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!
This month we’re shining the spotlight on Louise Turner, HR Director at Bedspace and Disruptive HR Club member since 2023.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, your company and your role.
Hi everyone, I’m Louise, and I’m the HR Director at Bedspace where I head up a team of 11 across HR, L&D and Internal Comms.
What do you love about what you do?
I’m incredibly proud of Bedspace, we work across the North West and our mission is to do one thing: transform the lives of vulnerable people.
Our team of 330+ people work to provide housing and support packages to the people we support in asylum, young people leaving care, adults in social care, homeless families and children in residential care. 2024 sees us celebrate our 25th anniversary, in which time we’ve supported 17,000 vulnerable people to transform their lives.
What challenges are you facing currently with changing HR practices and how are you disrupting HR?
My greatest challenge which is super exciting is bringing about major organisational change. The business has grown organically and informally so far and we have ambitious growth plans so I have to support the business from a reactive, “let’s just get it done” approach to one of planned organisational and workforce design.
Couple that with us now having to be registered with OFSTED as a supported accommodation provider – you can see that I’ve got quite a lot to do. My first steps were to ask to lead on L&D and Internal Comms as well as HR, as I could see together, the 3 functions could have greater synergy and impact. Early on, I facilitated the senior leadership team to identify the desired culture and behaviours – now the work begins to get that truly embedded. So, lots to do, but I’m determined and will keep nudging!
How does the Disruptive HR Club help you with challenges/frustrations/what you are trying to achieve?
From the Club, I’ve introduced the concept of agile HR and sprint planning into my approach and my team are loving it! They set their own objectives for the coming 12 weeks – and wow! they have achieved so much working in this way.
I am so pleased to have found Disruptive HR Club – it’s all the things I’ve been thinking about how we should be doing HR – listening to Lucy and Karen gives it the credibility and me the confidence to grasp new ways of working and forge ahead with determination. It’s like having 2 mentors sitting on your shoulder willing you on to put disruptive HR up front and central and not fall into the norm!
Balancing my membership of the Club with lots of reading and listening to podcasts, I find helps and supports me in my continual development as a strategic HR leader.
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