Helen Beurier, Chief of People @ Newton Europe

Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. Today we're joined by Helen. Helen, welcome to the podcast.

Hello Peter, fantastic to be here. Thank you for welcoming me.

It's a pleasure to have you on, and you are the Chief People Officer at Newton.

That's right.

Newton is a very renowned company, uh, especially I went to UCL, it was definitely one of these companies that you know, was everywhere at graduate fairs, and, you know, everybody wanted to try and apply for. And it's great to have you on and to speak about that journey. But I think before we get into that in more detail, I want to start at the beginning. So you were at Royal Holloway and you were studying French.

That's right.

What were you thinking your career might pan out to be at the time?

Do you know, I had absolutely no career plans whatsoever. The only reason that I managed to get to university was that my sister was running the bookstore on Royal Holloway's campus. No one in my family had ever been to university, and to me, it sort of felt quite distant and remote. And the fact that as a teenager, I went and helped with stocktake at weekends, it gave me some degree of confidence that perhaps that was a community that I could belong to. The goal was to get there. What would happen afterwards was a complete mystery. I didn't really have any role models. Around me that guided me on my career choices. So, like many people, I decided to take a degree in the subject I was best at, and it was French. Fortunately, I've now got a French husband, but beyond that, I'm not sure that the French has given me a great deal of advantage career-wise.

And obviously, your first step, I think you mentioned it, was into sales, but like, when I look at your LinkedIn, it's in the world of HR. There's a big HR and people theme throughout your career.

Yeah.

Why did that seem like it was something that you wanted to dive into that world in the early stages?

So I think, I mean, I had my first job at 15, which was in a florist, and I talk about that experience, first of all, because it helped me to buy my first pair of Levi 501s that my parents refused, but also because when people come into a florist, it's usually for some sort of emotionally driven reason, which can be very, very happy or can be tragically sad. And I think that first job at a really young age taught me the importance of EQ and being able to read people and to read what's going on underneath. And then, you know, a series of other kind of retail-based roles again brought me into contact with lots of different people in different situations. And I was really, really lucky that one of my first jobs as a teenager was at Marks Spencer, where I learned, you know, a whole host of skills including bra measuring. And then, you know, when I graduated, they offered me a role on their graduate development program, which allowed me exposure to lots of different disciplines, and people was one of them. And I think at the heart of my choice to work in the people domain is the ability to help people to fulfil their potential and release some of their own unique identity through the work that they do. So, this relationship between potential and performance and helping people, you know, feel joy and fulfilment is really where I ended up.

It's interesting and nice to hear you sort of putting the, the importance on that initial job when you were 15, because I think sometimes your career journey, people forget how formative those can be. Um, and in terms of developing EQ, and obviously it's so important for the industry that you work in now, it— people wouldn't even really know. There isn't like something you can go on a job site and see, oh, this job's to develop your emotional intelligence. Um, so for you, what was your, your mindset in terms of like, when you, after having that experience, what made a role stand out as something you'd actually want to commit time to? Because, you know, working at Marks Spencer's in the HR department, why did that seem like the right company to be working for at the time?

Well, I think you're massively influenced by wanting some money, putting it bluntly. I really wanted those Levi 501s back. And then beyond sort of having a little bit of change in your pocket, I wanted to learn more about myself, and I wanted to have good teachers, and good mentors. And Marks Spencer, growing up, was like my mum's favorite place. We spent a lot of time there. They looked like they were serious people. She still spends a lot of time there at the tender age of 83. I think her local Brooklyn store, you know, know her intimately. And I worked at Marks Spencer at a time where some of the best leaders in the business were part of that team. And I was super lucky that the person who interviewed me for a temporary seasonal role Actually then, you know, has become a mentor, sort of Catherine Muirden, who might well be listening to this, is somebody that was a great mentor to me for a very long time and saw something in me and my national record of achievement. I did actually take that maroon folder, for people of my generation who'll remember it, I took that to my interview. She saw something in me that others hadn't, and that led to a lot of other people seeing something in me that, you know, I didn't know was there. And I think being discovered, you know, whatever your line of work, you know, whether that's as a great singer as a singer, you know, or as a potential business leader, it's really important to take that leap of faith. But, you know, as my career progressed, there's something good in every career experience that you're going to have, even ones that you might feel were a failure against the objectives that you had. You know, I talk about the fact that I think careers are increasingly about developing different adventures and experiences, not the sort of very linear career ladder that I knew when I set out where, you know, at one organisation actually, the number of windows you had in your office was connected to your status. I think that world is gone for the good in my mind. So, seeing each opportunity as something that can give you an experience, relationship, some learning about what you like or even what you don't like, that's going to set you up better for your next choice.

Yeah, and you alluded to that you have gone to many different companies and workplaces throughout your career and I wonder, especially in the early years, what was it, do you think, that prompted you to, to make that leap at the time? Like, why did it feel right to take on that next adventure? Because I think on this podcast, when I've asked that question, some people say that their growth felt stunted, or, you know, they just needed a change. But was that— was there anything slightly different for you as a motivator?

Yeah, well, I think actually, I know my friend Ben Dando from Liquid Death was on this podcast, and he talked about needing to make a move when you stop learning. And I think that is true. I would agree with him. But I also think sometimes it's hard for people to see you in a different light. If you've been somewhere for a long time, you potentially have developed a brand that maybe you want to break away from and you want to, you know, renew your identity. Or, you know, maybe you've done yourself out of a job because you've created such a great team around you that it's time to let that next generation of leaders pick up. The baton as we do in a relay. But I think people are often very fearful of change, and in my experience, change can be really hard, and in the beginning it can feel tough, but very often that change can be a catalyst for wonderful things and wonderful relationships that you never knew existed. And certainly, you know, when I look at CVs now, we, you know, lucky that we have a lot of people that want to join Newton, you know, it's not such a concern to see that people have had change in their career. Actually, that's a good thing to see because it shows adaptability and resilience and courage.

And one thing we really like to do on this podcast is demystify roles and different industries. And I think HR is one of those ones where everybody knows those, those words, right? They know what it means. But I think as an actual career path, people don't really know the intricacies of why people go into it, what it actually looks like. And I'm interested in, you know, having been in that space for so long, that what, how, how it was perceived back then, how you perceived it, and how it's changed. To someone listening to this, what does HR mean to you?

Well, HR, just even actually, it's two letters, um, it has progressed a lot. I've been working in this field for about 26 years, which seems very, very frightening to me when I look in the mirror. Um, but when I first started out, it's called staffing. And I was in a retail environment, and a lot of the work we did was actually making sure there were enough physical people to run a store. Then personnel, then we had a period of time of HR, and now the trend is people, and increasingly people and culture. I think my function has been one of those that's changed the most and evolved the most over the last two decades. And I think when I started working, there was probably a stronger focus on the whole wellbeing of an employee, of somebody that's part of your team, rather than just kind of the conditions and the agreement that you have to deliver service. And then we went through a period of time, certainly, you know, leading up to the financial crash of 2008 and after that, where it became more about efficiency and productivity and a lot of sort of hard measures. And I think since the pandemic, we've seen more of a return to thinking about our team members as a whole person and creating an environment that helps people work at their best, but also be at their best physically, mentally, emotionally. And I'm really grateful to see that transition because I think that's a much more exciting role for people like me.

And to dive a little bit deeper into why that is so exciting to you, I know you, uh, you've done your own passion project really delving into people. Um, what do you think, uh, from your learnings from that, it makes such a welcome change? You know, why is people and culture so essential to the performance of a company?

Uh, so the people that you invite into your business are a representation of you. And, you know, that's just true for, you know, a huge international organization with thousands of people. It's as true for a founder like you. And so that representation of your purpose and your values and your mission is critical. Your customers, your stakeholders are going to interact with your people. So it's really important that they feel affinity and connection to what it is that you're trying to do. And beyond that, your people are probably the biggest cost that's going to sit on your P&L. So, in terms of the asset that you're investing in, you'd want to be confident running your business that all of that investment is yielding value. So, I think actually increasingly the investment in people And that connection with your culture and your values is what really helps organizations to succeed or fail. And we've seen big organizations, particularly in the last 3, 4 years, where the way they treat their people and their behaviors say a lot about the identity of that organization. Yesterday, we saw Amazon, for example, mandating a 5-day week return. To the office. And so it's interesting to see how that connection with people and the way that you are engaging with your people saying a lot about what, what sort of business you are, um, to your customers and to your clients.

I hope this question makes sense because I was just thinking about it and I'm thinking about how I can actually say it without messing it up, but people are so important, I should say, to a company. And the people who select the people are very important. And you've been the person doing the direct hiring, and now you're obviously at the top of the team making sure that your team of people that hire people are like— they are all aligned and all bought into it. And you're like, for Newton, for example, in your actual hiring process, how do you make sure that everybody who's applying is given that fair opportunity to express themselves and that all the people doing the interviews are having the same line of questioning to create the same culture?

Well, the way that we assess talent in any organisation, but particularly at Newton because we are bringing in a large group of graduates every year and they're the essence of our talent pipeline, and we win awards for the way that we do that. I mean, first of all, It's about attracting a really wide pool of people. So, we go to, you know, very significant lengths to engage directly with students and to help them understand more about our company and our values and to have a really wide reach. Then we've got an assessment process, which needs to help us understand that people have, you know, the right intellectual agility and analytical ability to perform well within our organisation. But that's just the start. And then the interactions that we're designing are about helping us to see the whole person, how they relate to others, what sort of team dynamic we're going to see in the workplace, and whether our values are shared within that individual. And the values part is really important to us because those values are what guides the way we work together and the way that we show up for our clients, you know, about moral integrity, you know, and ethical integrity. And so that part of our process is really important to our sort of DNA and felt experience of working here. And I think, you know, Newton is an extremely human-centric company. That's the reason why I chose to go and work there. Sort of since leaving my corporate career a few years back, I have looked for organizations that really put people at the heart and center of the way they operate, and they do that really consciously because they recognise that it's the people providing the competitive advantage. And so at Newton, our people are our product. You know, we are working with some of the highest profile organisations in the UK to address some of the country's most significant challenges. And so it's really important for us that people feel that sense of purpose in the work we do and are driven by the same values that we are.

One thing I've learned since doing this podcast is that everybody focuses on ticking boxes in their career and like, you know, making sure they've got that degree or they've done that spring week or that summer internship. And I think, of course, like you said, there are just capabilities that are important for a job, but I think the ability to storytell and contextualize what you've actually done, um, is, is really the most important thing for me. And, you know, whether that's being a founder and actually selling, or whether that's actually selling yourself to a company to be able to work for them. And I think what that means is that you can have a really out-there experience that you could just never would link to careers, and it can be the thing that gets you that job. So if you've got like a favorite case study— granted, you've been in this for years, so there'll be so many—

but where it's like, on the surface level, that wouldn't equal a job, but the way they contextualized it was like, okay, 'You are the person for this role.' Well, it's interesting that you talk about storytelling because I think that's an unsung skill actually in leaders today, and I talk about it quite a lot because I think that it's so important for your business to have a narrative about why you're doing what you're doing and where you want to go and why it's in someone's benefit to be part of that transformational journey. And I think you're absolutely right that showing that as a human being, you're both interesting and interested, is a really important skill. And showing who you are as a person and what's driven you to make certain choices. And actually, most of the interview conversations I have ask people to tell me their story rather than to tell me their career history, because I've got the CV, and so I know what someone has a degree in, or, you know, I know that summary of their past, but I'm more interested in, you know, why they've made those choices. Actually, within my team at Newton, we are sharing in a concept that I learned at Lip, which was one of my clients when I was running my own business, my own advisory business, which is called Spotlight. And we ask one of our team members every month to share with the rest of the team an experience, a passion, something that really matters to them, either in work or outside of work, that helps to tell us more about them as an individual. And it's just magic because you see someone in a completely different light. So, we know that one of our team has a tortoise that's been with her for most of her childhood, and we know so much about tortoises that we never knew before. We know that one of our team is an expert in crochet and actually spends a lot of her time producing garments for premature babies in hospitals. We learned just yesterday that one of our team is a martial arts ninja and has a very impressive range of shorts that go with that sport. And you would, you know, never know this about people that are around you, you know, day in, day out. And so I think —I think, you know, encouraging people listening to this podcast to think about if that was you and you were asked to present a spotlight about yourself, what would it be, and how can you weave that into the story that you tell about yourself and about your journey would be awesome.

Yeah, I think listening to you say that, I'm like, okay, it's clear that they want to hear, you know, things that you might not be able to tell on a CV in your interview, but I think the actual execution of that is another challenge in itself, you know. How do you actually take what it can be, you know, sometimes an interview is not— not to say yours are, but it can be very like specific questions, or, you know, they're not as open-ending as tell me your story. And I think then the skill comes to like how you can actually make someone emotionally invested in something that isn't actually answering their specific question. Is there like a skill in that, do you think? Or, you know, how can, how can somebody actually start bringing out their personality more without seeming like they're deviating, right?

Yeah. Well, so first of all, I think career coaching is a fancy word for saying sit down with somebody close to you to think about how you would present yourself. What are the key things that you'd want someone to know about you, your capabilities, and your, you know, your interests that differentiate you from someone else? What's unique and special about you? And don't be afraid when someone asks you a question that you maybe have planned or rehearsed to answer in a different way by saying, you know, "Can I consider maybe answering your question this way?" And, you know, that conversation is two-way. Don't feel that it is a firing round of, "Here's the question and you've got to give an answer." I think, you know, it should be a two-way dialogue. And if you feel that there's a better way of answering that question that's going to get you across in a better way than Don't feel afraid to do that.

And I think that leads us nicely on to going into the interview with the right intentions and actually understanding who the company is and why you'd want to work for them. And I think if we could just get a quick sort of elevator pitch of why Newton. Obviously, arguably, you don't need any more applicants because you've got so many, and it'd probably make your job more difficult. But generally speaking, why do so many people apply for Newton, and what should they know about Newton going into an interview?

Well, I can say this because I've joined Newton very recently, so I've got my own reasons, which I think will resonate with this audience. But Newton is a growing consulting firm working on some of the most challenging problems that are facing the UK now and in the future. There's a really deep purpose to the work that we do, and we have a really unique relationship with our clients that is about partnership and collaboration. And we believe so strongly in our ability to drive value that we guarantee our fee. And we're very unique in that approach. So, we spend a lot of time supporting our clients in defining the improvements that we believe we can make together, and we guarantee results. Newton isn't a job. It's not just work. Newton is an opportunity for you to develop and accelerate your career growth in a really special environment, being surrounded by fantastic development opportunities and lots of diverse settings and brilliant mentors and coaches that are going to help you to understand yourself and understand a lot more about the world around you. And we do that through a series of developmental assignments, coaching, but also events. We have quite a unique set of employee engagement events that allow for really exceptional problem-solving, kind of ideation and creative collaboration. So, we're creating an experience. It's not a job, and it is a wonderful environment for you to learn more about yourself, the world around you, and become a better human. We're on a real mission to create the best place to learn, work, and grow. And, you know, I'm probably biased in saying I think it's one of the most exceptional environments for a graduate to come and join.

Okay, so if I'm interested in consulting already, I'm sold. Yeah, I'm applying. If I can keep Peter— but if I don't know the first thing about what consulting actually means, try and demystify what actually is a career in consulting, because obviously it's such a broad term. But I want to understand what it means to you and why it is a great role and sort of space to be in.

Yeah. Well, I mean, at its heart, consulting is providing advice and guidance to organizations to help solve problems and to help support the delivery of their strategy. Organizations come to us because they've got problems they're not sure how to solve themselves, or maybe they think they know how to solve those problems themselves, but they need an injection of specialist support and capability to be able to do that. So it's the best kind of teamwork, and our relationship model is quite unique. It's extremely close and collaborative, and some of our partnerships have lasted, you know, more than a decade. So we have a— some of our clients are really close connections, so that it's a really special relationship, I think, based on, you know, mutual good. And we are seeing our business continue to grow and develop. We've made two acquisitions this year, one with a creative agency called Magnetic, another with a software development business called Xantura. So, you know, we're also thinking about how we can continue to add, you know, more diverse capabilities into our team to better respond to the needs of our clients. So, I think that means that our career paths are, you know, becoming much more varied and exciting as well for the longer term.

I want to go back into your own career journey a bit. Um, you, from the outside looking in, have always been on an upward stretch in your career, you know, going to these big glamorous companies, you know, promotion after promotion. You know, it seemed like, you know, you've always had it figured out from the outside looking in. But, you know, as I'm learning this podcast, it's never, it's never that easy, and that's never the case. Can you give us some insight into some of the difficulties and maybe like feelings of being lost and not actually a sense of purpose in your career and how you actually went on to overcome them?

First of all, you're very kind. That's a very nice thing to say about my career journey, but you're absolutely right. Yeah, I think for anybody with my sort of background, there's been moments of doubt and change and you haven't been quite sure how it's going to work out. I think probably the first of those for me was having children and having that sort of challenge in being able to meet the demands of your work and also show up in the way that you want to for your family. So, that's certainly been a period of career where I've doubted, am I in the right spot? I also had a period of time where I worked internationally and turned out to be a brilliant experience, but at the beginning felt quite risky and quite scary. And then, you know, as I've increasingly sort of become more senior, I, like many others, you know, have those moments of imposter syndrome where the you, you think you know, is actually capable of more, and embracing that and being willing to go with that and not over-analysing it too much. So, I agree with you, you should be really wary looking at anybody that you think is in a really senior position, thinking that, you know, it's all very polished. We're all humans. We're all in a journey of discovery through life. We don't know, as Forrest Gump would say, what's in the box of chocolates. And, you know, we're getting up each morning, and as long as you're willing to be surprising and be surprised, It's a journey, and my wonderful dad, who's no longer with me, said, you know, make the most of what you have, and that's, you know, what's guided me for most of my career.

And if there's somebody, you know, sitting there, maybe they're 18 and they don't know what stage to go on to their career next, whether it's university, apprenticeships, they're feeling lost in that case, or even, you know, they're in their final year and they don't know how to use their degree and they're just wondering, you know, 'Maybe careers isn't for me.' You know, maybe it's just this hard and it's never, it's never going to go my way. What do you think in terms of a mindset? Because I think a lot of careers is mindset. Is, you know, something you could say to reinstall someone's faith and give them some optimism in their career to start really building, you know, hopefully straight off this episode?

Well, you know, while I was carrying out my research last year exploring why people come to work, I was lucky enough to have the chance to meet Linda Grattan and Andrew Scott, who wrote The Hundred-Year Life. And, you know, people who are born, you know, around now, or who have been born in the last 15 years, are likely to live to be 105, all being well. So, if you're listening to this and you're 18, the likelihood is that you've probably got a 60-year career ahead of you. So, it's okay to take a bit of time. 60 years is a really long time, and I think the generations where people entered into a workplace and stayed there their whole life and retired at 60 are going to be fewer and fewer in the future. So, the chances are that we're going to have lots of different mini careers. We're going to have, you know, short spans of doing different things, and they might be successively more senior within a certain discipline, or they might be totally different. And if that's your narrative, that's a really good one, which is to say, I know my career is going to be really long and I feel really comfortable about the fact that I'm going to have certain experiences and develop skills. And then I might move into a very different area and I might have 3 or 4 years where I don't work at all because I'm, you know, exploring education or I'm caring for a dependent or I'm volunteering or I'm caring for my children. And I think that's going to become much more of a norm. And the person I am now at 48 isn't the person I was at 18. We're all growing every day. Sadly, in my case, not up because I'm only 5 foot 2, but we're all learning, growing, and evolving. You don't need to decide everything now. Yeah, that's a great answer.

And, uh, there was something you said earlier on in the episode about how HR and, and how people perceive it has changed, and I wonder if there's anything— you said it's beneficial what's happened in a lot of ways since COVID in terms of culture and the stress on the importance of the actual person. Is there anything that you'd love to champion or you wish that you could sort of inject into the world now from your long career in this space? Yeah, something that you really think is a bit of a lost significance that you would love to bring back into the working world?

Yes, and thank you for asking me the question. I think that the world's becoming more and more lonely. I think that, you know, the COVID experience forced us all to be very individually oriented and to look inside ourselves because we were isolated and we were isolated from each other. And I think that as we've returned to the workplace, we've realized how much we crave being with others, whether that's, you know, virtually or in person. We know that loneliness is now an epidemic. I think I think it was the US Surgeon General who said it's now on a par with opioid addiction in the US. We've got men in South Korea who are, young men who are being paid to leave their apartment because of the worry about the lack of social interaction and a birth rate that I think the last time I looked at it was at 0.68. So we've got some really worrying features because of within society about how humans interact and form connections and what that means kind of for the structure of society and for the economy. And we know that our economy is suffering at the moment from exceptionally low productivity. I think engagement at work in the UK in the last survey was oscillating somewhere around 12%. So that means there are a lot of people out there going to work every day who frankly just don't really love what they do. And if you don't love what you do, I mean, you and I both know you're not going to be that vested in it. You're not really caring about it. So, I think that people like me who are designing workplaces, and we're designing what work actually looks like, you know, need to be thinking much longer term than just 2024 and thinking about how we can make those workplaces exciting and engaging for much younger people who we haven't met. Places they want to be, places that teach them something about themselves, the world, that help them to be great citizens and play their part in building good society. And I think that's a massive, massive responsibility. I think workplaces in the future are going to be so much more important to the fabric of the way humanity connects. And yeah, that's something that I'm thinking about a lot.

My final question to you, which I ask every single one of my guests, is that when you first, you know, in London at Royal Holloway, studying French, you would have had a certain idea of what a successful career might go on to look like. Fast forward with everything you've learned and achieved along the way, what is your definition of success and how has it changed?

Um, well, this is probably gonna make everybody laugh. I had two objectives really when I started in the world of work. The first one was to, um, have a bedroom big enough that I could make an angel shape lying on the floor and I wouldn't touch any furniture. And the second was to earn £50,000 a year. So, the first one wasn't really that difficult to achieve, I'll be honest, the angel shape on the floor. I think I've, you know, I hit earning £50,000 when I was about 28. I was very, very lucky. You know, none of those things looking back now were important or consequential. They definitely shouldn't have been objectives. I think I, you know, after 26 years of experience, the first thing I've come to know is that actually showing up where you're supposed to be, knowing what you're there to do, and feeling confident inside about how you're going to do it is a huge win. And, you know, for a lot of people, that, that's a real struggle. And, you know, as we're going about our work and engaging with others, we need to be mindful of actually just feeling good about who you are and where you're going is the most important thing in life. The second thing is trying to be valuable, to add value, and to learn, and to be kind. And those are the things I try, try to do every day.

Helen, you've been wonderful. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. Cheers. Bye.