Matthew Hartley, XL Capital
| Pages | 6-6 |
| Published date | 12 August 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390980000975 |
| Date | 12 August 2007 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Matthew Hartley
is HR development manager at
XL Capital, which employees
3,600 people across 30 worldwide locations.
He previously worked as an HR consultant at
Ernst & Young.
6Volume 6 Issue 4 May/June 2007
PRACTITIONER PROFILE
,
HR executives share their experience in human resources
Matthew Hartley,
XL Capital
M
atthew Hartley is a relative
newcomer to human resources.
He worked in a customer-facing
role in the telecoms industry after
graduating, but when planning his
future he decided human resources
would be the most interesting career for
him. Hartley explains that the most
enjoyable part of his work had been
dealing with people and solving
problems with social implications. He
says: “This narrowed it down distinctly to
HR. I wanted to focus on individuals and
how to get more out of people.”
Armed with this conviction, he
embarked on a Masters degree in
human resources and joined
professional services firm Ernst & Young
in 2003 as an HR consultant. His two
years with the company were an
enjoyable and steep learning curve. He
says the diversity of the work was great,
ranging from organizational design to
merger and acquisition due diligence. In
order to expand his experience,
however, he decided to move to a new
role that would allow him to build on
his knowledge and expertise.
This led Hartley to XL Capital, the
global insurance and reinsurance
company. He joined XL’s London office
in October 2005 as HR development
manager, an internal consultancy role
supporting the HR team and business
managers across Europe and Asia.
A time of change
This was a timely move that placed
Hartley in the midst of a rapidly
evolving organization that was making
a transition to a shared services model
for human resources. The function is
being restructured into five
international hubs offering shared
transactional services, while global HR
generalists, or business partners, will
interact at a strategic level. Hartley
recognizes that the move may be
difficult for some, but the transition is
in keeping with XL’s recognition of the
strategic value of the HR function. This
is demonstrated by the presence of HR
at board level and the involvement of
HR at the earliest stages of strategic
moves, such as acquisitions.
Having experience of internal and
external consultancy, Hartley has a
detailed insight into the pros and cons of
each. He says there are significant
differences in how the HR function is
approached. As an internal HR
professional, there is more continuity,
long-term focus and scope for building
relationships across the organization. On
the down side, it’s easy to get distracted
by the day-to-day operational
requirements of the job.
The new structure at XL will provide
more dedicated strategic support, while
for Hartley it means an extension of his
own role as he takes on added
responsibility within the London-based
shared services hub.
A fresh perspective
Hartley brings a fresh perspective to HR
and his prior experience gives him a
good insight into how the HR function is
viewed by non-HR professionals. He
believes ther’s a split in perceptions. For
employees, HR is a department to
contact on an administrative level,
regarding personal issues such as
company benefits. It’s only at
management level that the added value
is recognized. Hartley comments: “For
many people, HR is somewhere to go for
administrative support, or if they have
problems. This is very different to how
you think about HR when you’re in HR.”
He describes this as the “hidden face
of HR” and believes there is a lot of
work to do in explaining the scope of
the function. There are challenges in
doing this, particularly as each
professional will have a large
population to look after; however, he
believes employees should know more
about HR and the role it plays and that
everyone in an organization should
have a clear point of contact.
The HR challenges ahead
Building and maintaining credibility is
an ongoing challenge for HR. Hartley
identifies two areas that he believes
need to be addressed – professionalism
and knowledge. The first is about
managing internal expectations by
being more explicit about the services
on offer, so that people know where to
go for administrative support and
where to go for more strategic support.
The second is about building
consistency in the HR base of
knowledge through training, education
and accreditations that give people
confidence in the sector.
He says: “We’re moving in the right
direction. Over the last 10 or 15 years,
the role of HR has become accepted as
a professional function. We have to
relate our work back to the core body
of knowledge and make it clear that it’s
not something new, but a continuing
evolution of existing ideas.”
© Melcrum publishing 2007.For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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