North West HR Leadership dinner with Marni Millard, CEO Nichols plc

Last week we hosted our Annual North West HR Leadership dinner in Manchester, partnering with PwC. The event was attended by a number of the region’s senior HR community.

Guest speaker for the evening was Marni Millard OBE who is CEO of Nichols, an NED at Finsbury Food Group and Chair for the North West Region of the CBI.

Marni spoke openly and honestly about how, through her position as CEO, she directly influences the culture, employee engagement and people agenda of Nichols. Some of her messages included:

• CEO’s need to set an example and be visible with all stakeholders – employees, customers, suppliers and the local community.
• A firm’s culture should give employees the confidence to challenge line managers about their decisions. Managers should be equipped to handle this.
• Key to effective employee communication is ensuring that all levels of management are clear on strategy, not just the Board and Senior Management Team.
• For employees to live an organisation’s values they must be bottom up and real, rather than just corporate slogans on a glossy strategy brochure.
• Make work fun.

Marnie’s speech was followed by a number of questions from the guests and the debate continued throughout dinner.

Thank you to Marni and all who attended the dinner for contributing to an insightful, thought provoking and enjoyable evening.

Basil LeRoux is a Partner and Head of the HR practice at Berwick Partners.