In the beginning – a personal note from Andrea, our founder
I got the bug for working with people very early on. One of my first Saturday jobs was working at Harrods in Knightsbridge. What an extraordinary experience to be one of thousands of people working in the same building trying to deliver excellent customer service. But as I later discovered, encouraging people to do their best every day was a not insignificant challenge.
Eventually, I knew that working with people was the thing that I most wanted to do. I held a number of roles in learning and development, management development, organisational development and latterly, HR, and discovered that good people practices, a positive culture, and great leadership and management could help create teams of people who had fun, worked hard, and delivered great results.
A new way of thinking
In my last role as an HR director, I led a team of over a hundred people delivering HR and learning and development support in a challenging, customer-facing business. Whilst we did good work, I always felt that too much time was spent on people who were under- performing or weren’t contributing, and not enough time on nurturing and developing the talent we had. Being in a corporate environment also meant attending too many meetings and participating in activities that didn’t really change things very much. I longed for a role where I could just spend time leading a team of people doing really great work that made a difference.
A new beginning
When the opportunity came to start my own company in 2000. I was determined it would be aligned with my values: We wouldn’t work with clients who weren’t interested in truly having better people practices; and work would be fun.
My mother asked me what exactly this new consultancy was going to do, and the best explanation I could give her was that we were going to offer services doing all the people stuff that made a difference. “So, it’s all the people business”, she said. And that became our name. People Business – experts in the business of people.
What our clients say about us
Robert Holzberger, Operations Director, Victoria Miro Gallery
“I highly recommend People Business for HR support for any business that requires professional, personable and up-to-date HR advice and assistance. People Business has been central to our HR needs over the last 10 years. As Victoria Miro doesn’t have a dedicated HR professional, I rely on People Business to help us through complex employee situations and provide contractual advice. Having them on call is reassuring and has worked well for our company. The HR Development and Mentoring Programme also enabled me to establish some important HR fundamentals at the Gallery.
The People Business team are incredibly professional yet personal, and their knowledge of employment law and advice is invaluable. I can’t recommend People Business highly enough.”
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