Talent Talks with Tom Hacquoil

Talent Talks - Karen Blackburn and Tom Hacquoil
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Welcome to Talent Talks, quick fire questions to get to know leaders in recruitment. I'm Tom, CEO at Pinpoint, and today's our second edition of this new series. I'm joined by Karen Blackburn, Head of Talent and Mobility at Lush, and today I'm going to ask a mix of questions related to recruitment with a bunch of wildcards, and we'll try and keep this short and sweet. You ready for some quickfire questions, Karen?

Absolutely. Can't wait.

Brilliant. We'll start with a fun one to ease us in. If you weren't in recruitment, what would you be doing?

That's a really tricky question because I love recruitment, but I think I'd combine my two loves, which are cats and being somewhere in the Caribbean, and maybe own a cattery in the Caribbean. But I don't know if that would be a very good business model. I'll give it a go.

That is as broad an answer as I've ever received. And I appreciate you taking the time to do that. Yeah, cattery and Caribbean. We'll roll with it. Give me the 60 second summary of the role you do at Lush.

Okay, so I guess a lot of my work is shaping the strategy for attracting, developing and retaining our talent. And ensuring we are remaining an employer of choice. We've got an amazing brand, people are really excited about it. And I think one of the major things which I think about and really tell the team to think about is ensuring every candidate becomes a Lush customer if they aren't already.We want to give them the best experience. So we're constantly looking at that employee journey. Also supporting and evolving our culture and ethos, which is of continuous learning and growth. That's a big thing here at Lush and managing the movement of our talent to meet our business needs. So we look at that globally and move people around to where they're needed.

That's cool. Makes a lot of sense. And I think the comment about making your employee folks customers of Lush is super interesting because the Lush brand has quite a public stance on the way it thinks about things like animal testing and so on and so forth. How do you think about taking potential employees on a journey there if they're not already Lush customers? What does that kind of brand education look like?

I guess it's just giving them the best experience. Whether that's a job at the end of it or not getting a job at the end of it. So being really honest with them, handholding them through that process as much as possible, giving them some Lush products so they can enjoy them themselves. And just being really down to earth with them. We don't want them to be worried about going through that process.

No, it makes a lot of sense. You talked a lot about candidate attraction at the get go of your kind of role overview. What's the biggest thing you do to attract great candidates early in the recruitment experience at Lush?

Look, I think we're really lucky. We've got a massive global brand appeal. It's really visual. The brand is attractive. It feels quite tangible. It smells good. So we've got all of that already. But I think a lot of the work that we do is with our communities. We do a lot with local universities, schools, and colleges, doing talks with them, going to their recruitment fairs and just being there and chatting with the students and getting them excited about the brand and what they can do in their careers. We do a lot of work with the Real Living Wage Foundation. So we're accredited by the Real Living Wage and then other things we do. We work really closely with Women in Tech. We've done things with Silicon Milkroundabout and hosted events. So I think the community work is something that we really strive to do and really do well with as well.

That's awesome. I think you talk a bit about the brand being global and having this big footprint and all of these things. Clearly reporting and tracking on all of that is a challenge at the best of times. If you were to choose one hiring metric that you focus on as a talent team at Lush, what would that be?

Yeah, data is important to us, but it's not the biggest thing at Lush. We've never been data-driven as such. But I think one thing that we really look at is the time to hire. Lush being a retail business, we're very quick. It's very fast-paced. Sometimes from the invention of a product through to it being in the stores is a matter of weeks. And I'd say our recruitment needs to work like that as well. So I think that's probably the biggest thing. We're always looking at our time to hire and how we can make that as quick as possible.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense and kind of aligns with the challenges we see in a lot of retail orgs to be honest. Taking a break for a sec. We're going to choose a wildcard question. Give me a number from one to ten.

Five.

What's your favourite movie or TV show?

Okay, my favourite TV show is really obvious. And probably a lot of people would say the same thing, but it's got to be Friends. It's like a comfort blanket.

Cliche, but solid choice. Who's your favorite Friends character?

It changes all the time, but I love a bit of Ross.

I'm a Chandler man, but I'll take it. Yeah, absolutely. I think he's probably the least like me as a person, which is why I find him very interesting. No, cool. That's awesome. Good choice. Back to the real stuff. What's the single biggest challenge facing talent leaders in 2024?

I think it's the same as last year, salary and benefits. People want money in their pockets. They want good benefits to support their families and themselves. And I think that's really something we struggle with. We focus on our lowest paid people. And that's why we're accredited by the Real Living Wage. That's our huge focus for us all the time, looking after those lowest paid people. But I think in terms of salary and benefits, it is a massive challenge. I'm still seeing it now. There's less talent because of that. So we're doing a lot more head-hunting. And it feels like a failure if we use a recruitment agency; we're an in-house recruitment team. We should be able to find these people. So we really try not to use agencies, but yeah, salary and benefits are a big thing for us still this year.

No, it makes a lot of sense. And I think we see this issue pervade like a lot of your industry. Do you feel like the talent you're competing for is going to other retail orgs that are able to compensate in a different structure, or do you think they're just leaving the industry entirely in favour of jobs with better comp?

Not necessarily. I think when we recruit for head office roles specifically we do ideally look for people that are either based in Poole or London so they can come into the office. For anyone that knows Poole, it's quite a small town. So we've got a small pool of people and we are I guess in competition with other companies that are insurance, finance based, they have amazing benefits and usually a great salary. So I think we have to really sell the culture of Lush and what it's like working for us and our ethics and values.

No, it makes sense. And I'll just note that the "small pool of people" pun was not missed. I've pulled it right out for you. It's nice. Good work. You're going to use that again. If I'm new to the industry what's your sort of big top tip for somebody new to a Talent Acquisition role?

Don't go into it thinking it's easy. It's not easy. It's really hard. I would say just be transparent and honest. Don't be afraid to ask questions and challenge the answers that you're getting. Soak up the knowledge around you. Really embed yourself within the company and spend time with the teams. Get to know the job that you're recruiting for so you can really sell it.

No, I love that. I think the get to know the job you're recruiting for bit is a huge takeaway and I think it's often missed, right? It's too transactional at times. And I think people miss a trick there. Second and final wildcard question. Give me a number from 1 to 10.

Let's go for 10.

What's the worst hiring experience you've ever had personally as a candidate?

I hate interviews and I'm really rubbish in interviews. I think that's what drives me to make people feel comfortable in interviews. Do you know what? When I came to Lush, my interview was terrible. I'd actually never used any of the products. Hadn't really gone into a store, even though I live close by the head office and Lush is all around us here. So the night before I was researching on the website, what products would I use? Because I know they're going to ask me it, but I just, when they asked me that question, I just fumbled over my answer and it must have been so obvious I didn't know what I was talking about. It was just really cringy.

But they saw past that and still hired you and now you're running the Talent and Mobility team.

I don't think they had much choice because there isn't a big talent pool in Poole, is there?

"Big pool in Poole". I like it. But I love what you said there, which is that you yourself struggle and dislike the conventional interview process and so that forces you to double down on investing in giving a candidate a great kind of experience. I think you said holding their hand through that journey and stuff. It really matters. I think a lot of these things are often born out of personal experience. So it's nice to hear you share that. Buy-in from senior leadership is often a big challenge, right? We hear this theme quite a lot, and you've talked in the past couple of minutes about how Lush isn't necessarily hugely data-driven and you approach things very differently, which is great. How are you getting buy-in from senior leadership for your talent strategy at Lush?

I think we're really lucky. I think we've got really good buy-in. I always think that if you're working in an in-house recruitment team, you are lucky to be in that role because not every company invests in it and sees the potential and the return on investment. But Lush always have. I've been here for nearly eight years and even before that time they had an in-house team. So I think we've always had that buy-in and they understand why it's so important. And they see everything that we put into working with a hiring manager and we work along with the hiring best practice with our managers and we train them on what they should be doing in interviews. And we collaborate with them really closely. And I think that really feeds back to leadership as well. We're always open to feedback and making improvements when that comes through and we recognise that hiring managers are our customers so we actively go out and get feedback from them and make changes and improvements if needed. So yeah, I think we've really got that already.

That's awesome. And good of you to identify what a luxury that is, right? But a massive part of the decision making process, I think for TA folks these days is trying to get a sense when they're applying for a job of like what the culture is in terms of buy-in on talent and how the senior leadership folks think about that. So no, that's super cool. 10th and final question, favourite interview question to ask a candidate and why?

So I really like to wrap up the interview asking them for feedback. So I say, have you got any feedback for us, how have you found the recruitment process? Just get it from them there and then. I think people are always surprised that we care about what they think. So yeah, that's probably my favourite one. We do exactly the same. I think like most people, almost all people that join Pinpoint have a final interview with me. And that entire interview is actually me answering their questions rather than us asking them questions, right? Because I think I see my job as A, be super transparent and give them all the context they need. And B, almost try and disincentivise them from wanting to work at Pinpoint, right? If we're really clear about all the hard parts and they still want to join the company at the end of it, they've made it through the wringer and it's a good setup.

We always talk about the glitzy. You've got to talk about the glitziness and also the reality of working at Lush. Don't hide anything.

That's the thing, and I think especially for a cool consumer-facing brand like yours where people have an understanding of what that is as a customer, often that doesn't reflect the day to day work behind the scenes to make that customer experience reality, right? And so I think shining a light on that is super sensible. It might pull candidates out of the funnel, but it means the candidates that make it through are the ones you actually want, right?

Yeah.

No, love that. Look, we made it through 10 questions, Karen. Thank you so much for joining. Well done, we got there. You can follow Karen on LinkedIn if you want to stay up to date and please stay tuned for more editions in the series. If you missed the first episode, I encourage you to go back and watch my chat with Jim D'Amico from Holland America Group. And if you're a recruitment leader or know a brilliant recruitment leader I should talk to, please get in touch and join me on Talent Talks. All the best. Thank you.

Thanks.