TALK HR UK S2 Episode 19 🎧 Amelia Dowty @ WTW, The Challenges of Being a Transformative TA leader 🎧

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Talk HR UK. This is season 2, episode 19 unbelievably so. We started this in lockdown. Um, it's like watching a child grow up. It's lovely to have come this far. Uh, today we're very fortunate to have some time with Amelia Doughty.

Speaker A: Good.

Speaker B: Uh, morning Amelia. How are you?

Speaker A: Hi. I'm good, thanks, Simon. How are you?

Speaker B: I'm well, I'm well, It's uh, we're halfway through the week, which is always a comfortable place. A more comfortable place than yesterday. Um, Amelia is, for those of you that don't know, the talent Acquisition Director, uh, for the UK and Ireland at Willis Towers. Watson. Um, Amelia's career has taken her, uh, through some other really well known professional services and consultancies like JLL Linklators, JP Morgan. And we, we connected on this before the festive break, didn't we, about the challenges of being a transformative talent acquisition leader. And it was particularly led by what was a very tough market for ta professionals in 2024. So that's what this is really aimed. Those are the people this is aimed at, is talent acquisition professionals who are perhaps looking for that next career step up, or indeed experienced TA leaders who are maybe looking to get back into the market after a tough time last year. So, um, straight in. Thank you for joining. You've had a fascinating career, Amelia. You've transitioned from agency recruitment to now leading uk, uh, and Ireland recruitment for a well known blue chip wtw. Could you share a little bit first of all about the journey and the key factors that you think shaped your career path?

Speaker A: Sure. Um, and this is always a nice thing to talk about, isn't it? Because I should really know a lot about my own career journey. Um, so, yeah, I started in agency recruitment and not as a consultant but more as a kind of candidate facing, um, outward facing, ah, role on the graduate side, um, which I didn't plan to do, but I ended up there. And um, it resonated with me because as a recent grad myself at the time, I, you know, I found like, I had shared experience with the people and the candidates I was talking to and it felt very comfortable and I really enjoyed it. You know, it was a lot of going out on the road and doing lots of university events and stuff. So it was really fun and I, it took me on a 15 year or so, um, journey through early careers. And so outside of agency, I did do a little bit of, um, consultancy work as well in agency space and decided that the sales side was not really for me. But it's not for everyone. It's not, is it? Yeah. You're doing great.

Speaker B: Thank you. Getting the hang of it now?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, and so yeah, then I moved through early careers teams in house for quite some time in the legal sector and in professional services and banking and um, I loved it. It was loads of fun and um, I, it taught me a lot about recruiting on the ground and you know it's very um, it's very different to experience hire but I really enjoyed the fact that it was programmatic and it played a lot to my strengths and my experience. But um, after having my first child I decided I didn't want to be on the road so much and I decided to step into an in house role and that was um, when I moved over at JLL to lead the experience high team in the UK and Ireland. Um, and I found myself amidst kind of a big transformation project for the first time where we were going through lots of transitioning um, into rather than kind of line of business, uh, country teams, into line of business teams across the region. And it took me on a journey then into my last role at JLL where I was looking after um, operations from the EMEA side, running through basically repositioning our offering to the business in terms of how we deliver recruiting in the region and setting up all sorts of interesting um, kind of propositions to help us factor in what we're doing there. And um, moving on the operations side really gave me a kind of inward looking view of what a talent acquisition team should look like ideally and how it can best serve the business. So it has been interesting. I've done some really cool stuff um, and seem to kind of find myself in transformation after transformation and I've learned so much and certainly in the last kind of five, six years in doing, you know, working in big organizations, going through lots of change. So yeah, it has been, I've been very fortunate and been fortunate to be trusted with a lot of that responsibility as well.

Speaker B: Well, I think, I mean clearly you're, you've, there's a lot of ascension within your career and you can see um, it's not just a straight line, is it? You, you, there are bumps in the road there, there is change and it's great that you've seen so many different as effects of ta, you know, internally and externally. I think it helps form that broad picture which has obviously brought you to where you are. So I want to I suppose jump on early careers a little because it's an area I've never really been wildly involved with. And it's very. It's back on trend in a big way really, isn't it? Early careers seems to be at the forefront. I mean any TA roles we handle now, that's a really key thread for any professional we're finding. So was there. You mentioned it was almost by accident. Was there anything that dragged you into that and did it have an impact on how you, how you operate now really as a broader TA leader?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think so. It's definitely helped me shape how I look at an overall kind of hiring strategy because you can't ever eliminate the early career side of things. I do find that um, my role these days is probably more commercially focused and I'm so much more embedded in the overall people strategy of an organization in our hiring plan. But early careers is always an important part of it. I feel as though um, in terms of how it's shaped where I've got to now, there's a lot of the understanding about, you know, pipelining talent and kind of thinking about the future of your organization and what that's going to lead to, you know, in terms of overall demand and future skills requirements. And that sort of helps me understand a little bit about where you're headed. So I think it has um, and um, you know, in my role at the moment I continue to work really closely with our early careers team and we have lots of, of um, really good joint ventures and collaborations going on to try to you know, appeal to a broader market and try to work with um, with them alongside my uh, boss Claire, who you know as well has just taken on our global early careers role, um, leading uh, early careers for WTW as well. So actually our partnership's going to be really nice to continue through this year where she. This is not a space she's worked in in the past either. So our joint experience is really nice to be able to proposition our early careers and experience higher approach through emea. Certainly. I think you know from a. I always found that I didn't really resonate with this at the time or appreciate fully how early careers can feel quite siloed and you feel you're. And absolutely there's so much to it in terms of the, the range of activities that you get involved with of early careers. But it is programmatic and it feels a bit siloed sometimes outside of what the business is operating on from a recruitment perspective. On the other side of experience hire, uh, and uh, like I said, it feels more commercial on the, on the experience higher side. But it doesn't have to be um, in that you know there's so much um, in the early careers landscape at the moment that's transforming, transforming and thinking about kind of solicitor apprenticeships for example. You know they're not just early careers programs. They're seeing people through all the way to you know, really expand experience, you know, five, seven year um, years out of education and actually transforming them into what their future prospects are going to be like. It really feeds into the experience hire strategy um, all the way through.

Speaker B: Excellent. No, you're right and as you say it's, it's great that it feels less siloed now. It feels far. You know every TA leader is compelled I think to become you know, more adept in the strategy uh, for this area. So um, right, diving into the this is your life career moment then. So you've undoubtedly faced some really big challenges. Um, it'd be great to hear more about those, how you've managed them, what strategies you personally develop to overcome obstacles in your career. Um, and that's you know, personally as well as professionally.

Speaker A: Gosh. Um, well if I think about some recent events at wtw, um, Claire and I have talked a bit about this in some other forums as well. Um, we went through a big transformation last year um, where we um, basically did a um, a project to offshore some of our recruitment delivery to our Mumbai um hub which um, was a huge project and a lot of hard work. And I think you know, whenever you're dealing with something like that the personal impact is profound because you're you know, transforming the lives of the people that you work with as well as the, the functions, delivery capability. Of course, um, it was pretty tough. Um, we have talked about that in other forums as I said. But um, I think in terms of the learnings from it, you know we went through um, so much change in terms of trying to get the business on board and you know make it a great experience for everybody involved. By the time that we, we concluded and you know still a journey, we're still working through it. I think from our perspective I certainly realized that you don't have to shoulder uh, everything on your own and you know we were really able to be supported effectively by so many other collaborators in the business to help us kind of help this, enable this change. I'm thinking about our operations team to kind of support with technology enhancements and process reviews and all that kind of stuff to make sure that all of the you know, the behind the scenes work um, is is effective. Um, and you know, I think that getting the right people on the other side of the change is hugely beneficial and trying to bring people on a journey, um, and um, it is difficult at the time, but trying to keep focused on the end goal was really how we managed to kind of keep every step of the project moving forwards. And I think, you know, uh, many, many times it's so important for us to. I know I found that I needed to step back from, from the detail often to just kind of take a, uh, broader, bigger picture view, to be able to just think, okay, well we're moving forward. It doesn't feel like it all the time. It's painful, it's difficult, it feels personal, even though a lot of it isn't. Um, but it is undoubtedly challenging. I think I found that over the past year or so I've really personally learned more strategies kind of outside work to try to deal with some of those things. So, um, I started getting way more into my fitness and um, kind of personally, um, setting myself goals outside of work to achieve, um, with that kind of stuff. I joined a choir. I joined a choir.

Speaker B: Wow. That's fair. I'm envious because I love, I love a sing in the, you know, in the shower kind of thing. That sounds fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, I've always loved karaoke, but, um, this is, uh, a bit more serious. But, uh, I think, you know, having some stuff outside of work has just really helped me kind of focus and then just, you know, maintain uh, that ability to keep driving forwards when you're actually at the desk. And I think as well, you know, in the grand scheme of things, when you're thinking about what project, when you're in the midst of a project, like a transformation, it, you know, it feels like every day can be a struggle sometimes and you're not making any headway. But I think, you know, some of the, um, some of the kind of key things I was trying to use to keep myself motivated were just kind of like, well, actually this feels awful at the time, or it can feel really challenging at the time. But understanding that at the end of a particular project, imagine, you know, the kind of thinking about the sense of achievement that you've kind of gone through to get to that particular end point, but also thinking about what a great opportunity it is to go through such a big, a big project and be able to think that that level of achievement has been, you know, however successful it might have been or however whatever challenges you face. There's a huge kind of, uh, Successful outcome and what a great learning experience. And I kind of say this to my team as well. Think about not necessarily, you know, what we're losing or you know, what, um, you know, what difficulties are in place at the moment, but what the opportunities it's going to bring. Because it always does bring opportunity. And I try to focus on all of those sorts of positives as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, fantastic. You're right. I mean the learning can be exponential and, but also almost subconscious when you're going through that degree of change, isn't it? It's only when you, as you say, you take a moment to stop and look back and think, oh, and I, half the time I always think it's um, looking at all the things I wish I hadn't done. No, I did that wrong. Didn't do a good job of that. And those themselves are wonderful learning moments. As long as everyone's safe.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I've learned so much just about as well thinking about the, the well being of my team, um, in all of this as well. It's been so important and um, one of our key um, objectives for our recruitment function globally this year. We've got a number of different strands that are going to have projects associated with them, but one of them is about kind of recruiter well being and um, focusing on our, not just our well being from a personal perspective, but how then we bring that to work and how we're thinking about what our own development is and what upskilling requirements we might have and how to try to broaden everybody's overall capability and future proof ourselves in this current market and world of AI, um, and making sure that we've all got the right skills to go forward into the future, to continue to be adding value.

Speaker B: Definitely, definitely. And obviously as a group you've got the chance to form a wtw, uh, kind of choir for recfest. Perhaps this year. I'd love to see that.

Speaker A: Oh my God, that is incredible. What a great idea.

Speaker B: What a great idea. Yeah, yeah, I'm sort of baritone if you need third parties.

Speaker A: Anyway, we always need more men.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm in. I mean, um. Right, well, staying with the tough stuff, I suppose. Redundancy, you know, which obviously I imagine you've been on both sides of the fence, as many have. Um, it's a very difficult experience for people, especially in recruitment where the stakes do feel really high. Um, you've been through it yourself, I understand. How, how do you, how, how did you cope with it personally? And what advice would you give to the people who are in that, those circumstances now in this difficult market.

Speaker A: Yeah, I did go through it, um, it was about two years ago now just for joined wtw. And of course, you know, there's so many people in that situation in our industry at the moment. It is really tough. And um, I guess I, um, I focused on, you know, really trying to be practical about it and thinking about the things that were in my control, you know. And as a recruiter, you're sitting on LinkedIn every single day, seeing jobs advertised, seeing people putting up the green open to work banner and it. And I think when you're one of those people in a tough market like now, and like it has been for the past couple of years, it does feel kind of soul destroying and feeling like, well, how am I going to get noticed? You click on a job, there's been 100 plus applications in eight hours. You know, how do you make yourself stand out? How do you make an impact? Um, I was actually talking to a former colleague yesterday about this who's going through the same thing right now and um, giving her a space to vent. And she was saying she'd uh, got herself LinkedIn Premium. And she was saying, okay, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna just. It's a numbers game at the end of the day, I need to get myself out there. And she noticed that a job had had 700 applications in the space of like eight days or something like that. And it does feel like, yeah, who am I in this? See amazing talent. And even to the point where the person recruiting for the role had said, I always reply to everything on LinkedIn. Um, if you're a recruiter reaching out for this opportunity, thank you so much, but please stop because I can't possibly reply to everybody on this.

Speaker B: Not enough hours of the day.

Speaker A: Exactly. And I think, you know, that's perfectly understandable from a recruiter's point of view. But when you're on the other side of the fence as a candidate, you know, you totally understand that. But it's so such a tough message. And she was just like, how then if I can't even reach out and make a personal connection, what am I to do? And it does feel awful. I think, you know, like I said, it is a bit of a numbers game. Of course, there's so many people out there looking for work and you know, in a world where you can't make a personal connection and everyone's got an AI generated, you know, cv. Um, I think, you know, one of the things that I found in that situation and coming into this role was that I, I'd applied for this job and obviously my role is UKNI recruitment director, uh, but I'd come from an EMEA role. So I was thinking, okay, maybe, maybe this isn't exactly the right match, but I had obviously done in the UKNI role previously, but you know, where we are now, all of the transformation experience that I'd had behind me, that wasn't the top thing on my cv, um, but was hugely relevant I now know was part of the picture about why I got hired for this role. So I think for me it was a case of you never really know what is going to be, what's not on the job description and what the plans for the organization's future are. And therefore, you know, you can make your CV as uh, you know, AI generated and supported as possible. But actually there is more to it than that. That might not be on the job description in the background, but I think what I found really helpful and again going back to the things that I could control in that moment was obviously being open to work on LinkedIn and kind of reaching out to your network and all those good things that recruiters know how to do, do. But I put myself out there in, you know, the most squeamish of uncomfortable networking situations. I went to everything that was offered to me, um, you know, TA drinks, uh, lunches, round table events where I was still being invited to them. I met tons of recruiters, I met tons of other industry professionals and just talking about the context of work, not necessarily, you know, turning up with a CV saying hey, I'm looking for, for a job. But I made a lot of connections in that process and um, you know, it wasn't necessarily, necessarily fruitful in, in landing me a role, but you know, it well, it may well have been and um, it gave me a good opportunity to just meet more people in the industry and especially in a leadership capability as well. Where I'd moved on my previous organization, I was there for nine years. So you know, I had joined, you know, in a much more junior capacity and actually I was introducing myself at that point to lots of other people in the industry. So I think I also found, um, just keeping myself really busy with other activities as well. So I um. You can't sit on LinkedIn and apply for jobs all day long. It's soul destroying and um, you know, it's not all there is in life. I say one of the other Things I did as well was um, I did some volunteering but using my skills to do, um, you know, relevant volunteering that was hopefully going to be CV enhancing. So I worked with an organization called Radical. Recruit who and Be Radical. Who? Are you familiar?

Speaker B: No, please tell me.

Speaker A: Okay, so, um, they've got one arm, um, that is a kind of social enterprise where they work with the most marginalized of society, um, to do kind of CV writing, interview workshops and that kind of thing. So it could be people coming out of um, care, asylum seekers, prison leavers, people who find it hard to get a job effectively. So I did some work with them, uh, and just helped, you know, in any way I could and offered my, my skills to that community. Um, and we now partner with them as an agency as well. So, so that's a great partnership. Um, so it just, it helped me do something positive and feel like I was still kind of in the game if you like, while I was working for a job, looking for a job. So I just, I found that, you know, there's lots of other things you can be doing, but it's not just sitting, applying for roles.

Speaker B: Definitely, definitely. And you are, you're still honing your skills I think when you're, when you're doing all that stuff, aren't you, as you, you know, when you're off, off screen and you're out there meeting people. I, you know, I've spoken to a lot professionals, more than TA actually who've talked about the, the nightmare of trying to find work in a challenging market and um, especially like if you're an introvert and you, you don't really enjoy those things. It, it's about, as you say, putting yourself out there and you're still developing even if you're not physically earning kind of thing. It's.

Speaker A: Exactly. And I, I found it really rewarding obviously on a personal level, but you know, it was great to just actually be face to face, face to face, virtually face to face with candidates and just talk about, you know, their challenges and thinking about somebody who's maybe at the junior end of their career, which I don't always deal with on a day to day basis and just actually bringing to life some of the things that as a recruiter, experienced recruiter, you assume are a given, but they aren't for everybody. So that was, it was really interesting. And um, yeah, I felt like it was a great way to continue. Yeah, exactly. Working on all those kind of skills.

Speaker B: Definitely. Well, it worked. So congrats so well in your current role. At wtw. Um, good chance to look at where you are now I suppose. Are there any particular exciting initiatives that you're currently working on? Um, especially uh, De and I, we haven't touched on that yet. Um, or just general recruitment strategy?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, lots of exciting stuff coming this year. Um, my role will be changing at some point which is interesting. More to come.

Speaker B: Okay, watch this space.

Speaker A: Um, and but yeah we've got lots of really cool stuff on the IND space this year. So we're going to be partnering with um, an organization who um, are running a, launching an inclusive hiring certification. So kind of industry benchmark, industry standard, uh, for inclusive hiring. So effectively they will do an audit of all of your recruitment processes, provide a kind of roadmap you to work towards in terms of eight different lenses of ind. So you know typically in the insurance industry we have a huge focus on gender balance but it's not the only thing that we need to keep an eye on. So looking at lots of different avenues of um, IND to try to make sure that we are hitting as many bases as possible, making sure our whole process is as inclusive as we can be. So that's great. So um, there's some hopefully you know, I think when you, when you look at IND from ah, an outward perspective and you think well what can I be doing in the market to make sure not only we're doing the right thing internally from a candidate experience and a diversity experience but also just you know, sharing with the industry that we are trying to do our best. Um, I don't think there is anything you know, you go to awards, you might enter a submission to say we did a great initiative but it's not an ongoing um process. It might be a one off flash in the pan. So it's nice to be able to have some kind of recognition from an industry perspective. You know, if we meet the benchmark, hopefully we do. So that's, that's really cool. Um, and um, what else are we doing? We're looking at partnering um, with an organization um, called the Fairchance Business alliance, which focuses on people with criminal convictions to get them back into work. Um and um, so it's been um, a really interesting outlook having conversation with these um, this organization to get them to help them to help us and help the business understand actually that not, not everyone with a criminal conviction is precluded from working in the insurance and into a regulated industry where you know, obviously we have quite tight controls on some of our hiring requirements and obviously everyone goes through a background Check. But it doesn't mean that, you know, there's so many. There's a massive population that quite a few employers are just missing out on. So we're really hoping to make some positive strides there this year, too.

Speaker B: Well, that sounds great. As you say, it's good to have, well, to trailblaze in some ways, isn't it, and, you know, do new things, because that's how, you know, this will. It'll be normal for everyone, you know, down the line, so. Fantastic. Um, so. Well, you've. Obviously, this isn't an A to Z because we're both still so young, so, like an A to M ish kind of thing. Um, but you've been through a lot in your career. Uh, is there anything. Well, I guess you've touched on this a little bit with some of the work you did volunteering, but any mentoring or guiding the next generation of TA professionals. So the people that are joining your team, perhaps at the junior end, you know, is there anything you'd tell your younger self, uh, from a career perspective, knowing what you now know?

Speaker A: Yeah, lots.

Speaker B: What can you share with us?

Speaker A: Um, I mean, so at the moment we have an apprenticeship program within hr, so we've got four apprentices going around, lots of different teams within hr, which is great. And I'm due to get my next apprentice in March, so I'm very excited to have, um, another person learning, um, about the world of ta. And so far, I think they've really enjoyed it, which they all told me they want to come back, but we'll see. Um, so I really love having that kind of element of, you know, succession and making sure that a lot of younger people who might not have thought about recruitment are interested in, you know, what the. What the career can offer. So that's great. And hopefully we'll continue doing that as well. It's, it's. It's fantastic seeing completely new, you know, generational differences as well in new. New workforce coming in and having a look at things from a completely different angle. So I've really enjoyed that. Um, and, yeah, we hired some junior people through our transformation as well, who, you know, you do. Like I was saying earlier, you have to go back to the basics with quite a lot of activity, but it's really, it's hugely rewarding. Rewarding. I've seen such massive development in some of our team over the past year, just kind of learning the ropes and it's been, it's been great. But I think for me, as a younger person, what would I say I'd probably say, um, don't be afraid to just put your hand up and give a new idea because it's. I, I always felt as though, well, who am I? I don't, who am I to share an opinion? I don't have a view, I don't have the experience of everyone around me to be able to say, uh, could we think about doing it a different way? You know, listen to your colleagues who have got the experience, of course. But don't be afraid to share your ideas because, you know, like I said, from a generational perspective, there are so many generations in the workforce now and we've all got different approaches to work and um, what our experiences as a, as a colleague and as a, um, from an employer perspective. So, yeah, don't be afraid to put your hand up. Um, listen, um, to those around you though, because you are going to. There are so many learning opportunities from every single day and I think also just get to know your business because, you know, one of the things I really have learned so much in moving from early careers to experience hire is that, you know, I feel so much more embedded as a partner in the business now on this side of the fence. Um, and you know, listen to everything that they're going to tell you about a new role that comes on. You know, you will learn so much every time you make a hire. And um, yeah, so I think, um, you know, be curious about what your business has to say and um, yeah, take every, every opportunity to hire a role, meet a candidate as a learning experience. People, you know, candidates love talking about their experience and their career history. So just sit down and take the time to understand exactly where they want to go and what they've got to bring and ask about their technologies that they've been using and you know, they will wax lyrical. And it's, you know, it's, there's, it's not a dumb question to ask them about. What does exactly that mean? Because, you know, they want to know that you're listening and curious and uh, as to their experience as well, 100.

Speaker B: I completely agree. I relate to that. I mean, when we, when we bring people into the, the HR recruitment practice here, they learn it from. I hate to give you all names, but candidates do you know what I mean? That that's where you learn the trade and what, what all the different, you know, what talent management means to these 27 different people over here. And you know how it differs. It's just, it's the people around you that you, you absorb information from, Is it fantastic? Um, right. Well, I guess we're up with a time, aren't we? It flies by when you're having fun.

Speaker A: That's going by. Thank you.

Speaker B: It has. I know. Isn't it wonderful? Um, but I better. I better let you get back to work because you've got lots of projects on, so, um, thank you so much for your time, Amelia. It's been really lovely to hear a little bit about your career and, and, you know, how you got to where you got to and what you're doing now. Uh, best of luck with this year's projects. Um, for people that have watched this who perhaps want to make contact, is it okay to find you on LinkedIn? You're. You're there. So, Amelia Doughty on LinkedIn. And, uh, have a great, uh, 2,025. I'm sure I will speak to you in the near future.

Speaker A: Thanks, Simon.

Speaker B: Cheers. Thanks a lot.