Exhibition News December 2019 | Page 33

Company Culture Cultural transformation EN editor Saul Leese spoke to HR director Stephanie Rogers about the cultural shift at Reed Exhibitions L istening to Reed Exhibition HR director Stephanie Rogers speak at a conference recently, I decided she would be ideal for a story in EN. Reed feels like it’s been going through a bit of a cultural transformation recently. Rogers joined Reed two years ago and her attitude towards her work colleagues is infectious. She said: “I don’t see my role as doing everything, but rather as supporting the teams and bringing people together to generate the ideas. It’s also a key element of my role to create the right environment and culture for the new initiatives to be brought to life.” Rogers answers our questions on this transformation. How has Reed changed over the past few years in its approach to attracting and retaining employees? We look now, not only at the role itself (and the content of the role), but also plenty of other issues including how people can progress within Reed Exhibitions UK. We have launched two new development programmes for our rising and shining stars to support this. Our office environment is important, so we have moved towards a much brighter and more flexible working environment with breakout spaces. We also offer flexible working with the option to start or end your day earlier or later, whilst also having the opportunity to work from home each week. We have set up a Talent Acquisition team across Europe to improve our approach to recruitment and to ensure that we not only reach the best candidates, but also provide them with a good experience when they consider a role with us. To support our resourcing, we have also teamed up with a recruitment partner - Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry are true experts in the field of recruitment and are really helping us improve the entire hiring process. We are focusing on our inclusion and diversity agenda also, to ensure that we are truly an organisation which welcomes individuals from all backgrounds. Are there any particular incentives or initiatives that you feel have made an impact on staff and recruiting? Like many other organisations, we carry out regular employee opinion surveys to understand December — 33