Case studies

Serena May joined The HR Dept at the beginning of 2013; she joined the network to build a business and invest in her future. During her first year as Director of The HR Dept Eastbourne Serena laid the groundwork for these plans, building a reliable client base. In 2016 Serena took on an additional territory in Brighton and Hove.

When asked what she enjoyed most about The HR Dept, Serena said: “I love it all actually, to be honest. I certainly have no regrets at all, it’s the best thing I ever did. I kind of wish I’d done it sooner.”

“I love being in control of my own destiny and having some flexibility in how and when I work.”

“Going out on my own initially was a little bit daunting, so it was nice to know that with The HR Dept there was the support of a larger network behind me. You get tied up with so many bits and pieces when you start a new business, things that take up so much of your time like building your website, creating all the marketing materials, all that kind of thing. With the central team at The HR Dept taking care of all of this it meant that I was able to go out straight away and start working, as opposed to worrying about all the other things that I’d need to have in place before it did that.”

“The support of the other licensees is just fantastic. The support of being able to pick up the phone or send an email to everyone else has been invaluable. You can pull on resources from other people and you haven’t got to spend hours trawling through things yourself. If you need a presentation or document that somebody else may have already done, you just have to ask. As time goes on you see the value of that more and more.

“There are also the many resources provided by The HR Dept. You don’t have to worry about having your own resources and keeping them up to date. You can just  download the documents that you want, and you know that they’re going to be up to date.

“The newsletter and the blog which are provided by The HR Dept are great. I do find that sometimes I’ll send the newsletter out and that will trigger somebody to get in touch and say ‘Oh, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about…’ If it was left to me to do it I probably wouldn’t do it anywhere near as much.”

“The business has grown considerably since I started in 2013. We now have a large varied portfolio of retained clients and three members of staff. It now feels like I run a proper business as opposed to being an independent HR consultant.

“The coming year we are looking to purchase a commercial office and I am planning to spend more time on business development to grow the business further and step away from the day to day advice. I hope to grow a larger successful team so I can be a little less ‘hands on’ in five years’ time.”