01 / HR
HR but...
I know the operational machinery: recruitment, onboarding, contracts, systems, employee data, training and the day-to-day work underneath the policies.
Useful because I know what the process feels like from inside it.
A fragmented Alphonse / assembled only when useful.
Not one
thing. /
Never was.
HR, systems, process, communication, people, data, making, fixing. The fragments look unrelated until you follow what kept pulling me across the boundaries.
The conventional CV is elsewhere. This is the version that explains why it looks like that.
Current operating description
Operator
Builder
Translator
Builder
Translator
Not a job title. Probably more accurate.
HR operationssystemsprocess redesigndigitalisationself-servicemaking things understandable
al.OPERATIONS / PEOPLE / THE PART THAT HAS TO WORK IN REAL LIFE
phon.SYSTEMS / BUILDING / QUESTIONS THAT TURN INTO THINGS
seCOMMS / TRANSLATION / THE PART WHERE SOMEBODY HAS TO UNDERSTAND IT
Please select a professional category.
Classification attempt / unsuccessful
HRITComms
TransformationOperationsOther
None is particularly wrong. None is particularly complete.
The fragments are the point.
The work kept crossing boundaries before I did. Eventually I stopped treating that as a career problem.
02 / TRANSFORMATION
Change without the theatre.
I am less interested in transformation as a programme and more interested in fixing specific pieces of work: remove a step, redesign a workflow, build a prototype, make the information easier to use.
Transformation as accumulated practical improvements.
03 / COMMS
Comms without being “Comms”.
A system only works if people understand it. A policy only works if people can find it. A process only works if the next action is obvious.
Sometimes the problem is not the process. It is the explanation.
The overlap is the work
This is where I’m most useful.
When the problem belongs to no single function, but someone still has to make it work.
operations × systemsTurn recurring admin into a better workflow.
systems × commsMake self-service actually understandable.
HR × product thinkingDesign around the person doing the work, not the organisation chart.
process × dataReduce the places where people copy, check and reconcile information.
policy × realityTranslate requirements into something people can actually follow.
Follow the friction
The career makes more sense without the dates.
Organise it by job title and it looks like wandering. Organise it by the friction I kept following and a pattern appears.
REPETITION
People doing the same admin again and again.
→ automate the remembering
CAN'T FIND IT
The answer exists. Nobody can locate or understand it.
→ information / self-service / comms
SYSTEM WORKS
Technically correct. Operationally painful.
→ redesign the experience around the work
NOBODY OWNS IT
Every function completes its part. The whole still fails.
→ follow the seam
HUMAN AS GLUE
The employee carries the complexity between systems.
→ make the organisation absorb it
HUMAN WORK
Conversation, judgement, nuance, care.
→ protect it
Evidence, not titles.
Most of the actual systems are internal, so this is the useful bit: what the problem was, what changed, and the scale involved.
01 / contract lifecycle
When a tracker starts behaving like an application.
Identified scalability and data-integrity issues in an Excel-based contract lifecycle tracker and designed a replacement prototype around permissions, notifications and the existing approvals workflow.
02 / annual declaration
After “Submit” is where the work starts.
Redesigned a manual annual declaration exercise using online forms and workflow automation so submissions could move through a tracked, automated workflow.
03 / digital workplace
Make the answer easier to find before adding another channel.
Implemented an organisation-wide intranet platform intranet and digitised physical HR forms, reducing recurring queries and manual processing.
04 / recruitment operations
Repetitive work is usually a design clue.
Automated recruitment support and referral incentive processes and consolidated HR service requests across business units.
DETOUR / WHO OWNS THE SEAMS?
EVERY FUNCTION COMPLETE ✓ / EXPERIENCE STILL BROKEN ✕
The scope ended.
The friction didn't.
HR ✓ COMPLETEADMIN ✓ COMPLETEIT ✓ COMPLETEMANAGER ✓ COMPLETE
EVERY BOX CAN BE GREEN. THE EXPERIENCE CAN STILL BE BROKEN.
The organisation saw functions.
The officer experienced one organisation.
I used to get chastised for wandering into other people's scopes. Eventually I realised I wasn't wandering randomly. I was following the end-to-end problem across the boundary where everybody else's scope stopped.
OPEN THE DETOUR →My favourite design move
Delete the unnecessary bit.
Automation is useful. But sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is remove the step that should never have existed in the first place.
PROCESS / DEMOfriction = high
submit→
download→
rename→
update tracker→
email→
chase→
complete
6 handoffs / plenty of remembering