Passion in HR brings people and business needs together

I totally disagree that HR people are without passion (Personnel Today, 19 June).

I don’t believe anyone should go into a career in HR without feeling a passion for the work with, and for, people. I can say that every single person in my team has an enormous pride in what goes on in The Towergate Partnership. Yes, sometimes we have hard messages – redundancy, disciplinary etc – to give, but it’s the way you deal with these things that matters. Never leave an employee with a sense of failure.

We have 3,500 employees with whom we share the everyday good and bad. We also hold annual events where we try to maintain that caring family spirit that is our core.

When I started with Towergate, we had 220 staff and have grown in eight years to our current number. What an adventure, and what a great sense of being part of something where the message has always been: make money, work hard and have fun. I joined the company at the request of our chairman to come and “look after my people”. I like to think I have done that, and all the people I have recruited have maintained that initial request.

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How can HR be without passion? There are policies, procedures and legal requirements that have to be adhered to, but what singles out good HR from bad is a fundamental desire to bring the business need and the people together. Do that and you have a successful company. Do it without passion and you have nothing.

Lynda Thwaites
Head of people, pay and FUN
The Towergate Partnership