Senior HR Manager
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield

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I’m Shivanni,

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I’m a senior HR business partner for URW

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and I am based at Westfield,

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Shepherd’s Bush in London.

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My role within HR at Westfield involves looking

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after all of the shopping centres.

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And so a HR business partner would be looking at ways in which –

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how can you hire people? How can you develop people?

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How can you get the best out of them and make them work together as a team?

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I would say the best things about my job are

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just being around people.

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I think the amount of people that you meet is just incredible.

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And just

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making them all work together in a team and knowing that they’re all so different,

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but actually when they come together for one business goal,

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they just find a way to work together.

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I would say that

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communication is a really important skill. So within my role

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I have to speak to so many different people.

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So I would have my employees,

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I would have my managers, I would have the directors of the business.

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I’d have sometimes the owners of the business.

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Sometimes you have to deliver news that you don’t necessarily agree with

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or maybe it’s a difficult message,

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and so just knowing how to deliver that in a pleasant way,

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I think is probably one of the toughest parts of the role.

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I loved school.

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I loved being there, I loved

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being with my friends, and I look back on it so fondly.

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I loved anything that was creative and imaginative,

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so art, English literature.

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My dream job at the time was actually to be a set designer.

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I didn’t end up doing art at university – sorry,

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at A-level – I actually ended up doing psychology, sociology and English.

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Now when I look back on it, it all makes sense.

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And I think you naturally gravitate towards things

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that kind of utilise your skill set with things that you’re good at.

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I studied psychology at university eventually as well.

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And now I use it every day in my role.

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So my first ever summer job was with a summer camp where people would

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kind of leave their kids over the summer and we’d do activities with them.

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I think at times it was really challenging just because I don’t think I’m really

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that great with children.

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So it really tested my patience sometimes.

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And that was whilst I was at university.

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And then I’d also do Christmas holiday jobs as well.

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My first ever Christmas job was actually in Harrods as a temp.

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And I think that’s where

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it ignited my passion and love for retail.

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When I graduated I started my career as a PA,

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and that was in a technology firm.

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I then moved on to Harvey Nichols

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and I joined as an HR assistant,

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and that was to really tap into kind of my passion around fashion and retail.

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I then progressed onto a fashion designer and joined as a HR assistant,

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but then progressed up to a senior HR business partner.

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Following that, I worked across publications in interior

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design in an HR manager capacity, and I’m now a senior HR business partner

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at URW.

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I only really kind of leant into HR

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and progressed within this field after I graduated.

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But up until that point, I didn’t even know that this was a career option.

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I think looking back on it now, I can see how specific subjects

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have led me to this point, and I think I naturally gravitated towards them.

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And you will naturally do that.

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You will naturally gravitate towards things

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that you’re either good at or you enjoy. So carry on doing that,

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and it will all slot into place, I promise you.