Ian Ruddy
O2 - Life in the Bubble
Ian Ruddy is Head of HR Shared Services for O2.
Ian has over 15 years HR experience gained with O2, Honeywell, Siemens and Cisco Systems. At O2 Ian is responsible for the direct recruitment of over 3,000 people into customer contact centres and retail stores across the UK. This interview continues our series of discussions with major UK employers who are members of the Future of Employment Working Group - a forum in which the REC is having frank discussions with employers about the developments in their recruitment needs.
How did you get into the field of Human Resources?
I have always been interested in Industrial Relations, which I was able to indulge by working part time with the personnel team at BT during summer and Easter breaks while an undergraduate. After graduating I decided to combine my interest in industrial relations and the insights I gained at BT with a vocational path, taking a Masters in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE). This led to my first HR job at Honeywell and the rest is history. Well, my history at least.
What do you like best about your job?
I love the diversity of my work and the difference that my team and I can make for the business through creative solutions. Talented HR people have to have sound business sense combined with an expertise in HR, at O2 everything we deliver must have a solid business deliverable and benefit. We are given a lot of scope to use different approaches and are empowered to do so and that allows for fresh and different ways of doing things.
In your view, what makes O2 a good employer?
O2 is a great employer in so many ways. We reward well, based upon performance, and provide stretching development opportunities right across our organisation. Our values are embedded within our culture and reflect how we do things at O2 (Bold, Open, Trusted and Clear). Because our people strategy is completely aligned with the business strategy, the needs of our people can come first. At O2 we understand that in order to turn our customers into fans of O2, we also need to turn our people into fans. This forms our people agenda, called the people promise which mirrors our customer promise - to provide the best possible customer experience. In no organisation that I have worked for have I seen such an embedded people strategy and focus driving the company to be an employer of choice. We want to make working for O2 fulfilling and memorable by creating a work environment where everyone feels valued, recognised and rewarded. But we also understand that O2 has a lot to offer our employees outside the workplace. That’s why we offer our people the chance to benefit from some of the many activities we are involved in outside the company – such as our sponsorship of The O2 (formerly the Millennium Dome). For example, we recently arranged an expenses-paid trip for the majority of our employees (approximately 10,000 of them) plus their friends and family to attend the key opening event at The O2 and be entertained by Tom Jones, Peter Kay, Kaiser Chiefs and Basement Jaxx (who were very loud!).
What type of person makes a great O2 employee? What is your strategy for attracting and retaining these unique individuals?
Simply put, a good O2 employee is someone who is customer focused, a good team player and bold in their thinking and aspirations. Our brand is one of our key recruitment assets and we hope that it comes across as a breath of fresh air and consistent whether you are a consumer, a business customer or someone who is thinking of joining O2. Our brand differentiates itself in a crowded communications marketplace, and it also needs to translate to a very crowded labour market. We try to ensure that it does this by building our people processes around our brand values and communicating these through multiple channels, including the internet, through which we attract the majority of our candidates. We are always looking at ways to innovate the recruitment process, building upon these successes.
What do you see as the benefits of investment in the recruitment process?
The benefits are very simple. A good recruitment process requires investment and the best recruitment process will allow companies to hire the right person in a timely and cost effective manner, getting them operationally effective as quickly as possible. This, together with ensuring that all candidates have a truly great O2 experience requires investment. However, nailing this process makes a huge different to both the business bottom line and the new employee.
What is the biggest challenge in getting the recruitment process right?
Ensuring that the insight you gain on what works and on what successful recruitment looks like is captured and fed back into your attraction and selection methodology. This information is usually to be found within your own organisation.
In recent years, how has technology changed the way you work and recruit? What changes do you expect it to bring in the next few years?
The internet has probably had the largest impact on the way we recruit. The majority of our candidates come to us directly through our online channels and a lot of information gathering can be automated by using the internet. I believe this area is set to increase and develop further over the coming years.
How would you describe O2’s relationship with the recruitment industry?
Whilst we are building a more direct recruitment model to build on the strength of our brand, there is a key role for the recruitment industry to play that compliments that direct model. We want partners who represent O2, can clearly articulate what our business is about, who we are, our values, and what the people who work for us can expect in return. Of course they also need to be able to give a truly O2 experience throughout the recruitment process.
How do you see that relationship developing over the next 5 years?
Because of the emphasis we are placing on our brand and the tailored approach this requires we are likely to consolidate our recruitment partners. Communicating the brand really requires in depth knowledge and this cannot be spread too thinly across multiple suppliers.
What changes would you like the recruitment industry to make to ensure recruitment businesses better serve your business, now and in the future?
Recruitment agencies could benefit from becoming more candidate focused. Candidate quality is paramount to us and it’s important that any candidate referred to us has a great O2 recruitment experience, from start to finish. After all prospective employees are often either existing or future customers.
As a member of the Future of Employment Working Group, what do you see as the key trends that will affect UK working life in the next 5-10 years? What issues would you like the Working Group to focus on?
You only have to look at the demographics of the population as a whole to see what some of the trends will be. Much of our workforce will be older, meaning that the UK will have to rethink both our benefits packages and the structure of roles – potentially becoming more flexible. In some areas this has already started to happen. O2 actively targets mature workers because they are reliable and are able to use their life-experience when dealing with customers. In addition, the rapid increase of social networking sites on the internet has the potential to not only change the way employers recruit and candidates search for new jobs, but also working life generally, from internal communications to organisational culture. Flexible and remote working is also likely to become more prevalent and we could envision the way that careers are viewed might evolve as well. Career breaks and changes are likely to become more common and recruitment processes will have to change to accommodate this. Globalisation will also impact working life – we are already experiencing high volumes of labour market movement. New skills sets will become available, as well as some skills moving abroad and these are all issues that employers will have to address.
Click here for more on The Future of Employment Working Party
