MAHLE Industries UK Ltd is the UK holding company and service centre for all MAHLE activities in the UK. This business has c.1300 employees, spread over eight sites and covers three main production businesses, two technical centres and an ‘aftermarket’ operation. Turnover is c£200m and recovering after the recession of the last 18 months. We are part of MAHLE GmbH, which is a $7.5bn business and one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers with 100 production plants.

I have had a career in HR since graduating in management studies and worked for several blue chip companies over the years: Lucas, STC and ICL, Sara Lee and SGS, before moving here. I joined what was Cosworth Technology before it was bought by MAHLE. Since our acquisition the group has made three more acquisitions that have affected the UK, hence the decision to set up a UK service centre and holding company.

I report to a European HR director and am responsible for HR strategy and service in the UK. Each of the businesses has local HR staff working with their respective management teams and I have a small group working on reward and benefits, learning and development, payroll and SAP/HR. I support the HR team around the UK and the business heads, managing any large projects, change management and troubleshooting, plus roll-out of any group processes. It’s always a fine balance to deal with the day-to-day operational priorities but not lose sight of where we want to get to with new developments.

HR is critical in my view. With the best will in the world, line managers however good, are under pressure to deliver results in a very tough marketplace. They need HR to provide expertise in people management and contribute to the discussion on how the business can achieve its strategy and plans. Whatever the issue: productivity; change; innovation; lead times; it usually comes back to a people issue of one kind or another. We also get a good view of how the business actually works, where the teams gel (or don’t), so organisation development in its broadest sense is also a key part of the role.

In the boardroom, HR brings an objective assessment of the strength and capability of the company’s ‘people capital’. We need to get beyond seeing the workforce in cost terms and headcount reports; instead it should be about putting a value on skills development, managing change, speed of response, flexibility and a desire and pride in delivering excellent service. The competitive edge gets shorter and shorter in timespan, so businesses really need to engage hearts and minds and maximise contribution and potential.

I believe in learning through doing, so increased responsibility and new challenges are the key, with support, coaching and a little guidance. Sometimes we all need help to see an issue from another perspective and receive feedback that makes us reflect - how else it could have been handled, or what aspect we should have spent more time on.

We are only in our infancy in discussing career structures now the recent acquisitions have been integrated, but at a group level there is a focus on talent management through identifying those with promotion potential. However, at a country level I want to target the mass of the workforce through better shopfloor training and assessment, getting more people involved in quality and ‘lean’ initiatives, and use of development centres at key stages in career paths.


Filling our talent pipeline is mostly about having a strong local presence; labour mobility in the UK is not great so we need to be seen as a good local employer and offer good training at various entry levels. We need more ‘trainee schemes’ in my view, for both technical and commercial roles whereas in the past we have targeted mainly graduate entry level.

In terms of our future talent pool, we lost a lot of experience in the downturn as jobs were shed, so we need to rethink how we can attract people back into engineering and manufacturing.

We typically emphasise the technical excellence of our products and market position supplying all the major automotive OEMs, and we have trusted in the implicit message that if we develop and make great products it will offer challenge, a real ‘buzz’ and great opportunities for personal development. In truth, we need to do more work to align with our different recruitment markets; what appeals to a local workforce; what appeals to new graduates and generation X and Y; and what attracts experienced technical staff and middle and senior managers. One size definitely does not fit all.

Our business enjoys an unusual financial structure and looks to the long term. It can take long-term strategic decisions and invest in technology and R & D for the future.

It’s partly about processes such as flex, but mainly about creating a local community, whatever the nature of the work. Certainly in the near future it will be more about having managers who are good ‘people managers’ and score highly on the emotional and social competence scale.

In terms of planning for the future, I have always believed that the process of change itself brings all sorts of benefits and in that respect it increases preparedness for the more difficult times. Building trust, open communications and treating people with respect should always be the way we do things, part of the culture; people are resilient and flexible but they must be involved. The mantra in my early days of HR was that “you get the employee relations you deserve” - business really is a team effort.

It's hard to call. For smaller and medium-sized businesses, it’s about what resource they can afford and as HR technology gets cheaper then it will free up time to work more on the business. As large companies move more to outsourcing or different models of HR, it’s hard to see how HR careers will develop, other than we will all need to become experts in one aspect or another. That leaves an enormous gap where we need people with good all-round experience who understand that HR needs to take an integrated approach to problems. The ‘business partner’ has been around for a long time, we were just called HR managers.

It also makes it harder for people starting out in HR to acquire the business understanding needed to contribute as a manager in the business. The danger is that it’s only the consultancies who get to handle the meaty work; the senior HR person is relegated to a ‘gatekeeper’ managing service delivery and at that point HR may as well report to the CFO. Above all, however, it’s about the insight, passion and energy we put into the role to demonstrate to senior managers the value of good HR – but we all know that, don’t we?

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