Group People Director

The Brief

Murphy Group retained our services to recruit a new Group People Director to join their executive leadership team. This role was to provide leadership for the People function across the company, operating at a strategic level, while taking complete ownership of all aspects operational HR.

Murphy Group are a rarity amongst large UK contractors, being both family-owned and retaining a large direct labour workforce, the combination of these two factors was an additional complexity to the role and the search.

The Process

While candidates with previous experience in construction was an advantage it was not essential. Senior HR leadership experience within a large multi-site organisation comprising both white-collar and blue-collar staff was essential. Experience of working within a family owned business and sector experience in infrastructure was desirable. Given this brief the talent pools we researched were:

• Large construction contractors in the UK
• Engineering consultancies
• Infrastructure asset owners and major projects
• Allied industries with a large multi-site operation comprising of both blue-collar and white-collar staff

Our clients’ family owned status was an attractive prospect for candidates, however they had recently been through some high-profile senior management changes that required some reassurance and context with candidates. Because we have a very close and longstanding relationship with this client, we were able to brief candidates on the long-term plan of the company and put forward a strong and diverse shortlist of candidates.

The Outcome

We were successful in recruiting an award-winning Group People Director from another major UK contractor. The successful candidate was experienced at board level, had excellent knowledge of how to engage with a mixed employee population comprising both blue and white collar staff and had broad cross-sector industry experience. This was the ideal outcome for our client.

We have used Newsom Consulting extensively for a number of years, we have always found them responsive and great to work with. Their understanding of the brief and our business has always resulted in a shortlist and successful candidate that meets our requirements.

J Murphy & Sons Chief Executive Officer