Gillian Brookes CFHRNZ

What led you to a career in HR and the position that you are in currently?

I trained as an economist through university but ultimately wanted to have a career that focused on people. I love combining my interest in how to drive good economic outcomes with how to drive good outcomes for people. My work has that at its heart, now more than ever. As a head of HR it was difficult to get to the projects that I knew could make the biggest difference, because the work was often about urgent responses with little time or energy left for everything else. I decided to create a business that focused on going deep into one or two of those key areas that had people and economy at the centre. One of those topics was flexible work. I began my work as a flexible work specialist in May 2019, with no inkling that the pandemic was soon to throw us all into this topic area.    

What do you enjoy about working in HR?

I love being part of the HR profession. Increasingly, HR is more and more important in leading organisations to make good decisions. Whether it's directly about the current workforce, future workforce trends, labour market insights or the way in which the organisation is perceived by the wider community, so often driven by the workforce experience. I recently talked about this with Professor Nick Bloom, Economist at Stanford University, as he had studied the data to show the rise in importance of the HR profession.    

Are there any specific highlights of your career that you wish to share?

I think publishing my Flexperts book and launching my Flexperts online course were two of my most recent career highlights. They were really significant pieces of work that I poured so much of my experience and insight into. It was a steep learning curve for me, as so much of my work until then had been delivering training or speaking to a live audience, whether in person or online, when I could read the room and adapt the message based on their needs or specific interests. That's not possible through a book or online course, so I needed to tighten up some of my messages to make sure I was very clear, rather than relying on a 'listen and respond' method.   

What career advice would you give to someone early on in their career in HR?

Advice is so often useless, isn't it? It's rarely the right thing at the right time when it's not tailored to the individual. Instead, I'd encourage all early-in-career HR people to ask lots of questions and seek out mentors. That way you'll get to answer the questions you're curious about, rather than trying to follow someone else's advice that might not fit what you're thinking about or what you're experiencing.   

Please describe your journey towards becoming a Chartered Fellow. How was the experience?

It was a really uplifting experience for me. I am incredibly grateful for the support of others in our profession for supporting my application. Going through the process has given me a much needed pause for thought about how I want to continue to grow and shape my career and contribute to our profession.

What are the next steps in terms of your career now that you are a Chartered Fellow? 

I want to work within and beyond Aotearoa to drive a better future of work, particularly focusing on flexible ways of working. I'm also increasingly interested in doing more governance work, because that's another critical way of shaping good economic and people outcomes through better decisions within our organisations.