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Joining gratterpalm as HR manager five years ago was a challenging proposition - both for the company and for myself. An award-winning independent retail marketing agency based in Leeds, gratterpalm creates advertising, point of sale and design for major clients including UK grocery giant ASDA and sofa retailer DFS. Today, it employs over 100 people out of its Leeds office and has a fully functional HR department. As HR director, I sit on the main board of directors, and the company also employs another HR executive.
When I joined the agency in January 2003, gratterpalm had no HR function whatsoever. Originally a family-run business, it had grown, over 25 years, to a team of 70 and had just undergone a management buyout. This signified a change in direction for the business that prompted it to look more seriously at functions such as HR.
Although the company was thriving, there was no consistency in the way it handled employee matters. At the same time, several pieces of employment legislation loomed with which it urgently needed to comply. As gratterpalm grew in size and took on more sizeable accounts, many of them for larger corporates, it was imperative that the agency dealt with its employees on a more professional level. For me, coming from a corporate background as part of the HR team at United Biscuits, it really was back to basics. There were no contracts, no handbook, no formal system of appraisal and no induction procedures. Nor was there a discipline or grievance procedure in place - something that potentially had huge cost implications.
The challenges
In the creative industry you often hear "our people are our greatest asset," but all too often agencies are simply paying lip service and human resources are not a high priority in any but a few creative businesses. High employee turnover rates, burnout and job dissatisfaction are common issues within the industry. But that's partly why the job at gratterpalm appealed to me; I felt that there was a real opportunity to make a difference. Far from feeling like a cog in the wheel of a large corporate firm, I was starting with a completely blank page and had an opportunity to drive change. In addition to the challenge of...