Simon Devereux
Wow. I hear that October is HR season in the world of 4Talent blogs. Well, in that case, let me be the first to welcome you to the exciting world of Human Resources at the mighty Channel 4.
From day one, when the first 5 minutes of my induction included watching a mock Nick Broomfield documentary where Frank Gallagher waxes lyrical about Channel 4’s values whilst completely pickled on complimentary cans of lager I knew I’d landed on my feet professionally. Of course, since my own induction I’ve since been integral in the redesign of said induction and get to deliver it to new joiners which means watching the same induction film every other week, to the point that I am fluent in ‘Gallagher’.
In the current economic climate, HR gets a bad rap. For example, during week 4 of my time at Channel 4 Towers I was asked to take on the HR table at a 4Talent work experience event. For those of you who haven’t attended or been involved with one of these events, it’s a little like speed dating where students have an allotted time slot on each table with various representatives from assorted Channel 4 departments. Needless to say, I got the distinct impression that the HR table was not seen as the most exciting prospect with 90% of the student congregation assuming that HR professionals spend the day casually ‘sacking’ people and going about general day-to-day ‘grim reaping’ duties. Well, on this point I spent the whole morning convincing the youth of today that working in HR wasn’t the embodiment of pure evil and is in fact an ever changing and exciting profession to work in.
Having now racked up 9 months service working in the C4 HR department, I have had the opportunity to design an already successful one-day recruitment workshop, worked on a revamp of the Channel 4 induction (as noted above), co-facilitated a number of departmental away days, have set up a 4Careers Twitter account, been involved in recruiting for a number of Channel 4 vacancies and yes, not a single ‘sacked’ colleague in sight.
After my morning at that first work experience event, I have since taken to the HR table again with my patter well and truly nailed. The first part is called: ‘The Journey’. No, I’m not on some hippy trip or reacquainting myself with the work of Kula Shaker, no, The Journey covers how HR are the one constant from your application for a vacancy (we are involved in the short listing and advertising of the vacancy on our lovely website), when you attend an interview (we normally sit on the interview panel and try not to grill you too hard), we welcome you to Channel 4 with your contract and present the induction to you on day one, we support your manager in your professional development with training opportunities, secondments and workshops, and in the event that you decide to move onto the next stage of your career, we end up either being involved in the recruitment process (if you decide to move within Channel 4) or we process your paperwork, payroll and conduct your exit interview (in the event that you resign and move on to pastures new).
Part 2 is affectionately called ‘character building’ and tends to be around the discussions that a lot of people don’t like to have, such as addressing issues of poor performance, dealing with acts of misconduct or being involved in the implementation of changes within Channel 4 as a whole, your team, or your role specifically. It is about coaching managers to be able to handle these situations and to avoid landing themselves in the ‘hornets nest’ that are employment tribunal claims (which means brushing up regularly on developments in employment law)
So in a tiny nutshell, working in HR can be a rewarding experience (of course it helps working at the worlds greatest television channel), and you never know what the day is going to throw at you. One minute you’ll be working on an exciting project, the next you’ll be facilitating a workshop and the next you’ll be handling a very prickly or sensitive issue. Considering that I am a trained illustrator and cartoonist, I sometimes ponder on how I fell into the HR profession and why I continue to do it… But, the point is I still enjoy it, I love working with the people I work with and above all, I am taken out of my comfort zone every single week, which is always a good thing…
