Meet Emma…HR Disruptor and Club member!

We love sharing how our great Pro members of the Disruptive HR Club are disrupting HR in their organisations. Sharing challenges and learnings with one another is just another way in which we grow our supportive community!

HR at Intel 471 is all about people over process. As VP of HR, Emma Denning leads a team that balances strategy with agility, ensuring a globally dispersed, remote workforce stays connected, engaged, and empowered. From replacing policies with light touch principles to championing trust and accountability, Emma is helping shape an HR function that truly supports both people and performance. In this spotlight, Emma shares her insights on what it takes to build an agile, people-first HR function that truly makes a difference.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself, your company and your role. 

Hi, my name is Emma and I’m the VP of HR at Intel 471. We are a US headquartered company with just shy of 250 people globally. We provide unparalleled Cyber Threat Intelligence that enables our customers to assess, organize and equip their cyber defenses, and warn of potential crises. We are their window into the cyber underground.

Our People mission is to simply attract, develop and retain a talented workforce that aligns with the Intel 471 strategy, mission and values. By maintaining our culture, we’re able to create a workplace that provides meaningful and fulfilling work where everyone feels valued, respected and has a voice. My team and I cover the whole remit of HR both strategic and operational which makes for a great variety but with often competing priorities.

Intel 471, despite our small size, has a complex and diverse demographic due to our fully remote workforce spanning 32 countries and multiple time zones. This gives us fruitful diversity yet we are hugely mindful that some of our people do not see any of their colleagues in person on a regular basis (or at all). We are vigilant when it comes to preserving our unique community feel as we grow and actively aim to keep our finger on the pulse.

What do you love about what you do?

I get to work with such interesting, smart and fascinating people across the business who I learn from every day. I get to work with the “good guys” who all want to do the right thing to ultimately stop the “bad guys”, which gives great purpose. I have worked in HR for over 30 years across various industries but this business suits me perfectly in terms of the culture, variety of work and the influence I can have. Our culture is adult to adult, agile and forward thinking and I have been at Intel 471 for 5 years but every day has been different. We believe in the inherent good judgment of our people and encourage individual ownership and accountability. In the beginning, it was just me in HR and we’ve now grown to a small HR team who cover several languages and time zones. Growing from a start up to taking on strategic investment from a PE firm, our success is completely down to our people and it’s inspirational to see what we have achieved, and what we will achieve in the future. It makes me extremely proud to be part of our journey.

What frustrates you most about HR?

For me, it is when HR does not understand (or even try to understand) the business and its challenges and priorities, this is the only way you can truly partner and add any real tangible value. I have worked in many HR teams that are stifled by policies and processes which become these big bureaucratic nightmares that no one understands and ultimately benefits no one. It has been great to get back to basics at Intel 471 and build the function out exactly how and where it is needed and develop initiatives that add the most value to the business and its people when and where they need it.

How are you and your team disrupting HR?

As a team we are constantly curious and always looking for innovative ideas and approaches to explore. Our aim is to take bold steps in piloting new ideas, learn from any failures, and then adjust our approach based on feedback or explore alternative solutions. Our business has to be extremely agile and we understand how crucial it is to adopt this way of working to be responsive to what our business needs.

We are developing better analytics to look beyond the basic metrics to connect the dots in order to be able to provide our leadership team with a nuanced understanding of what their people are saying across various channels where they give their voice – ultimately driving our areas of focus.

Our approach to our HR policies and practices is people over process. We adopt ‘principles’ to help us create a more adult organization, taking a lighter touch approach, focusing on people applying judgment rather than designing around a rogue minority. We believe that the majority of our people want to behave decently and are capable of using their judgment, therefore we encourage individual ownership and accountability.

As I said before, we believe in fostering a culture of trust and individual accountability. That’s why we’ve moved away from rigid policy handbooks and created a global Culture Guide instead. We see this guide as a living document that truly reflects our values, communication norms, and how we work. We prioritise our culture, and this guide helps ensure everyone understands and contributes to it.

What challenges are you facing currently with changing HR practices?

Driving an adult to adult culture is not easy! As with most businesses, this is a fundamental change to the traditional way of working and takes time to embed, but we are making progress. Everything we do as a HR team is centered on trust and encouraging leaders to make decisions using their judgment, by equipping them with the tools and resources they need to feel confident. We actively educate our people about the positive aspects of an adult to adult environment, and as a team, we consistently role model and promote it.

Our own credibility and confidence can also be a challenge, we have had to grow with the business and are constantly seeking to build our own capabilities. We work to be seen as strategic contributors, yet we can’t neglect the essential operational work, creating a constant juggling act. As a result, we consistently reassess our priorities, adapting our direction or focus as necessary. It’s incredibly valuable to have the autonomy to implement and test new ideas without barriers; this freedom is refreshing and cultivates a growth mindset and confidence.

How does the Disruptive HR Club help you with challenges/frustrations/what you are trying to achieve?

Myself and the team have been members of the Disruptive HR Club for a few years now and they have inspired many of our initiatives, the Club is always the first place we go when we want to be creative and challenge the norm.

The webinars are really insightful and we try to attend as many as we can as a team. I really value the real life examples that Lucy and Karen always use to bring their ideas and suggestions to life. I love the 5 Minute Mondays as they are punchy and always thought provoking. I, and a couple of members of my team attended the one day session which was a great source of ideas and inspiration.

The new look of the website is a significant improvement and it feels that there are many more resources and it’s much easier to find content and also auto sign up to webinars.

What would you like to see more of on the DHR club?

If I had to say something I would say more real life examples of smaller businesses who may not have the budget and resources of the likes of LinkedIn, DropBox, Microsoft or Spotify. But truly I love DHR and I would be lost without it, so more of the same please!