A wider remit, built by following the employment question back to its source.

Mandate

Connect the employment offer with service economics, workforce arrangements and executive decisions across the network.

Outcomes

• Funded twelve relief positions in the two-depot rota review
• Brought the revised EUR 6.1 million labour provision into the overnight-bid decision
• Replaced a phone-only request process with three accountable access routes

Decisions in context

My appointment as CHRO gave me responsibility for the full people function and a place in the executive decisions that shape the employment offer. The rota review required a choice about recurring variability and the cost the company would carry. The overnight bid required the same question before the work had been sold. I learned to present the employment provision alongside the commercial consequence, including an opportunity lost after repricing. The phone-only request pilot was a different lesson because I had approved an access assumption that did not work for everyone. We changed the design and kept the sunk cost visible. I now want our group reporting to rest on arrangements local managers can explain. The current thirty-depot review is intended to resolve gaps in authority before another indicator is added to the central account.

Reason for the move

Current role; interested in another defined group mandate and a first external board contribution.

Mandate

Connect local employment consultation and individual consequences with group operating changes.

Outcomes

• Supported a 114-role depot integration with individual arrangements tracked separately
• Connected consultation questions to the executives able to revise operating plans
• Established clearer distinction between local advice and group policy direction

Decisions in context

The group remit required me to work across countries without assuming that one central process could answer every employment question. I relied on local qualified advisers and people colleagues for the circumstances and requirements of each location. My contribution was to make the business proposal clear and keep the consultation connected to someone who could change it. The 2015 depot integration affected 114 roles but produced different individual outcomes. We accepted a longer implementation period rather than treat agreement on the network direction as the end of the employment work. This appointment strengthened my ability to explain an unresolved choice to executives without disguising it as a communication problem. It also taught me to distinguish a group objective from the specific decisions needed to implement it responsibly in a local workplace.

Reason for the move

Appointed group CHRO in September 2019 after the executive team expanded the role.

Mandate

Make depot employment requirements and their costs visible in operating and commercial planning.

Outcomes

• Reconciled variable-pay records across 1,400 employees
• Secured EUR 184,000 corrections through specialist review
• Changed the explanation and ownership of variable payroll inputs

Decisions in context

I joined Valserenne because the role placed employment assumptions closer to the operating plan. The company needed more than a consolidated headcount view. It needed to understand where demand, available capability and local working arrangements did not fit. I worked with operations and finance on those questions while keeping pricing and transport decisions with their respective owners. The 2010 payroll reconciliation drew on my earlier experience but required a broader mandate to connect several depots and central specialists. We corrected the record and improved the explanation of variable entries, then examined what the later fall in queries actually meant. That work made me more precise about the difference between a correction, a process measure and a wider employee outcome. The group role offered an opportunity to apply that discipline to larger changes.

Reason for the move

Moved to group employee-relations leadership to connect planning with wider organisational change.

Mandate

Manage local personnel services and make the employment consequences of depot changes understandable.

Outcomes

• Established a named route for unresolved shift and pay queries
• Brought employee circumstances into proposed roster changes
• Supported consultation and supervisor communication during local operating changes

Decisions in context

Moving into a depot role changed the evidence available to me. I could hear how a revised start time or allowance affected the person receiving it, rather than see only the input that eventually reached payroll. I led seven colleagues and worked with supervisors under the depot general manager. The role did not give me authority over customer commitments, but it allowed me to explain when an operating choice depended on an employment assumption that had not been considered. I learned to distinguish the need for a clear answer from the expectation that every employee would welcome it. Consultation was useful when the people involved understood what could still change and who could decide. I moved to Valserenne to work on those dependencies across a larger operating plan rather than only at one location.

Reason for the move

Joined Valserenne for a country-level labour-planning responsibility.

Mandate

Check variable payroll inputs and trace discrepancies to the underlying depot record.

Outcomes

• Reconciled variable entries with supervisors and central records
• Documented repeated sources of disagreement for managerial review
• Helped employees understand calculations after the input was established

Decisions in context

I began inJune 1990 after completing my degree the previous year. The period between study and this appointment was spent seeking work and preparing for an administrative career. Payroll offered a close view of how a company records its obligations. I checked variable inputs and helped investigate differences, without authority to set a route, approve a shift or change an employment term. Some discrepancies were calculation errors; others reflected a working arrangement that had not been recorded consistently. I learned to ask what had been agreed before explaining what had been paid. That habit made the work more useful and exposed the limits of a purely central view. The move into depot personnel was a deliberate choice to understand the operating conversations that created the entries I had been checking.

Reason for the move

Moved into depot personnel management to work closer to the operating decisions behind payroll.