…a lady called Caroline Shotton, you can check out her work here.

So, hopefully, that explains all the cows.

To discuss anything recruitment or cow-related you can email me at James@refind.co.uk.

James Cumming is our MD, Interim and Transformation Search specialist. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Executive search – ‘worst-case’ interview scenario?

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Everyone gets nervous before an important meeting or interview. It doesn’t matter how much you may have prepared, there are some common intrusive thoughts that always manage to worm their way into your head the night before and cause you to think about possible escape routes should the worst happen. Through our executive search experience, we can help.

But worry not, you don’t need a getaway car parked around the corner to survive an awkward interview. There are tried and tested things that you can do to overcome these embarrassing moments. And who knows, if you flip the situation successfully it could work in your favour and become an example of how you have managed uncomfortable situations.

The person that you are meeting isn’t focused on you

If you notice that the other person is frantically typing on their laptop and hasn’t said in advanced that they may be taking notes or replying to a work email, then your brain may go into overdrive and wonder whether they are mind-numbingly bored in your presence.

Read the situation and your audience, and if you’re still not confident that you’ve got their attention then politely asking questions to advance the conversation could resolve any worries that you may have. If they need to rearrange to a more appropriate time, then this gives them chance to do so

Being too early can be just as awkward as being too late

When travelling to an interview you can sometimes misjudge the traffic and end up an hour early…. It’s better than being late and although tempting, it might not be the time to show them how keen you are!

The chances are that whoever you are meeting is busy and won’t be sat waiting around for you an hour before (or after) your scheduled appointment, so if you know that you’re going to be too early go and grab a latte and steady your nerves. 15 minutes is plenty early enough to get there.

You forgot your presentation or interview materials

This problem can be easily resolved by planning properly. Try not to rely too heavily on paper materials, which can be misplaced or lost. Instead, ensure that you have an offline copy of your work ready and waiting on your laptop that you will be able to bring up regardless of the wifi situation.

And if your laptop dies, make sure that you’ve sent an email to yourself with all of the key documents on, so you can at least access them on your phone as a last resort. After your meeting, ask the person that you’ve been with if they would like you to email over a copy of any document that you’ve just used so they will be able to access them when reviewing your meeting.

Everybody has at least one awkward interview story, and how you deal with any embarrassment can say a lot about you and how successfully you manage situations. Also, a little bit of humour can go a long way, and we can all be united in our common awkwardness.

To have a chat about your interview contact me at carl@refind.co.uk.

Carl Hinett is our Director & Executive Search Specialist. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch

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10 ways HR must change today to be effective tomorrow

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Changing HR

For this instalment of ‘Insiders Story’ Peter Cablis from HR consultancy firm Evolving HR, shared his thoughts with me on ways that HR can change to be more effective in the future.

Over the last few years, the seductive Ulrich Business Partnering and Shared Services model has become the dominant HR force in most business enterprises. Meanwhile, the industry has gone through major shifts with up-sizing, down-sizing and right-sizing. Organisations now reside in a constant and rapid state of flux; when one change project ends another must begin. Change is the new normal.

‘Club class’ HR services

Throw into the mix the fact that executives who have become used to highly tailored products and services are demanding ‘club class’ treatment from HR too. On top of this, employees – who have been brought up in a society of instant gratification, limitless choice and cloud-based access to almost everything – now expect a far more gratifying HR service. They demand better engagement, relevant practices and elements of customisation. An apathetic, tired response is simply not an option.

HR must adapt or it will become irrelevant to its user base

Yet, HR in many organisations is buckling from the sheer volume of work, the pace of change and the demands to respond ever quicker. Insular, lack of flexibility & innovation, and slow responding HR departments that apply ‘one size fits all’ are becoming increasingly outdated and irrelevant.

So where does this leave the future of HR? Can HR simply carry on doing what it’s doing, or is there a fundamental shift required in thinking and working practices? If HR doesn’t adapt it could become increasingly irrelevant to its user base.

Which way is up?

We’ve seen several different themes and models of HR delivery emerging across different sectors and organisations that are leading HR upwards out of the current disorientation:

  • HR needs to remain strategic, but the strategy needs to be flexible, to quickly change to be in line with organisational and business unit specific changes.
  • HR still needs to deliver consistent high quality, cost-effective back office support, but with greater breadth of service.
  • HR needs to develop a reputation for providing invaluable, timely and highly actionable data driven insights to the business which enhance business decision-making.
  • Adding value by managing more of the outsourced suppliers to their organisations, to improve the quality and breadth of service, whilst reducing the cost of service.
  • Delivery of a more customised service to different users across the organisation.
  • Cross functional, rapid-reaction taskforces made up from people from across the business, including HR. Suited to fast paced, constantly changing organisations.
  • Internal HR consulting model made up of experts adopting a consultative style to focus on specific business issues and provides professional advice. Best suited changing organisations with a lot of project work.
  • A decentralised HR model that provides services to autonomous businesses with very different needs. This would include decentralising BP’s and centre’s of excellence but also, in many cases, transactional work.
  • A smaller HR function, but one which still retains a shared service element, small corporate function with specialists and a small number of localised experts.

Thank you to Peter from Evolving HR for his thoughts on making HR more effective.


James Cumming is our MD and leads our Interim Transformation practice. If you’ve got a hard-to-fill role and need some help, get in touch. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

If you would like to find out more about re:find and how we can support you and your business, then please get in touch.

Does internal customer service affect your external customer experience?

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Does internal customer service affect your
external customer experience ?

The experience that your employees have, directly impacts the service and experience your customers receive.

 A pretty strong statement, but one that I absolutely agree with.

This week, Lynsey Kitching and I explored how the experience your employees get from their internal functions can directly relate to the experience your external customers get from your business.

The first thing to note that although I talk about shared services in this blog, the statement relates to ANY internal function within your business and the fact of the matter is that almost any role within an organisation can be linked back to the customer in some way.

Well the scorecard is green so we must be doing fine!

Lynsey, Owner of Lynsey J Kitching consultancy, spent many years working with National Grid. During this time, she headed up a project to improve service quality within their shared service function.

People often use scorecards as a measure of success within shared services. But just because your scorecards are green, doesn’t mean your customers are happy with the service they are receiving. How are you getting feedback?

Lynsey used NPS (net promoter scores) to get internal and external customer feedback and began looking at their low scores/detractors and found there was a direct correlation between feedback and performance on both internal and external NPS.

”The initial NPS scores and supporting feedback from customers was the shared services team were not accessible, our customers didn’t know what we did, email dot boxes didn’t work, and our processes weren’t transparent. That led us to develop our service proposition…to be responsive, reliable and easy to deal with. And act straight away – implement a service management tool to remove dot boxes, set up a pop-up help desk at our largest colleague office and work on improving our first identified colleague journey – how to buy goods or services. In the first 12 months the NPS score improved by 22 points.”

Story time

One of the biggest detractors on Lynsey’s NPS for external customers was a lack of consistency/continuity with people when solving an issue.

An example of how shared services could affect this score.

Your payroll administrator processes the wrong payroll data for your account manager. Your account manager gets paid incorrectly. When he tries to speak with shared services, he gets passed from one person to another with nobody really taking accountability for the error. Account manager becomes disengaged and starts job hunting and leaves his role. Your customer calls up to speak to their account manager only to find they are no longer there. Said customer is on their fifth account manager in 2 years. They are sick of having to re-introduce themselves to someone new and spend time getting them up to speed. Your customer leaves and goes to another provider.

Now I appreciate this is a pretty drastic scenario. But it happens.

‘Every role in shared services can be connected back to the customer and, as a result of this, every role within shared services is hugely important’.

Your Payroll administrator thinks they are the lowest part of the value chain. How can what they do affect your customers, when they don’t even speak to them?

And there lies your problem. Your shared services team doesn’t understand their purpose and they don’t feel empowered to deliver service to the best of their ability.

The leadership role is to set the climate and enable their teams to look at the bigger picture and how their role has an impact.

You need to move from talking in process and transaction terms, to talking about colleague journeys and experience – from setting strategic objectives to individual performance management. Empower your colleagues to step away from process when needed to improve experience (obvs balancing any controls/regulations).

So, there you have it! How internal customer experience can affect external customer service.

If anyone has undertaken a similar project, both Lynsey and I would be really interested to see any hard data relating to customer service and employee experience!

If you would like to speak with Lynsey about her consultancy services, get in touch and we will connect you, or you can catch her on LinkedIn.

For all things HR Shared Services, change and transformation and if you would like to feature in our ‘Insiders Story’ blog, email me on kate@refind.co.uk.

You can view more about Kate Wass our HR Shared Services specialist here.

Why won’t top performing shared service professionals join your business? And what to do about it. Download our free eBook here.