Lucy Soper

When our new group HR director, Angie Risley, came on board last year, she conducted an internal audit to find out how the HR function was perceived. The feedback was clear: while the pure HR skills that the team brought to the table were valued, there was a desire for a deeper understanding of the business and an awareness of how HR could contribute to strategic goals. Angie challenged us all to think about how we could deliver a more commercially-focused service, and so we developed the HR Academy.

The academy is all about improving capability – that is, making sure everyone who works in HR has the skills and knowledge to perform at the highest standard – and is based on a set of 10 functional HR capabilities. These were defined at the outset and in addition to the more obvious disciplines, such as learning and development or talent management, include strategic acumen: a comprehensive understanding of the business and its needs. These capabilities were then split into five levels – foundation, core, advanced, leadership and mastery.