HR executives share their experience in human resources

Citation

Sedwill, S. (2010), "HR executives share their experience in human resources", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 9 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2010.37209dab.003

HR executives share their experience in human resources

Article Type: Practitioner profile From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 9, Issue 4

The current economic climate could easily mask the need to plan a long-term human resources strategy, according to Sam Sedwill of medical devices company Coloplast. She says: “We are seeing an increasing number of candidates coming forward – although not always with a commensurate increase in quality.”

“It would be easy to relax, confident that you will continue to be able to attract people as long as the market conditions remain as they are (and they show no sign of changing anytime soon). You could also be confident, in a growing and successful company such as Coloplast, that people who have joined us are unlikely to leave a secure job with us to pursue uncertain opportunities elsewhere.”

Taking such a relaxed view would be a mistake in Sedwill’s view. Coloplast has a longer-term approach and remains committed to recruiting and retaining the best people in what will again become, at some time, a fiercely competitive market for talent.

Geographic recruitment challenges

Coloplast is an international company with its headquarters in Denmark. In the UK, it has found that, in fact, the competition for talent has never really gone away in some parts of the country.

The company finds it relatively easy to recruit staff for its UK head office in Peterborough where it has a high profile, offers an attractive benefit package and is an acknowledged “employer of choice”. It recently had to relocate to new offices that are three times larger than its previous premises to accommodate its growing staff – it now employs three times as many people as it did in 2000. It currently has around 175 people working in the HQ offices and 75 at the nearby distribution centre.

Coloplast also employs a further 80-plus people working in various locations around the country. Even in the depths of the recession the company finds it challenging to secure high caliber home-based field sales staff in locations such as the south east of England where Coloplast is not as well known as in Peterborough.

Getting the benefits right

To help tackle the problem the company recently launched a “Talent Search” scheme, offering existing staff a bonus of £600 if they introduce someone to the company who takes up a job there, followed by a further £600 six months later when the new recruit has successfully completed his or her probation. Sedwill says: “Our existing staff are definitely our best recruiters because they can tell friends and family what it is really like to work here.”

In a further bid to ensure that Coloplast gets the best job seekers, the company has recently extended its already generous terms of employment to give 35 days holiday per year (plus bank holidays) to staff with just two years service or more. “There is a culture of ‘work hard, play hard’ and we want to give people the time to enjoy a proper work life balance”, Sedwill adds.

Coloplast also invests heavily in training and development, recognizing that intangibles such as this can have a major impact on employee motivation and retention. The company has pioneered new developments in e-learning, for example, to help with skills development.

Recognizing successful candidates

“We are proud of the fact that 68 per cent of our current vacancies are filled internally. We’ve seen people move cross functionally, which fosters a broader business understanding among our team and demonstrates our employees’ desire to further their careers within Coloplast”, says Sedwill.

Job applicants, both internal and external, are rigorously assessed with careful interviews and psychological profiling. Coloplast recently completed a major worldwide research exercise to profile its existing top sales performers, giving recruiters a guide to what they should be looking for in people aiming to take up this key role within the business.

Sedwill says: “The research has given us valuable insight into what drives our most successful sales staff, what behaviors they exhibit and how they deal with this challenging but rewarding role. It is early days yet but we are confident that the research will improve our decision making during the recruitment process. The research is also allowing us to improve our induction process.”

Conveying the key messages

Some of those applicants may be graduates as Coloplast is for the first time this year running a graduate recruitment program in the UK, starting with an event in April aimed specifically at attracting those who will be leaving university a few weeks later. One of the key messages that Sedwill and her team will be seeking to deliver to potential recruits is that the company’s specialist healthcare products – for continence, ostomy and wound and skincare – make a real difference to people with intimate healthcare needs.

Sedwill says: “This helps to make Coloplast an attractive employer because our employees understand and care about the positive impact that they can have on people’s lives.”

Sam SedwillHead of Resourcing and Development at Coloplast

About the author

Sam Sedwill is head of resourcing and development at Coloplast. She has held senior HR posts in both public and private sectors. Before joining Coloplast early in 2009 she worked for Peterborough City Council where she was an HR consultant on a job evaluation project affecting 5,000 employees. Prior to that she was responsible for creating and implementing a recruitment strategy for Budget Insurance (now BGL Group). Her earlier career included spells with Coors Brewers (formerly Bass Brewers), Ramada Hotels and Shire Inns. Sam Sedwill can be contacted at: GBSSE@coloplast.com