Kate Appleyard founded apple hr support back in 2015. Prior to this she’d had an extensive career in HR working in categories as diverse as beauty, grocery and manufacturing.
6 years on from the business conception, Kate reflects on her journey to this point and why she still feels as passionate today about HR as she did during her time studying in Newcastle over 20 years ago.
How did you start your career in HR?
I studied business in Newcastle and in my final year one of the options was Personnel Management and that was the thing that I got the most excited about on the whole course.
I just love talking to people. The jobs that I’d done as a teenager were people facing and I’d loved every minute of them. My first job was in a DIY shop just 3 doors away from the current apple hr office, I was serving customers all day every day and learned so much both about people and DIY! After that I went to work on the checkout at Safeway and as a 16 year old it was heaven – half my friends from school were there and I was talking to a random and diverse group of people. Safeway taught me that you can work hard but as long as you have engagement with your manager and your team, work can be as much fun as anything else in your life. From there I felt passionate about being in a job that I love.
As part of my dissertation I then went to work for Stanley tools for 6 weeks to focus on Health & Safety in the workplace. They didn’t have a HR function so during those 6 weeks I had the chance to prove how passionate I was. The Labour government at the time was bringing in lots of new H&S rules and employment law changes so they took me on to support the business in ensuring legal compliance. I loved working in a factory. There was such a wide variety of people, I had to be able to talk to everyone.
What’s the current shape of apple hr support’s client base?
It’s really diverse – my first client was a firm of Chartered Surveyors and I’m delighted to say that I still work with them today. We have a number of property clients, schools, pharmaceutical companies, a vegetable farm, beauty businesses, manufacturers, NHS GP surgeries, a mental health charity, a screen printers – the list goes on.
I love talking to different people – the conversations with the vegetable farmers is quite different to manufacturing or beauty!
Over the years, you must have dealt with some difficult challenges?
Yes, there’s always something new to take on just around the corner! From complaints about body odour to drug misuse at Christmas parties – you never know what you might need to handle!
The more typical stuff consists of supporting business with great employee engagement, ensuring new employees have a great introduction to a business in the onboarding process, mediating relationship breakdowns between managers and employees, supporting maternity situations, improving workplace mental health, disciplinaries, grievances and investigations. We also support all our clients with the basics – getting the right documentation and policies in place.
Over the years how has the field of HR evolved?
I think there’s been a shift towards prevention rather than cure. Whereas previously, some of the proactive aspects of HR would have been seen as discretionary rather than a necessity, many forward thinking businesses are wanting support to proactively support their staff with management training in line with their culture and values, mental health first aid and stronger communications policies.
Gen Z employees in the job market look very differently at companies than they did 20 years ago. Now prospective employees are much more selective about the companies that they choose to work for. They expect to be welcomed properly, to be onboarded properly and to know what values the company stands for and how they demonstrate them. It’s about getting the onboarding process right so that the minute they walk into the business whether physically or remotely they get a good feel.
The shape of the current apple hr support business is about 60% reactive activity and 40% proactive activity – and I think the shift to being more proactive will only continue.
And what about the last 12 months? How has the pandemic changed things?
Well as you might expect, with so many businesses struggling during this crisis there have been many more redundancy conversations taking place.
But outside of that, I think business owners and CEOs are ready to be more open about the way they work and how they communicate.
I think we’re also on the cusp of a baby boom – the number of maternity queries coming in the door right now is significant! More than ever before, employers need to line their ducks up and be organised when faced with a pregnant employee.
Remote working means women are able to keep their pregnancy confidential for longer and we’re finding employers who have only been told at the last minute that a member of their staff plans to go on maternity leave. Obviously, that massively reduces your planning time.
My advice to all businesses is to make sure you provide an environment where female staff feel safe to be able to share their pregnancy with you. If someone hasn’t told you and given you some notice that they’ll be taking leave, you’ve got to ask why they didn’t feel happy to disclose this information sooner.
For advice and support from Kate, get in touch.