The CPO getting 'hands-on' with hiring, L&D and coaching

Fiona McCoy, chief people officer at Lowe Rental – the Belfast-based global refrigeration and catering specialist – is unapologetic when she describes herself as being a “hands-on” CPO.

Perhaps it’s because the former international talent manager and recruitment manager at Axiom, and ex-legal recruitment consultant at Hays admits she still has recruitment running through her veins. This is her first CPO role, having previously come up through HR with a career in resourcing. But – as it turns out – that’s become a very handy skillset for her to have, because she also claims to need to be “creative” in how she finds people to work for a company that arguably few people have heard of outside of the industry.

“We might not be a household name,” she admits, “but the clients we service absolutely are. We provide equipment and people on the ground for events including the Olympic Games, Formula 1 Racing; Glastonbury, Wimbledon and many others – which for our engineers, carpenters and field-staff is a major draw.” She adds: “But this mean getting skilled engineers – usually hard people to find in our sector – ‘isn’t’ the problem. Our bigger challenge is actually how we source our professional roles – people in our sales or marketing or finance functions.” She continues: “A really great accountant can have their pick of who to work for if they’re really good, and so we do have to make the case for joining us more enticing. But that’s when I tend to get involved. That’s when I bring in my recruitment/executive search skills. I have to say, that generally, I get very good results!”

Most recruitment is in-house

Such is McCoy’s willingness to roll up her sleeves, and take a more hands-on approach, that the company – which has grown from 200 people six years ago to more than 500 today – hardly uses any external recruiters at all. In fact, McCoy has just taken on a former executive search professional for more targeted roles, specifically to make sure most recruitment is done in-house.

“To me, it just seems obvious to do all of our high-level recruitment ourselves,” she explains. “We know what working here is like; we know what our culture is, and we know the energy of the business. We are a dynamic private-equity backed company that has strong growth ambitions. That’s the story that we feel we can impart with real energy. We can also talk about the exciting progression we can offer. One colleague from the US, for example, has worked in everything from sales, to finance, and is now in HR. That’s a good story we can tell.”

So hands-on is McCoy in fact, that one of the first things she did when she joined the business in 2019 was to actually bring back elements of HR that were being done outside of the company – specifically to give HR control again.

“Before me, Lowe Rental outsourced a lot of its HR, and when I arrived I thought the business was being run by-, and relying on just a few very good people. It was my belief that we needed to broaden our base a bit more.” She continues: “At the time, I was talent director, but I’ve always been ambitious, and my aim was always to become CPO. So I got close to the financials, began developing the leadership, and I established what our five-year strategy should be. I think that since then, I’ve always been able to be front and centre when it comes to working with the senior management team. It was all about pushing myself to learn about new things to get recognised more.”