Oakleaf Partnership hosted the final OP Academy session of 2017 this week at Metro Bank’s Holborn offices, with the event focused on Commerciality. We were incredibly excited to welcome Metro Bank’s Chief People Officer, Danny Harmer as the key note speaker for the evening. A revolutionary HR Director, Danny was named by HR Magazine as one of 2017’s most influential HR Directors in the UK, and is hugely passionate about developing the next generation of HR leaders, whilst also being a great example of an extremely commercial HR leader herself.
The topic for the final event of the year was commerciality, focusing on ways to enhance the impact on your business and its customers through better commercial awareness.
Key learning points from the evening included:
- Being human is an essential aspect of business leadership and success. What you do in work will make you better outside of work, and what you do outside of work will make you better at work!
- Culture is the most important thing in any organisation – it should run through you like a stick of rock and be visible through every aspect of a company.
- Say yes to everything – don’t be the HR police! Say yes and then try and understand what they are looking to do and why, and then come up with a plan to implement it
- Understand what ‘good’ looks like in your organisation, then recognise where you are and where you want to be.
- Always be curious, always ask questions and be prepared to challenge! No one ever got anywhere without questioning the status quo.
- If you get the opportunity to put yourself into the business for any length of time – do it! It will give you a different perspective on what the customers need.
- HR needs to raise the bar and continue to shout about the value they add.
The event was a huge success and had a fantastic turnout, so thank to you all those who attended! We always welcome feedback after events, so if there’s any specific topics you would like to see discussed during our 2018 modules, or anything else you would like to see at future Academy events, please get in touch with opacademy@oakleafpartnership.com
We hope to welcome you to our next OP Academy events in 2018!