HR Directors Club Breakfast Briefing

Dyson director extols virtues of sound company structure

The key to business success is the structure of the company, according to one of the UK’s leading businessmen.

At a recent Personnel Today HR Directors Club breakfast briefing at Chelsea Football Club, Sir Richard Needham, a director of Dyson Appliances and vice-chairman of NEC (Europe), told delegates: “The structure of a company is enormously important if you want to get the best out of people. The correct design of an organisation is absolutely critical to its success.”

In a challenging presentation, Michael Heseltine’s former deputy at the DTI said public sector managers were not up to the task.

“The majority of the public sector is weak, flabby and inefficient at getting the best out of people,” he said. “However, the public sector is far better than 20 years ago.”

He said HR had to deal with too much regulation dreamed up by civil servants with no experience of business and, because of this, “HR spends an immense amount of time doing things with questionable value”.

HR Directors Club members have already heard a number of inspiring speakers this year, including Andrew Marr, political editor at the BBC, and Kevin Green, personnel and organisational development director at Royal Mail. We’ve also lined up Clare Chapman, Group HR director at Tesco, to talk about her innovative people strategies at our next breakfast briefing on 28 September.

The HR Directors Club also runs evening networking events, where members debate topical issues.

At last week’s event, at Trinity House in Tower Hill, London, HR directors heard the latest thinking and shared best practice on human capital management. [Click here to read about the event]

In a separate workshop at The Brewery, members shared their experiences of becoming an employer of choice. [Click here to read about the event]

The HR Directors Club also ran a recent workshop on HR transformation. [Click here to read about the event]