‘A big part of my job is sacking people’: Life in HR – from bosses having affairs to dealing with Gen Z

If you’ve ever spent your Monday morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you.

Each week in the Money blog, we speak to someone from a different profession to discover what it’s really like. This week, we chat to Caroline Wood, managing director of alphr limited, about life in HR…

Communication is one of the biggest things people complain about… Of course some staff are going to complain about salary, but it’s been clear to me over the years that if an employer doesn’t communicate with their staff properly, this can cause real problems.

A fair proportion of advice I give my clients is about “sacking” people… I typically advise every week on this area. Businesses that have staff that aren’t performing well, for whatever reason, will eventually want to know how to end someone’s employment. Unfortunately, it happens a lot.

But… HR mainly falls into four areas: recruitment, reward, learning and development and employee relations. The first three you can specialise in and are the super positive sides of HR – who doesn’t want to be recruited efficiently, trained well and work for a company that thinks deeply about the way they reward staff?

You get a brilliant insight into people… When you are in the profession long enough, it gives you a brilliant insight into life and, while troubling at times, it is highly interesting and fulfilling.

COVID has changed what employees expect… Before lockdown, employees seemed to resolve their personal issues themselves to an extent, but I have seen a real change in employees having issues at home and wanting their employers to help them solve what they are going through.

Watch out for nights out with colleagues… Even though a night out is outside of normal working hours, if something happens like an argument, a fight or inappropriate behaviour and that event is subsequently brought into the workplace, your employer might have to get involved.

Gen Z… are much more likely to complain, know their rights and they can also use litigious language when communicating with their employers.

Employees are people and people bring the very best and very worst into the workplace… Over the years I have dealt with issues I would never have dreamt I would, including:

• An employee who ended up being a vicious murderer;
• Being on the other end of the phone with a client while they were on the phone with 999 as they had a suicidal employee in work;
• Investigating an employee who stole over £120,000 from her employer;
• Dealing with an employee who faked cancer treatment in order to borrow money from her employer. This was reported to the police and she absconded. However, we later found out she was wanted in Europe for the same offences;
• Miscarriage;
• Parental abuse.

I’ve been very lucky throughout my career… in that I haven’t been asked, and nor would I, to dismiss an employee unjustly.

I’ve cried at work… An employee took his own life – he didn’t turn up at work one day and it was absolutely devastating. He used to bake cakes for his colleagues. Myself and some of my colleagues represented the employer at his funeral and it was heartbreaking; I just dissolved into tears.

I had to advise someone who was having an affair with a colleague… but whose partner also worked at the company. I had to discuss how to manage that situation when their partner found out.

Compensation from tribunals is unlimited… The ultimate risk of a situation not being dealt with properly is a claim is raised at the employment tribunal, where compensation, for example in discrimination cases, is uncapped. In today’s world, where employees know their rights, even just the legal fees of defending a case can run into the thousands.

I trained as a hairdresser… I then served in the RAF until I had my children. I took some time out and when I was ready to work full-time again, I went back to college first and learned how to use a computer and type. From there, I took on admin roles that eventually led to me being asked to “pick up” the HR. From that accidental swerve, I ended up having a near 20-year career that includes employment and my own consultancies – I even have some A-listers on my books now.

The most important skill needed is… being good with people. Clients come to me mostly when they are having problems and so in addition to having the knowledge behind the questions they are asking, there also has to be interactions on my part that are understanding, calming, reassuring and embody “it’s okay, you can trust me, I’ve got you”. I get to help people, business owners who can be in quite the predicament sometimes and between us, we work it out and resolve the issue – when that happens, you can hear the physical relief in their voices and it’s very satisfying.

I work from home… and get to hang out with Bonnie, my dog – she lays beside me when I am working and nudges me every now and then for a treat!

Entry-level roles, say that of an HR administrator, start at about £26-28k… Mid-level roles at HR manager level can be between £35-£55k, and once you get into HR director level roles, that can move you into a six-figure salary.

I’m not someone who wants to retire young… I can see from the older members of my family that actually it’s even more important to keep that structure as you get older. Work is good; it keeps my brain going, I’ll just stop when I want to, but in the meantime, I have a mortgage to pay.