Celebrating Women in Senior Positions at Shirley Technologies Limited: Catherine Swindells
International Women’s Day on March 8th is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. IWD has occurred for well over a century, the first gathering in 1911 supported by over a million people. In celebration of this day we’re sharing a series of interviews and profiles of women in in leadership roles within our company.
Catherine Swindells is our (small but mighty) HR Manager. Catherine is Greater Manchester born and bred, currently working at home from her newly refurbished conservatory now, home office. Catherine lives with her husband, son and black lab Dexter. Catherine can normally be found in the HR office with a black coffee and perfect manicure, always ready for a chat.
When asked how she got into a HR career in the textile testing industry, Catherine said: “I’d been made redundant from a previous HR role and was coming to terms with the idea that I was going to have to return to work in the legal world – something I really didn’t want to do, I wanted to work in a smaller business, that had a family feel, somewhere I’d know every staff members name. I’d almost given up hope when I saw the vacancy at BTTG® and it ticked every box, the stars were aligned! The rest is history!”. A little bit of insider info informs us that Catherine was selected for the role from a long list of potential candidates; Catherine stood out during her interview as she demonstrated her natural openness and professionalism as well as strong evaluation and interpersonal skills. Excellent at ‘reading people’, Catherine can normally have a situation sussed out within the first few minutes. These are skills that have stood Catherine in good stead as she’s led extensive recruitment and selection in a rapidly growing business over the last three years. As well as tackled complicated, and sometimes difficult scenarios, such as absence management or performance and capability issues, always aiming to work together with staff to find a positive outcome.
We discussed Catherine’s career over decades and I asked Catherine about challenges she’d faced as a professional woman, “As a young audit and legal secretary in the 90’s there was definitely a sexual bias towards women, it was so different then as you really weren’t taken seriously as a young woman. I saw women in my industry having to work harder than their male counterparts just to be seen.” Looking back, I asked Catherine if she’d felt seen in the junior days of her career: “I think every woman my age has sat in a (predominantly male) meeting at some point in their career and has felt outnumbered or overlooked.” And on whether or not she thinks there’s been a change,
“Yes, definitely, society has changed and women are speaking up. Some things that used to happen just aren’t okay anymore and there is so much more awareness.”
Whilst chatting about Catherine’s career history, we also got onto the topic of qualifications. Catherine has recently completed her CIPD Level 5 diploma in Human Resource Management, a certificate now hangs in her office. This was no mean feat as Catherine completed the qualification whilst working full time, juggling busy family life and social commitments. I quizzed Catherine about how she managed this, “I just made it work! Of course there were sacrifices but it was important to me and I knew that having the additional qualification under my belt would pay dividends in the long run. It was nice to finally get my weekends back after I’d completed studying for that final examination!”
I asked Catherine about how she felt the working from home scenario had affected women with so many companies all over the world having to move to remote operations, “I think there’s a lot of pressure on women when it comes to WFH; there is the age old pressure to ‘be perfect’ and to be able to ‘do it all’ and that comes with a lot of juggling! We’ve suddenly encountered this situation where we’re all at home;
“I have a responsibility to my own work that I take really seriously and with schools being closed I’m also an on-hand-teacher to my son, I also want our environment to feel nice so there’s more pressure there with keeping on top of things in the house – bit’s all add up and although in my marriage we share responsibilities there are certain elements that just fall to women.”
In discussing the almost company-wide working from home scenario that COVID-19 had presented we discussed the implications this had for an already busy HR department. Catherine was responsible for tackling the minefield that was the migration to remote working, “It was really important that we were able to ensure a smooth transition here for all staff, the challenge was that time was of the essence! Protecting staff was our prime concern so we had to act very quickly to ensure that everybody was able to work from the safety of their own homes, there were some late nights making sure that everything was appropriately documented and that employees were supported in all aspects, both physically with equipment and with regards to mental health.”
Our conversation ended with me asking Catherine about whether she felt she has used her role within the company to help women, “As a woman, I think I’m able to hold some really difficult conversations on some really emotionally raw topics such as serious health issues, divorce or miscarriage. I think that woman to woman I’m able to level with vulnerability and this shared connection makes my role so rewarding as I know that in these scenarios I’m able to provide sincere help and support and that goes a long way.”