Nadine Jones has been appointed people director at advertising company Viacom Outdoor. She joins from travel agency Thomas Cook where she was group HR director responsible for 12,500 people worldwide.
What are the duties in your new role?
We have a great culture and tremendous loyalty among the team at Viacom Outdoor. The key focus of my role is to improve our attraction and retention policies to establish us as an employer of choice within our sector.
What do you hope to achieve in your new role?
To be recognised as a great employer by our team – that’s the best reward any people director could aim for.
What are the challenges HR faces in the next five years?
Focusing on activities that truly deliver bottom-line impact and a return for the businesses we work with.
What is the strangest situation you have been in at work?
Interviewing in a ‘liquor lock-up’ during a store opening as the meeting rooms weren’t finished.
What is the most annoying piece of management jargon?
All of it. There is a great saying: ‘It does what is says on the tin’. I am a true believer of explaining things in Daily Mirror-speak.
What is your essential HR tool?
Pragmatism.
And the most overrated?
E-mail – I much prefer to pick up the phone or go and find folk.
What advice would you give to people starting out in HR?
Understand your business and your customers – doing the job is a whole lot easier when you know the context of what needs to be done, for whom and why.
What is the worst thing about HR?
Being seen as a cost rather than an investment.
How do you fill your spare time?
Making it up to my daughter for working so hard during the week, and trying to keep our garden and fish alive.
What is your essential TV viewing?
CSI and Location, Location, Location.
What song gets you on the dance floor?
Anything except Abba.
What would be your dream job?
Running the Rugby Football Union.
Who would play you in the film of your life and why?
Meryl Streep – she is a very talented actress.
What was the best office party you ever attended?
The best was while I was at George at Asda – I think I was dressed as someone from Abba at the time and can only hope there are no photographs still in existence.
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
Lord Coe – what he and his team have done for London and the UK is phenomenal. He is always so humble and calm.
Jones’ CV
- 2005 People director, Viacom Outdoor
- 2004 Interim HR director, PRG Powerhouse
- 2002 Group HR director, Thomas Cook
- 2001 HR director, Austin Reed
- 1996 Head of HR, George, Asda
