The HRD giving her small firm a louder voice on skills

It’s probably worth explaining that business intelligence consultancy, Purple Frog Systems isn’t your ‘normal’ SME. Set up in 2006 by husband and wife duo, Alex and Hollie Whittles, the firm could easily be mistaken as just your average small business – growing to 22-people today; steady, but not spectacular.

But this is a SME that is doing things differently. One of these 22 employees is a dedicated HR director – something that is almost unheard of for such a small enterprise – and that person is actually the co-founder herself, Hollie Whittles.

But this is only just the start of the story about this very different business, looked after by this very busy HRD.

“When my husband and I first started the company, we didn’t actually have any big intentions of employing lots of people,” recalls Whittles. “But as we eventually started to grow my sense was that we needed proper people policies – even as a SME.” So, in classic entrepreneur style, she decided to study HR herself. “I was in my early 40s, during the Covid lockdown – and decided to take a CIPD Level 5 apprenticeship in HR,” she says matter-of-factly.

Although the firm wasn’t entirely devoid of HR (it used to outsource basic HR functions), Whittles says she wanted to take control of things herself, and create what she calls “a small company running its people function as professionally as any large company.”

Busy, busy

Why? Well Whittles is something of a crusader for improving the skills and life chances of people working for SMEs. For despite claiming Purple Frog is only her “third proper job” – this tirelessly-working HR director manages to divide her time (somehow), across an almost impossible-sounding number of outside interests. As well as her Purple Frog day job, Whittles also sits on the Leadership Committee of the Global Technology Industry Association, she is an Enterprise Advisor at the Careers & Enterprise Company (as well as to local schools where she acts as a hub steering group chair); and she’s an executive council leader at the CompTIA UK Business of Technology Community. In addition to all this, she is a Business Advisor for the Shropshire Youth Support Trust. Oh, and that’s not including a whole host of work she does on behalf for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) – where she is a National Policy Champion for Skills (and former regional chair), where she regularly briefs government departments on where she thinks their skills policy priorities should lie.

She does – she clarifies – still have time for being a HRD [“we might not ‘need’ a dedicated HRD, but we want to make our people feel part of something,” she says], but what her very full CV demonstrates is her unbridled passion for working with the next generation of technology workers – and how she thinks she can play her own part to help – both nationally, but also in her own business.

Apprenticeships are key

“We like to think we’re walking the talk when it comes to developing young people,” she says. “We’ve recently brought on-board two apprentices – one in marketing at level 3; one at level 2 in customer service, and I feel that in some small way it helps plug the sorts of skills gaps that I talk about at the national level with my FSB hat.”