Former People Director, The PIG Hotels: Leading people through hospitality's toughest moments

Steve Rockey spent the last eight years as People Director of boutique hotel chain, The PIG hotels – he remembers the day when he’d just sat down with the new team based in Cornwall to toast the hotel opening when the news came that Britain was locking down. He survived. Here, he talks to HR Grapevine for the ‘Big Interview’ about his life in HR and the twists and turns he has loved along the way.

HR was a career accident

“I fell into HR by accident,” admits Rockey. The career choice may not have been planned, but the industry selection was intentional. “I’ve always loved going out for dinner and I knew early on that I wanted to be in hospitality,” he says.

He enrolled in a hotel and catering management degree in 1995 at the University of Surrey. “Once I made that decision the die was cast, and I knew there was no turning back. I did a placement year at a pub business that has since folded - working for them in their training and HR department,” says Rockey.

“I enjoyed my time working in pubs for some obvious reasons!” laughs Rockey who says part of the enjoyment was working with great people that didn’t take everything too seriously. There was a moment of disappointment, however, when the young Rockey missed out on a place on the graduate training scheme. “I did some wound licking and saw an advert for a similar programme at Granada Food Services. I rocked up to their assessment centre and with some experience behind me got offered a place on it,” he says.

Working at the Millennium Dome as the clocks turned to 2000 was all about timing

Yet, even with the raw knowledge of knowing what rejection feels like he still had the courage to turn it down, “I told them that I didn’t want to go onto the graduate scheme, I wanted a job!” says Rockey. That bravado, he adds, was down to some ‘early 20s confidence’ – the curve ball paid off and he landed a job working as a personnel officer at the Millennium Dome. There’s no points for guessing the date correctly – the thought of the world imploding as technology set to a bunch of ‘Os’ was reaching fever-pitch and Rockey was thrown full pelt into recruiting 100 odd people for the Dome’s big debut. The event was a success and thankfully for the young HR professional and the rest of the world, life did not shut down.

His next stop was to Granada’s in-store catering. “That was incredibly interesting because it was unionised. In that kind of environment, you must get things right – the consequences of mucking up pay negotiations and benefits was too great,” he says.

It was 2005 and Rockey was ripe for a move again, he had written his dissertation on Pizza Express and when an advert appeared for an employee relations manager for the business, he felt it was a calling he couldn’t ignore.

The new job presented a complete cultural change too, “I was used to being suited and booted and there you could wear a t-shirt and jeans! It was a great lesson to me about achieving great things but not having to present in a certain way,” he says. The role involved representing the business at employment tribunals. “There was a point when I did consider re-training as an employment lawyer – I enjoyed the finisher element of it,” he says. Eventually the case work and the spreadsheets got the better of him though and he realised it was taking him away from his real love, people.