Expert HR, from someone who has done the job

Why did you decide to start Mindset HR?

Whilst on maternity leave with my son, I started exploring other work avenues, as I needed to stimulate my mind and have some adult time. Having this time away from my career gave me thinking time. We have been conditioned to believe that you could have either a career or be a mum, but not both. I now know that you can have them both!

After completing my Level 7 Certificate in Personnel Development (CIPD), I still had a passion for learning, and I found network marketing, with part of this being about the mindset. This inspired me and enabled me to start to re-connect with myself. I discovered Rhonda Byrne's books including The Secret, The Power and The Magic, which were life changing. I completed my Life Coaching diploma and invested in a personal coach and mentor.

I returned to work after my maternity leave a different person. I still wanted a career, but my outlook had changed. I turned 40 in 2021. I knew it was time to put my big girl pants on and get out there and offer my services to businesses that need my help to look at their people strategies differently.

What led you to becoming an HR professional?

My journey was not at all traditional. My parents split when I was just four years old, I was bullied at school, and at sixteen I left high school with no qualifications after failing most of my GCSEs. I felt like a failure. However, having started singing and dancing at just three years old and with a love of performing, I have had amazing opportunities to travel at various periods of my working life to Japan, Turkey and Los Angeles, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our personal journeys make us who we are, and I would not have changed a thing, as it has all led me along the path to where I am today.

What did you do when you left school, as you had very few qualifications?

After leaving school I spent a brief period working in retail. At seventeen, I secured a job in personnel for a large retailer and worked my way up to Recruitment Manager. I then went into retail sales and, as Regional HR Advisor, I travelled all over the UK.

The people, training, support, and investment in me was amazing. The business believed in training and development, and I undertook coaching courses and became an NLP Practitioner, which I love. It was from this moment I could feel my life was going to change.

You have a personal coach — why?

The best investment you can ever have is in yourself. I find it interesting that people learn everything about different topics and spend hours researching, however very few learn anything about themselves and never invest the time you deserve in getting to know you.

Coaching has changed my life, and I would highly recommend it. I realised that I now felt complete freedom. Up until this point in my life I was always worried about what people thought of me and others' opinions. That is no longer the case. It feels incredible.

Why do you think self-image is crucial to development?

I genuinely believe that self-image is something that should be taught in schools. It is something that I have had to work on personally. You can have all the knowledge in the world and the best exam results, but if our self-image and inner dialogue is based on our childhood and conditioning, and that is not positive, then you will not become successful. Likewise, those who have come out of school with no exam qualifications become successful because of their self-image.

Tell us more about the holistic HR side to Mindset HR

In addition to the NLP, because of being spiritual, I am drawn to a more holistic HR approach and completed the basic theta healing course. This utilises working with the creator to heal and clear the mind of fears and blocks which are preventing people from moving forward, which gave me a different perspective of coaching from a different modality.

I am currently an Elite coach of the Proctor Gallagher Institute, learning psycho-cybernetics and how the universal laws and quantum physics help people achieve the life they want.

There are huge benefits to organisations when incorporating the learnings from this programme and mindset, together with NLP, which looks at the neuro, language and behavioural patterns learned through experiences and programming, and the ways these patterns can be changed to help employees achieve the desired outcome. Including this in people strategies helps to keep employees, create a better culture, reduce absenteeism, and improve productivity and performance.

What is different since the start of the pandemic?

Work-life balance and priorities have changed for many of us now. We look differently at the world and what is expected of us. This means employers need to make sure that they are tapping into what makes people happy, so when recruiting they identify skillsets, loves and passions to identify how they can add value and contribution to an organisation.

Examples of this include reviewing role profiles, what tasks people enjoy, what hours they wish to work, and looking at hybrid working plans or even forty-eight-hour fortnights or four-day working weeks. Benefits and incentives organisations put in place do have a significant impact on how appreciated their people feel. If you have a happy workforce, then you get the best output from them, and they contribute and add value consistently.