Hachette makes string of appointments from outside publishing in HR shake-up

Hachette has announced seven people are leaving its HR department to be replaced by new appointments, mainly from outside the publishing world, in a major shake-up.

The new arrivals, revealed to staff yesterday (1st August) by recently appointed group HR director Melanie Tansey, follow the departure of Hachette veterans Jazmin Yanez and Mary Redmond, who have been with the company for 15 and 12 years respectively. Ama Crisp and Anna Cavender are also among those leaving Carmelite House by the end of September.

Tansey, who joined the company six months ago from ITN, has set-up a new organisational model which aims to “put the people agenda at the centre of the company’s ambitious growth”.

Six heads of HR will take responsibility for strategic areas including diversity and inclusion, talent management and leadership capability. Below them, people in “business partner” roles will be providing the more usual HR support to staff in what Tansey calls "the engine room".

Tansey told The Bookseller there had been no compulsory redundancies, adding: “Each of the team decided whether or not they wanted to be part of the new structure and model." The same number of 15 posts will be in place as before.

She explained: “I always structure my HR departments based on the business priorities and where it’s going and the business vision and strategy. So our existing HR team, terrific HR team, have been together for decades in some cases but Hachette as a business has come together through acquisition over many years and the HR structure reflected that backstory.

“Me coming in new and fresh allowed me to take the opportunity to align my HR model and structure to where the business is going, not that back story. So I’ve designed a new model on that basis and the new team will be a blend of some terrific new appointments I’ve made along with some terrific new members who are staying.”

Among the new faces becoming HR heads are Carine Knecht, who has a background at retail organisations including New Look, Waterstones and, most recently, Smiggle. Also coming in are Lisa Waterman, who has worked for Heart and LBC owners Global Media and Entertainment since 2007 and Rowzat Burton, who has a background at the BBC and Arcadia, joining from Standard Chartered in a newly-created head of talent and development role.

Tammy Parsons is already in place as head of HR, distribution and group finance after arriving in July from RM PLC. Cathy Wells and Saskia Bewley continue in their roles.

The new business partners include Nyasha Chinyoka-Mudarikwa from ITN and Ruby Delorie from Jack Wills, who has also previously worked for ITN.

Tansey began the restructuring process three months into her job and The Bookseller understands some employees were angry she appeared to be imposing a model from ITN and trying to make the department look like her old team. She admitted it had been a period of “upheaval” but said: “This model would be quite similar to the one in most organisations. That’s not an ITN thing, that would be how most HR departments would be structured.”

She also insisted the number of appointments from outside publishing were a good thing, saying: “One of the beautiful things about the HR profession is that it’s very transferable.

“I think it’s really healthy for an organisation to bring in talent where you’ve got people with perspectives, backgrounds from a range of different industries blended with people who’ve primarily worked in publishing. It just means there’s lots of different ways of doing things, lots of different types of experience based on different industries. I think it’s a good thing to have a blend of industry and non-industry experience.”

Asked what Hachette employees would experience under the new structure, she said: “What they will see is that we will have the best culture and the best values in the industry. We will have training and development and talent programmes that will be the best in the industry. We will move our talent around the business more than we have in the past and retain good people here at Hachette and offer other opportunities to move around Hachette. We will improve our diversity across all aspects and we’ll have programmes that will focus on recruitment, retention, progression of the best talent from all of British society.

“It’s about hiring the best, retaining the best, developing the best and having the best culture in the industry.”

Tansey, who oversaw the publication of a report into the ethnicity pay gap earlier this year, said that continued to be an area of focus. An action plan has been published and the firm wants to hit the PA’s target of 15% BAME employees and eventually go past it.

She said: “We have a lot of work to do and that begins with being open and transparent. One of the things I’ll be doing is a strategic review of how we resource and how we recruit on all levels with a view to then supporting managers right across the company with resourcing and recruiting more broadly than they do today.”

Tansey added: “Our view around recruitment is we will look to a range of innovative, creative, disruptive industries for talent and if appropriate we would hire from those industries. We want to hire and retain the absolute best and I do think we should be looking more broadly to recruit.

“I still think a higher proportion of our hires will come from within the industry but we’ll look more broadly as part of our diversity ambitions just to make sure that we’re always attracting and hiring the best so we will be looking at a range of industries as we recruit.”

In an email about the changes yesterday, c.e.o. David Shelley told employees: “I see HR as central to who we are as a business – and to who we want to become. As well as supporting us operationally, an HR department is there to ensure that our culture is strong, our values are strong, that we have the best training and development programme, that we are strategic in the way we reward people for the jobs they do and that we recruit and ensure that a diverse range of talent has room to grow in our organisation. There is no department that more has the ability to shape us and our future.”