Andrew Park joined H&S as Chief People Officer in October 2021 and identified the requirement for two new HR roles – Group Head of Reward and Group Head of Talent. Whilst there were pockets of talent legacy programmes, there hadn’t been a strategic focus on reward at group level.
The Head of Reward role incorporated governance, renumeration committee and policies, executive renumeration and comms, long-term incentives, salary benchmarking alongside HR KPIs, systems and strategy. The successful candidate would have prior exposure within reward, and the drive and ability to step up into a more senior role.
A more strategic, forward-thinking role, the Head of Talent required the appointed candidate to look at capability, succession planning, and leadership and management development of the future, areas which hadn’t been invested in previously. This was also a step-up role for an individual working in talent already with a generalist HR background, who could drive these initiatives forward.
H&S was looking for diverse individuals with a breadth of experiences, perspectives and backgrounds. There were additional challenges around the budget and the location in Solihull which made it harder to source talent. As it was a confidential search, BIE couldn’t advertise the roles and prospective candidates needed to sign an NDA.
In conjunction with the client, BIE developed job specs and role descriptions and ran both searches in tandem. The process involved researching and mapping the market to create a long list of candidates which was narrowed down to a short list through regular calls with the client to exchange feedback on candidates.
The final interview stage involved deep dive interviews and psychometric tests to ensure the appointed candidates had the required intelligence and capability to be successful in the roles.
BIE placed Hannah Drimer into the Group Head of Reward role and Helen Bellamy into the Group Head of Talent role.
Hannah bought a wealth of Reward knowledge with her, whilst also showing clear career progression within her previous company. She had experience of engaging with senior stakeholders and of conducting salary reviews, benchmarking and of supporting mobility and talent from a Reward perspective. With her ability to form strong relationships and her friendly, engaging personality, BIE knew she would fit in well with Andrew and the
team at Hill & Smith.
Helen had an impressive background in Talent & Development, having led on this nationally for her previous company. Prior to this, Helen was a Business Partner which gave her a broader focus within talent including OD, change management and organisational effectiveness. With her personable style and impressive work ethic, BIE knew that she would be a great addition to Andrew’s team and would work well with Hannah.
