In the latest addition of #mysharedservicesStory, we hear from Loretta Smith about her shared services story and how she has progressed, since 2007, to where she is now in 2018...
My shared service story began in 2007 when I was lucky enough to work on the HR transformation project at United Biscuits. I assumed responsibility initially for leading the HR administration and Reward workstreams, which quickly grew to include sourcing, HR Intranet, Managers Self Service (SAP) and full documentation work streams.
I worked as part of a larger HR transformation team to implement the Ulrich model across HR, we worked across HR to transform roles, HR processes and ways of working, which was not an easy task when we had 11 UK manufacturing sites and 3 corporate sites each with their own set of policies and guidelines and on site HR support. We recruited a brand new team, trained them and went live in October 2009.
I then went to work in the business as HRBP in two large complex Manufacturing sites, highly unionised and together, we made great progress, both sites winning factory of the year. I also worked on some UK wide transformation projects working with the trade unions to improve the contracts of employment, whilst creating greater flexibility of the workforce to meet the customer demand.
I was then lucky enough to go back to shared services, where I lead the HR shared service centre at United Biscuits, now Pladis Global for two years. This is when I became involved in the Shared Service Forum. I think it’s a fantastic network of key professionals all willing to collaborate and support each other. I Co-Chaired the HR network with Katherine for 12 months, which was a great opportunity.
During my time as the Head of the HRSC, we worked on customer satisfaction, we developed improved processes, increased team capability and invested heavily in the social and team development activities, increased share service activity by 40% by taking in new processes from the business as well as moving to completely electronic employee files and removing all the historical paper files from our cabinets!
Whilst working at Pladis global I also became involved in supporting a social enterprise, ‘Girls Out Loud’ http://girlsoutloud.org.uk/ in mentoring teenage girls across the North West in building their confidence, being brave and finding their voice. It is a truly rewarding and amazing journey that is so fulfilling and enriching, and all of the skills gained in becoming a mentor can be transferred into the workplace too.
I then went onto to become the Global HR Director for HR Transformation and Services, leading the implementation of Workday a new HR solution across the pladis world in 12 languages. The programme went live in June 2018 and was an amazing achievement made possible by my highly skilled project team members.
I have recently changed roles and Companies after 13 years, although remained within the people services environment, my new chapter has begun as the EMEA Employee Relations lead at Bristol-Myers Squibb working towards providing an Employee Relations service to the business for 30 countries in the EMEA region. I’m really enjoying the role and working for BMS.
