With two members of the Human Resources team, Paula and Debbie, celebrating a joint 35-year milestone this season, we invited them for a chat with Holly to learn more about life behind the scenes in HR. Debbie celebrates 10 years at Robinsons and Paula celebrates a whopping 25 years.

Let’s settle this first – what’s your go-to drink at the pub?

P: Mines super easy, white wine, A-B-C. Anything but Chardonnay.

D: Anything alcoholic [laughs]. I’d start with a beer maybe, then move on to a rose. But really – alcoholic? I’ll drink it.

P: [laughs] I don’t feel so bad now!

Your often behind the scenes – what’s one thing that most people working at Robinsons might not know about you?

D: We tried thinking about this, didn’t we. And I couldn’t think of anything for me…

P: I think for me it’s the opposite, most people know a lot about me by now. They know I’m Disney obsessed.

D: That, and your nickname. Paula has a nickname ‘Judith’.

P: Judith Charmers

D: Because she’s always on holiday. If she’s given the chance, her holidays will be taken ‘on holiday’.

P: And now I’ve got Callum too – my grandson is 9 months old and lives in London, so I go there too. I think most people know about me.  [Paula divulges a fact on Debbie and Debbie begs that doesn’t get written up].

D: I think that’s plenty for that question [laughs], I’ll remain a mystery…I’m already seen as the wicked witch of the west, so we don’t want to change that, do we…

OK, that can stay between us then. So, Paula, before you were in HR, you were working for Mr David Robinson?

P: Yes, he was the brewing and science guru. He had the recipes, and we oversaw all the brewing and bottling contracts with customers and suppliers. We set the pricing and communicated all the changes that came with those as well as negotiating all our supplier pricing. I also worked with the Lab Manager and Head Brewer. Then, I was very much involved in the the Unicorn Brewery brewhouse or the ‘middle brewhouse’ as I call it now. That was Mr David’s baby – I was keeping all the records and receipts for that, that’s where my spreadsheet skills certainly came in handy.

Mr David, was just the best to work for, he really was. We were both City fans, and my two boys were football referees – I’d have to ask them each week what had happened during the City game over the weekend ready for Mr David to talk to me about the ref’s decisions on the Monday morning. We had that rapport too, so he was just a really nice guy.

D: Then you came over to the dark side…

P: Yes, but I don’t regret it.

What’s the most unusual or funniest HR situation you’ve had to handle in a pub or brewery setting?

P: Well, there is certainly plenty we can’t mention!  So, it’s the ‘if in doubt call HR motto’. We get anything and everything on our desk. A lot of it nothing to do with us. It’s like, “the gates don’t open, call HR they’ll fix them” [laughs].

D: Yeh, I think it’s just expected Paula or Debbie will know. If it doesn’t fit in a department, its assumed to be HR. Like, “we’ve run out of toilet roll…”

P: [laughs] Yeh. All the glamour…

What’s the biggest challenge in hiring and keeping great people in this industry?

D: Gosh, well the market is totally different to where it was pre-covid and everyone’s needs are changing, both with legislation but also what people are looking for in an employer. Things like Brexit, a better life balance – companies have had to adapt to that. So, we’ve had to change how we’ve always worked, to be more flexible and make adjustments. I think that’s hard from a logistics point of view sometimes, but it’s looking at it and thinking, it’s the right thing to do, and if we don’t flex that way, we’re naturally narrowing our pool of great people.

 P: And “Ghosting” – that’s a whole new word to me.

D: Ha, yes, that was a whole conversation we had the other day. People don’t think twice about ghosting nowadays, particularly in some roles in our pubs.

P: When I learned what it meant, I thought that’s just rude –

D: But I can see where they’re coming from, but it isn’t, because it’s a different thought process to what there used to be. But, you didn’t have that 5 years ago and certainly not 10 years ago. If you got invited for an interview, you’d attend it – or you’d let them know. Now, people won’t turn up, and when you call to check everything is ok because you’ve heard nothing, they don’t pick up and you’ll never hear from them again.

P: “Ghosted” [smiles]

D: We’ve got the challenge of keeping our great people in the industry, or at Robinsons. As a family business, we have a pretty flat structure, which means everyone has their voice heard and is a person rather than a number, but routes for progression can be slower than some people are looking to develop. So, whilst we’re doing everything right for people, we can’t consistently offer them the career progression they might be looking for. We find ways to keep the team engaged at Robinsons and often because we have such a great community, that happens naturally, and people stay here for their entire career, but we sadly sometimes have to accept that we will lose great people, because they’ve developed with us so well, but faster than we can progress them.  It’s bittersweet.

What’s one thing you wish more people knew about working in HR?

D: We laughed about this…

P: That there is more to it than re-setting SD Worx passwords. When we had that system, we had to do that a lot.

D: Every month when Lorraine would send the payslips, we’d have a 20 minute window before we were inundated with password reset requests.

H: [laughs] Oh gosh, one of them was definitely me…

P: There were regulars, we’d make a guess who was going to be on the list each month. You never made the predictions… [laughs] Thankfully that’s an issue of the past with our new payroll system.

What’s a moment that made you feel really proud to work in HR?

P: When you get feedback, if people really enjoy their induction or go back and say they’ve learned something.

D: I think it’s changing a negative into a positive. So, it’s like going back to that belief that we fire people. But when someone goes into a disciplinary, they have the chance to turn things around. When you see those people who’ve been going down a path that’s hindering their career turn themselves around and actually flourish, and that’s often because they’ve not been given the time to be nurtured – and that’s actually all they wanted. That’s very rewarding.

I think also that the way we dealt with the COVID pandemic is something we as a team should be very proud of. In terms of what happened, when we got that call to say we’re all working from home. It was something new to everyone. And I think, im not just saying this because it was us, but we had to adapt. We had no choice and we had to quickly adapt. People wanted reassurance from us to know if everything was going to be ok. There were some very stressful times.

P: Sitting there on a Saturday night watching TV and then getting a message “log on now, there’s been a government update” [laughs].

D: It was a case of all working together to get the end goal. If I look back and I had to do it again, I’d do it, but only with the team we had at the time. There were times where we were stressed, we were tired, but we supported each other and got it each other through it. I’m glad that I worked with the team and the department which I was at the time.

P: I agree with Debbie there, absolutely. I hadn’t even thought about that, but when you look back to what we all had to go through.

D: I think it was a case of, everywhere was having to change, we were having to change, the business was having to change. But it was every week. The HMRC would be changing things all the time, and we needed to know the answers to give our Managers and the rest of our workforce.

P: Yeh, it was challenging. Especially when all the Tiers came into place – who could open, who couldn’t. It was particularly difficult with all the different borders our pubs sit in. Each of them had different rules which were always changing and we had to adapt and change all the pubs plans. Who was on furlough, who was off. We’d constantly have to stop and regroup. Everyone had to work hard in COVID, but that was particularly challenging for our team.

D:  I often joke that people have this misconception that HR sit there filing our nails and waiting for the phone to ring whilst reading Bella. And I think, have you seen my nails?! And I’ve never read a Bella, there’s no time to read Bella. I am always on the phone, but that’s because somebody is always phoning me, I don’t need to wait for it to ring!

P: Gosh, its actually quite nice reflecting on how we worked through and came together during COVID.

What’s the biggest myth about HR that you’d love to bust?

D: We both agreed on this one, we don’t sack people, they sack themselves. I think the perception is that HR sack people and people wonder how we sleep at night –

P: yeh, but the reality is that before that happens, people have enough opportunities to correct themselves; these aren’t quick fire decisions.

D: Dismissal isn’t anywhere near as common as people think either. So, if people do get dismissed, they’ve known what you need to do to change things before that happens. Like in a video game, they’ve run out of lives. Or if not, they’ve done something that is so fundamentally bad that the trust has been broken. I remember when you first moved into HR, Paula, – you almost went from a person everyone would talk to and confide in, to “ooh, Paula works in HR and you avoid getting involved with HR”.

P: It’s also not us who make the decision, our role is support and guidance – then often being the one who has to conduct the meeting. I remember the first time I had to dismiss someone, and Debbie checked I’d be alright doing it. I had butterflies, but then I just had to keep reminding myself, “but how many times have you had the opportunity to correct yourself”.

D: So, I think that would be the biggest myth. That we sack people because we’re making that decision for them. They’ve made it for themselves.

“Do you ever find yourself playing the role of ‘workplace listener’?”

P: Oh yes –

D: – Every day.

Somebody can phone because they’re having a problem with their manager and it’s our job to listen to them, because they’re worried and they don’t know what to do. Then, other times it’ll be the Managers that come to you and say somebody isn’t performing and ask us what to do. You’ll have a conversation with them, and the next minute you’ll be deep into their lives.

P: But then –  if you give them advise they don’t like – that can then start a whole new conversation.

D: I think, for you Paula, because you’re such a familiar face, they’ll look at you like a mum. Because Paula does most people’s inductions they know her, she’s a friendly face.

If you could introduce one new HR policy that would make everyone’s life easier, what would it be?

P: I said behave, but then Debbie said…

D: We wouldn’t have a job!

P: Then we’d have the struggle of people reading them anyway…

D: A policy on reading a policy. One to make our lives easier. Ha- Maybe best pass on that one.

If HR had a signature beer or cocktail, what would it be called?

D: Mayhem!

P: Yes, we came up with that one pretty quickly.