Origins Of Target HR

My 2 “E” grade A levels were a massive disappointment to my 6^th form tutor, who once said to me “they do say you are more intelligent than you look”. I spent a lot of my school years deliberately underperforming as in a comprehensive in East London it really was not cool to be clever, unless you were handing over your homework to be copied. Playing in my punk influenced band was far more respected.

I left school in 1980 and joined a large insurance company, but my only ambitions during the next few years were to earn enough money to go out, and to be able to get down to the City for opening time at 5pm. I had no interest in insurance or thoughts about a career in financial services whatsoever.

I got promoted to my first management job at the age of 30. Although it paid more money, I recall no additional fulfilment, only the added stress of getting another cohort of demotivated people to do the work.  As well as raising 3 young children, I spent the 90s moving through various management roles, none particularly inspiring, but I seemed to be good at managing people. Without realising it at the time, I was learning a lot about leadership and how different people are motivated. The relentless focus on quality and productivity also taught me about attention to detail, and in some situations how NOT to manage human beings.

A decision point eventually came, where the next move up would have been to a lonely office and a strategic role away from the front line. This was a depressing thought as I had always worked alongside my teams. Also, the politics and posturing of senior management did not interest me, so I considered moving into field-sales or HR.

I decided on HR where I became manager of the Call Centre Training Team. As well as using my acquired leadership skills, I learned to design and deliver classroom training, which would serve me well in many respects. I found the change of environment refreshing. However, I was then asked to manage a new HR Shared Service Centre. For me it was a “vanity promotion” that I should never have accepted. It was a step backwards to operational management and incredibly stressful as you can only get payroll wrong! 

The pressure was relentless, and It wasn’t long before I was burnt out and negotiated a move into a HR Consultancy role, whereby the company funded my qualification as a fellow of the CIPD.

In 2002, after 22 years, I was called into the HR Directors office and made redundant. I was devastated. It had been my only employer from school. I was institutionalised and the thought of starting again, somewhere new, was incredibly scary.

However, the company got acquired by a bigger HR outsourcer, who unfortunately for me, took the focus off providing personal service to SMEs and concentrated on big corporate systems and payroll clients. I gradually moved onto system-based projects which completely turned me off. I therefore accepted redundancy again, but this time voluntarily. I was no longer scared to move on.

My thinking was that I have learned how to manage an HR Outsourcing business, why not give it a go, and get the day rate into my own pocket.

So, in 2008, Target HR was born and at the ripe old age of 46 I was out on my own.

Initially it was just a brand name for me as a one-man band. I was lucky that my ex-employer allowed me to work 3 days a week with one of my ex-clients as a sub-contractor, a deal that was a win, win, win. This was a sizeable piece of work but allowed me to spend time marketing and growing the business. I was liberated again, at another level, with the freedom to work on what, with who and when I pleased. I enjoyed my weekends but also looked forward to Mondays, something I had never done in those first 23 years.  I could not see myself working for someone else again.

Clients from a diverse range of sectors continued to come via referral, my previous contacts moving on, or through marketing to my networks. I added new products and services, and a great team of self-employed associates to help me deliver them. Eventually the business grew to a size where it needed to be a limited company.

I grew Target HR for the 13 most enjoyable, hardworking, challenging, fulfilling, lucrative and stress-free years of my career. It’s not often you can put all those descriptors together positively. I found that using my experience to help other leaders to lead was more enjoyable than the process of acquiring that experience, although you cannot be a credible HR Consultant without “doing your time”.

Influencing SME business owners, charity leaders and even some corporate senior managers has now become second nature. Confidence grew from knowing that I decided whether I chose to work with them. It completely changed my way of thinking about work and made me realise that the variety of clients and the simplicity with which they tried to run their businesses suited my personality much better than the complexity of the corporate world. You could get things done quickly, without politics, without scoring points or writing long reports first.

My advice to those starting out in their careers is to experiment and find out what type of work might make you look forward to Monday. You may not get there straightaway, I was a very late starter in business, but avoid being financially dependent on a job that you find uninspiring, or worse stressful. Spot the signs early and make the change.

Also, if you do have to change jobs, or if like me you decide to go it alone, do it with confidence as you will almost certainly have transferable skills and make better decisions on your next move. I have coached a lot of people post-redundancy, and many have moved onto better things, as I did, twice!