Assistant Human Resources Manager
Chaucer Insurance

Debbie F

00:00:02 My name is Debbie F, and I am the Assistant Human Resources Manager. Mainly I look after things like the recruitment, I also do the payroll and the benefits for the company. And deal with any sort of staffing issues.

00:00:18 HR wasn’t something I ever really thought about getting into, it sort of happened a little bit for me by accident. I’ve had sort of sales roles or customer service roles in the past, and the people side was what I always enjoyed, so I suppose in a way it’s a natural progression for myself.

00:00:38 I was one of these people that didn’t really have any things I wanted to do when I was a kid, I decided I wanted to be a singer and a dancer, but I wasn’t really very good at either, so that sort of wiped out that idea quite early on. I also wasn’t particularly interested in school, I mean it’s one of those things, you always look back now and think – I wish I’d done a bit better, I wish I’d, you know, got better results when I was at school. I mean I can’t say I did that bad, but I think you don’t appreciate it maybe so much when you’re there.

00:01:11 When I left school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, I just knew that I wanted to get a job, I was quite independent, I wanted to earn some money. I applied for a role as a Sales Administrator, as like a trainee, they were looking for someone of a school leaver age. And at 16 I had three very intense interviews for a Japanese company at the time. And, you know, I was really pleased to be successful, to get that opportunity to start in that role.

00:01:38 There was a position that came up within Sales and Marketing for an office furniture manufacturing company. Then I was unfortunate enough to go on a team building exercise and broke my leg! So they wouldn’t let me back to work for quite a while, so I ended up off work for about a year. When I came back to work, unfortunately they’d had a reshuffle with things, and my role was put at risk of redundancy. But that was quite lucky for me in a way, because there was a position in the Human Resources department. So that was – seemed like it – almost like a natural progression for me, and something that I was very interested in on the people side. So I was offered that position to move across into that team.

00:02:21 You’ve always heard the word redundancy, but you never really understand what it means. But suddenly when you’re faced with that, it can be – it can be quite stressful because you actually feel you don’t know where, you know, what you’re going to do, are you going to have a job? Are you going to have the money coming in? Suddenly I was a bit unsure of myself, and unsure of my next direction. As I say, I think it worked out quite well for me in a way, because it made me think about it and made me change direction.

00:02:48 I think the high point of my career has really been the job that I’m doing – that I’m doing now. I mean I moved to this company five years ago as a HR Administrator, and I’ve worked myself through the ranks really. I am where I want to be, I don’t really want to do any further studies, you know, at the moment, I feel I’ve reached a point in my life now where I’m happy with what I’m doing. I’m confident enough in my role, just to enjoy my day to day role.

00:03:17 My hero would have probably been my Granddad when I was growing up. He was always a very good sort of role model I think, and taught me a lot about life. He had some health issues in his own life, but he sort of overcome them and always came through to do the best that he could, always with a smile on his face. And I think that’s quite important, you know, life never throws everything that we all want at us but it’s – but it’s how you deal with the different things really, and what you take from it. If you do sit down and think about it, I think you can usually find a positive for most things.

00:03:52 ENDS