How did you get into your career?

My first  job was with Bromford Housing where I worked for almost 9 years. I started out in one of the Bromford Support teams, working with people to maintain their own homes which meant I was very much out and about in the local community, meeting people from all walks of life and engaging with local services too. After 6 years I decided to try something different and took on a 6 month fixed term contract in the Recruitment team which opened the door to HR and subsequently a permanent role in the HR team working on a project to implement a new HR and Payroll system. This is where I found my passion for systems and matching them with the people needs of the business. Once this project came to an end, I reached out to one of the consultants we worked with, Mike Westwood (who I must always credit with “getting me the job!” – or so he tells me 😊) to find out more about a role at Phase 3…as soon as I met with James and Kate and heard more about Phase 3, I knew that this was where I wanted to be.

What are the key responsibilities in your role?

To support customers in any way I can to get the most from their HR system.

• Process mapping
• Implementation projects
• Managed services

Describe a typical day

As I live a 3.5 hour drive from our office, being home based allows me to balance my personal and work life and spend quality time at the start and end of each day with my family before getting logged on. My diary is then booked out with the work I have set for the day. So that may be customer calls such as a new project kick off call, a process mapping workshop, delivering systems training, getting to know customer’s processes and advising on how best the system can meet their needs. I also make sure that I have time allocated to support and resolve any system queries raised by customers and finally ensure that there’s at least 3 times a week where I touch base with my amazing team to see how they are doing and also knowledge share between us all – I feel really lucky to have such a supportive network around me.

What skills are needed for this role?

Being able to adapt your communication style/approach to suit the needs of the audience or team you are working with. Some HR people aren’t technical at all and find it a real challenge working with a new system so we need to be able to support them and take it at their pace.

Enjoying and being able to problem solve – some things are nice and quick to resolve, others take much longer to get to the bottom of.

What challenges do you face in this role?

Jargon – so often we become so comfortable with the language we use that we forget that sometimes other may not understand something in the same way. I find that by using different ways to communicate with customers using screenshots, sharing screens live on a call, sending step by step instructions, creating training clips/videos you can ensure that you are seeing the same thing.

Capacity – we often find that a new systems implementation can be under estimated in terms of the effort required by a customer to work through the different stages of a project. This can then lead to projects being under-resourced which then impact timelines.

What keeps you motivated to go into work every day?

The people I work with – be that my internal colleagues or my customers as I really feel like one of their team too when we are working so closely each week. In fact, I speak and see some of my customers more frequently than I do some of my internal colleagues. I also love solving problems so when I log off at the end of the day and know I have helped to resolve something – it’s a great feeling!

What advice would you give someone considering a career in HR Tech?

Do it! You’ll work with such a variety of customers across such a range of industries…and there’s never a dull day as there is always a new challenge or new piece of functionality to get your head around.

Henrietta Brain is our Customer Success Manager for Consulting at Phase 3

Our team of HR tech experts cover all aspects of HR & Payroll systems consultancy. If you’d like to learn more about our team or more about our business and what we can offer, you can contact one of our specialists today.