HRD, The All England Lawn Tennis Club: Ensuring our Wimbledon workforce 'feels part of something special'

‘I can confirm that the strawberries are good,’ says Angela Williams, Associate Director HR, The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), which stages The Championships, Wimbledon. For the next fortnight Britain has all eyes glued on the world’s number one tennis tournament. Holidays are vetoed for staff during the period, but to be fair, no-one that works there has any desire to be away when the game is on. Why would they, particularly when the view from your office is Centre Court?

It's a chilly day when I meet Williams. “I do hope the weather behaves and we get a good Championships this year,” she says. I ask her, how it is that she is in the role she is in, brushing shoulders with the tennis stars of the world? In all honesty, she explains to me, it began from a desire to just want to work, and hard, too.

‘I left school at 16’

“I was academic, but what I also knew early on is that I just wanted to go out and work. I was curious to see what was out there,” she recalls. There was some semblance of sensibility on her shoulders as she opted for an apprenticeship at the highly reputable British Aerospace. There she was immersed in all aspects of business from finance to marketing to commercial operations. It was a two-year programme.

She refers to it as ‘good fortune’ – she was duly enrolled on their graduate programme, scratching an itch that she wasn’t missing out by not going to university. Aged just 18, she was being exposed to projects that many 30-year-olds dream of – large scale transformation ones. “I was also responsible for the redeployment centre and changing a lot of unskilled labour to skilled talent – it was tough because that involved asking people that had been in careers for 20 years to relocate and learn new skills,” she says.

From there she moved on – still with planes at the forefront. “I used to be building them then I was boarding them to fly off!” she laughs. Her next stop was TUI, the brand blockbuster of travel.

It was hard to wave goodbye to the employer that had seen her grow up – in her time at British Aerospace she got married and had children - but as she was maturing, it was time for a change.

‘I was at TUI for 14 years, I’m a stayer’

“I was based at Salford Quays, Manchester initially in a standalone HR role and again I was heading up many business transformation projects. After that I was moved to head up the recruitment team down in Luton. I was recruiting nearly 3,500 people each year across everything from airline pilots to IT specialists, to all people that work in retail stores and overseas reps, literally everything.” says Williams.

Of course, with a young family, practicalities are never straightforward and not wanting to uproot them she decided to commute and stay in London for part of the week. “I did that for two years,” she explains. Her daughters were just 5 and 7 at the time. “I have a very understanding and supportive husband,” she says. Eventually it got too much, however, and the girl from the north moved to the south.

It was a good thing to be closer to work, and she was tasked with bringing the HR functions across Europe together. “Then I got a call from Wimbledon,” she recalls.

‘I wasn’t really looking to move when Wimbledon got in touch’

It was 2015 – defending champion, Novak Djokovic, saw off seven-time champion Roger Federer in four sets to win his third Wimbledon and ninth Grand Slam title.

“It’s a huge brand, but what really got my attention was the chance to help shape the HR function,” she explains. While the tennis was keeping up with the times – people management needed to start playing a new game.

“The All England Club is a year-round business. We currently have 380 staff and directly recruit around 2,000 people for The Championships,” she explains. Of course, she adds that when The Championships is on it’s indeed an ‘intense few weeks’ but the organisation operates 365 days of the year too. As well as being a private members’ club, the All England Club is also a visitor attraction with a Museum and Tour, and has an official charity, the Wimbledon Foundation. It operates over three sites; as well as the well-known one at SW19, there is the AELTC Community Tennis Centre at Raynes Park and the Wimbledon Qualifying and Community Sports Centre at Roehampton.

Hiring seasonal workers for Wimbledon is a big part of the HR job and every year that process starts in November. “We begin with asking returners back from the year before and then it’s a case of rolling out the new recruitment campaign with assessment centres in February, followed by contracting and onboarding,” she says.

While Wimbledon may have a perception of being the preserve of the English season, attended by well-connected tennis fans with some money behind them, Williams has ensured that the team is more reflective of society. “We work with our local communities and partner charities to give people who may have faced barriers to employment the opportunity to work for us ,” she explains. “We want Wimbledon to be open, welcoming and inclusive to all.” A quarter of the new hires are found through these outreach programmes.

‘Every day is a special day when The Championships is on’

“When the tournament is on, in theory, if we have done our job well there shouldn’t be much HR intervention to do,” Williams tells me. She adds, “Our focus is on making sure everyone that works here has a great experience and feels like they are part of something really special.”

It goes without saying, that the weeks when The Championships is on is exciting but that also means a lot of people around. “It suddenly gets very busy. There are 40,000 people in the grounds that you haven’t had on a normal day,” she says.

Every day is important – part of the job is to ensure that each guest has a special experience, just like the guests on the day before, and the guests on the day after.

It’s easy to understand why everyone that works at Wimbledon has such pride and connection, the purpose is clear. “You walk past the trophy cabinets most days in the clubhouse,” she says.

There are many reasons why employees stay, but one of them is that things evolve. “Every Championships is different. There’s no chance to be bored. It’s the same event every year, but it’s always unique too,” she explains.

As to what Williams likes to do when she is not embroiled in running the HR operation behind the world’s most famous tennis tournament – she likes to travel. It’s an irony that right now it’s the very thing that she can’t do because as Wimbledon approaches there is no time for annual leave. “I do like to plan everything to the ‘nth’ degree,” she laughs, but you get the impression that in all seriousness being detailed is exactly what has got Williams to where she is today – she is a planner and not a quitter. Her CV is sprinkled with loyalty to employers that has been deliberate, amounting to a decade plus with most. There haven’t been many times when she has had the itch to job hunt – she has worked for businesses that have inspired her and kept her challenged, in rare pockets when that’s dipped, she has found a new twist to an old job, it’s what has kept her spark in play – that and her love of travel and tennis alike.

As we finish our chat, I ask Williams who her favourite tennis player is, and she doesn’t take long to reply. “It’s Andy Murray,” she says without much further explanation because in tennis you don’t need to add justification – a point, is a point and a favourite, is a favourite.