Distinguished Fellows

Human Resources magazine caught up with Sharon Grant, Rachel Walker and Peter Boxall, three of HRNZ’s Distinguished Fellows, to ask about their careers, their paths to HRNZ Distinguished Fellow accreditation and their thoughts about the role of HR in Aotearoa New Zealand today.

Sharon Grant

What have been your career highlights to date?

Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to have held a range of different roles. Some of these weren’t in HR, but all of them involved the leadership and development of people. Achieving an executive HR role has been a huge highlight. I enjoy sitting at the executive table and contributing a people-focused lens to organisational strategies and directions. Another career highlight was my three-year term on the HRNZ Board. I really enjoyed working with the team at HRNZ and other Board members, and I believe the governance experience has contributed positively to my other executive leadership roles.

What inspires and motivates you in your career and why?

I’m motivated and inspired by the people I work with. I love seeing people succeed and thrive at work, knowing that myself and my team have been part of shaping an outstanding employment experience. We spend so much of our lives at work, and I believe it should be a place that enhances our mana and wellbeing, and one that we enjoy turning up to each day.

What do you see as the challenges facing the industry and the HR profession?

Some challenges, such as skills shortages and remote working, have been around for a while. Others, such as the growing influence of artificial intelligence, are emerging challenges that we’re watching with interest. The industry-wide challenges that are front of mind for me right now are attracting and retaining talent, managing increasingly demanding workloads (trying to stop being so busy!), enabling authentic workforce diversity and inclusion, and designing successful remote and hybrid work arrangements.

How has HRNZ membership helped your career?

Being a member of HRNZ has profoundly influenced my development as an HR professional. Through HRNZ, I have had the opportunity to participate in numerous professional development courses and conferences, networked widely with peers, been a local HRNZ branch committee member and branch president, been part of the HRNZ Board, experienced the benefits of being both an HRNZ mentor and mentee, and been a member of the Chartering Assessment Panel. HRNZ has provided me with far more exposure and professional experience than I could have ever gained had I not been part of the Institute. I greatly value the professional standing and credibility the title of Distinguished Fellow offers, and I am excited about the opportunity to contribute further to the profession.

Please describe your journey towards becoming a Distinguished Fellow. How was the experience?

I’ve been a member of HRNZ since 2004 and gained my Chartered membership in 2014. I became an Associate Fellow and then Chartered Fellow in the years following and was extremely honoured to be named a Distinguished Fellow in 2023. My experience at every step of the journey has been positive, and even though I went through the previous chartering system, the experience was valuable, and I felt very well supported by HRNZ. I have always held my chartered status in high regard, and I truly believe it adds value to my standing and credibility as an HR professional. I encourage everyone in HR to set themselves the goal of becoming Chartered, and continue to follow the HRNZ Professional Pathway.

Rachel Walker

What have been your career highlights to date?

The highlights of my career have been in relation to emergency management. I was asked to take on a couple of pieces of work with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which is part of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). The first was establishing the New Zealand Emergency Management Assistance Team (NZEMAT). This was a huge, time-constrained programme and involved identifying people around the emergency management sector with relevant skills, but most critically of all, a way of working with others that would be effective. This meant selection processes and designing and holding three 13-day residential (semi-austere) camps to finally select the right people. Seeing the difference that having NZEMAT in place has made in actual emergencies has been amazing.

The second ‘highlight’ would be the role I was asked to take in the initial national response to COVID-19. I supported finding and inducting people from across government to work in the National Crisis Management Centre in early 2020. I then led the establishment of the business unit within DPMC that carried on beyond that time. The experience and feeling of connection to the national response was so humbling, even if I didn’t get to go home for four and a half months.

What inspires and motivates you in your career and why?

I like making a difference, doing people-centred work that makes it easier for others to achieve what they need to do, and unsticking problems or navigating situations that add to the complexity. I enjoy being part of something that makes a difference in the lives of New Zealanders. I like that it’s often possible to understand the needs of a person others are finding challenging to work with, and the difference that can make to the outcome we are after.

What do you see as the challenges facing the industry and the HR profession?

Our operating context has changed and continues down a new path. The pandemic has really brought flexible working, health and wellbeing, and the use of technology to the fore in most organisations large enough to have HR professionals. New generations will always expect things to be different from their predecessors, but the need to meet their values – around issues like climate change, mental health, ways of working, and doing socially meaningful work – will be revolutionary in some environments. Just as we have moved beyond ‘personnel’, contemporary HR’s role at the heart of how people experience the organisation will deepen.

How has HRNZ membership helped your career?

HRNZ has been a huge part of my career experience, it’s where I met people I value enormously, learned skills and had opportunities (such as escorting Dave Ulrich on his visit during my term) that don’t otherwise come along. There is a vast knowledge base in HRNZ, both from those who have been around awhile and those with a newer or different perspective, so I’d encourage people to keep close to the organisation as one of the best ways to resource their learning.

Please describe your journey towards becoming a Distinguished Fellow. How was the experience?

When I first moved to Dunedin in 2006, I didn’t know anyone in the area, so I joined the local Wild South branch to meet people, eventually becoming the Branch President. Somewhere along the way, I realised I wanted to be what is now a Chartered Member and then I was encouraged to become an elected member of the National Board. Over time, I was elected Vice President and then President (at the time, the President was automatically also the Chair of the National Board, which was a huge workload). In 2011 I was made a Fellow, and at the end of my term in 2016, I was asked to help develop the Chartering programme. Being honoured with the award of Distinguished Fellow was a surprise, and I’m humbled, given who else has this designation.

Peter Boxall

What have been your career highlights to date?

It’s always great to see people going through our university programmes and on to good jobs and careers, including those who get jobs as HR specialists, which is less common but very gratifying. Working with doctoral students is always very special. As a researcher, each time you conduct a study that gets published in a good journal, it’s very satisfying. Receiving the Dutch HRM Network Award (from the Professors of HRM in the Dutch universities) in 2003 and 2019 for research contributions to HRM has been a major highlight of my career. In terms of my books, highlights include co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management (Oxford University Press) with John Purcell and Patrick Wright and co-authoring Strategy and Human Resource Management (Bloomsbury Academic) with John Purcell, now in its fifth edition.

What inspires and motivates you in your career and why?

Well, like other HR specialists, I love the people side of organisations. I am fascinated by the way people work and the ways in which management tries to manage them. I am very motivated by studying HRM in organisations and have really enjoyed working on the theory of strategic HRM and the study of wellbeing at work.

What do you see as the challenges facing the industry and the HR profession?

HR specialists face a crucial challenge in the growth of new technology, including digitalisation and artificial intelligence. They are also affected by the pressing need for organisations to improve their environmental and social sustainability. HR managers and consultants are vital in helping organisations and individuals respond appropriately to these critical trends and develop valuable innovations. The realities and possibilities of work are changing, as are the capabilities and aspirations of the workforce. HR specialists are crucial in enhancing the mutuality of employment relationships in this dynamic context.

How has HRNZ membership helped your career?

I enjoy meeting the people in HRNZ, learning from them and about their working lives, and building relationships with them over the years, including through committees and working parties. HRNZ is an excellent network, and it provides a range of opportunities to learn (eg, through special interest groups, conferences, webinars and surveys of the membership). The Academic Branch has become an important part of this wider network. We are engaging more effectively with HR professionals and with each other because of it. I have benefitted from all this.

Please describe your journey towards becoming a Distinguished Fellow. How was the experience?

It goes back quite a long way. I became a member of the Institute of Personnel Management sometime in the 1980s, and then, in due course, I became a Member and Fellow of HRINZ and so on. A critical step was advocating for the formation of the Academic Branch in the late 2000s and serving as its inaugural President. A vital part of this was gaining HRNZ’s approval to admit academics to professional (now Chartered) membership based on what they had achieved in the core tasks of their academic jobs (teaching, research, service and leadership in HRM). Getting the HRNZ Research Forums up and running was another highlight, as was being involved in the working party, led by Ross Pearce, that researched and developed the policy recommendations to the HRNZ Board on continuing professional development (CPD).