Not many people would have the commitment to stay the course for 10 years of night school while working a full-time job. Steven did just that, earning himself a Cert IV and BA, while rising the ranks in human resources.
That hard work paid off and has led to a long and fulfilling career in a range of organisations in HR, people and culture and business roles.
While Steven is now ‘mostly’ retired, he chooses to consult with Twiga Group in the areas he is most passionate about – leadership, development and cultural change.
Starting his career with a well-known fashion retailer, he began with a two-year cadetship which gave him an opportunity to ‘sample’ different roles. It was a pathway that would lead to roles in large and small organisations and ultimately the ability to become an expert in both the learning and development and general business fields.
Steven’s initial career path gave him an insight into sales and as he changed roles (18 times in 15 years), he was given the opportunity to help with the development of other cadets.
At one point he held a company record of three ‘troublesome’ cadets that he managed to turn around. All graduated and stayed with the company for many years. From there he moved to a learning and development role and became responsible for the entire program of 120 cadets, 115 of which graduated. It was the largest ever intake and the highest retention rate – “so I must have been doing something right”.
After a recommendation from personnel, Steven started part time study – firstly gaining Certificates IV in personnel, industrial relations and training. He carried on at night school and after a total of 10 years had also added a BA in psychology, sociology and industrial relations to his achievements.
When he left his first employer Steven had developed strong commercial skills and equally strong people and culture skills. His next move was with a family-owned business that had 50 stores and 600 staff when he arrived. Over a 10-year period he became more involved, undertaking everything from recruitment to scoping store locations. Steven helped grow the business to 100 stores with more than 1000 staff and built a renowned training team before the business was sold.
What followed was stints in consulting as well as senior people and culture roles in insurance, manufacturing and healthcare as well as the building and food industries. These roles also. included international experience.
Now Steven divides his time between following his passion for international travel and consulting for Twiga Group. His business focus is now only on Boards and leadership, specialising in culture, values and strategy. He works with leadership teams across the many different functions and strata of an organisation. This includes helping leaders with strategy, as well as auditing and developing the purpose, goals and mission for organisations.
Steven specialises in showing the benefits of staff retention for an organisation and can help give leaders the skills to bring people back on track. He helps them understand the ‘why’ and showing them how “culture is different from climate.”
A key piece of work Steven does with Twiga is around developing ‘social contracts’ for teams where communication is key. With many people working partly from home and partly from the office, there is a new dynamic about what’s expected at work.
“Social contracts bring people together and give everyone a voice. They define a new set of rules of how to operate and articulate it, so everyone is on the same page.
“A key part of my work is toward achieving consistency of message and organisational stability, which, when aligned with the values of an organisation gets you almost halfway home. Done well, this allows organisations the opportunity to access the discretionary effort of their people. This is the extra 10 per cent that people choose to give when they are engaged.”
While the people and culture space is constantly changing, the principles of good leadership remain pretty constant. “You can achieve a significant shift by consistently having a clear strategy. This helps ensure that you have everyone on the bus and going in the right direction”. To be successful, leaders need to understand that “it’s about evolution, not revolution.”