Over the last 2 years what specific activities has Centrica Energy undertaken in response to the recession?
It’s not really been about the recession but in Centrica Energy we’ve restructured the business, we acquired Venture Production and as a result of having 2 upstream organisations, there have been some job losses but this has been because of duplication.  We’ve had programmes to take cost out of the business as efficient businesses should, but not as a direct result of the recession.

You mention restructure – was that driven by the need to bring different parts of the business together?
Our Chief Executive, Sam Laidlaw, joined us 3 years ago from an oil and gas background and he saw upstream as one of the key growth areas of the business.  Buying Venture doubled our capacity in upstream. We entered into a deal with British Energy which brought us Nuclear power generation, then we opened a new gas fired power station down in Language and started another renewables wind farm project; so for us it was a transformational year – in fact these deals helped increased the size of Centrica by 41%.  These are 20 year projects – you don’t build wind farms every year. The time was then right to look at the structure of our organisation.  So we’ve organised the business around 3 distinct business lines – upstream, power generation and midstream.

And are those changes embedded now?
Not yet, no. Last year we looked predominantly at the upstream business which is now established - now we just need to give it some time.  We’re in the midst of organising the midstream business which should be done by the middle of the year.

What is the impact on your people as a result of these changes?  Are you bringing in new people with new capabilities or are you changing where and the way in which people work?
It’s all of those things.  It’s about moving people and building the right capability to create more energy and lift performance.

So what is your role in shaping and influencing that?
I have a relatively small team of about 20 HR people so 1 minute you’re involved strategically in ‘how do I organise this’, and the next minute you’re in conversation with one of your colleagues, regarding their development.  So it is both strategic and tactical. 

What about looking at changing ways of working and processes?
The HR team were seen at the tactical end of the HR spectrum so we’ve had a job to do to position ourselves in the role of change agents – talking about capability, transformation and change.

Has it been a challenge to change that perception?
Yes.  We have a very professional workforce, but I think they possibly hadn’t seen the value that HR could add over and above the admin.  They wouldn’t think of inviting HR contribution to strategic decisions, but we’re starting to see that change

How do you start to tackle cultural change in a business like Centrica Energy?
Well, you can start by looking at structure and making accountability very clear.  The quality of the leadership is very important – having the right mindset around accountability and ownership.  We’ve done a lot on reward, taking it down to individual accountability, making it clear that what an individual is doing has a direct impact on their bonus. We’re working now on cultural change – what’s it like working at Centrica Energy and what we want it to be like.  We’re hearing that ownership and responsibility is one of the things that people want but is very hard to get so we need to acknowledge that and put it up as an aim and look at the barriers that are stopping us from taking ownership and accountability.

I’m interested in how you manage individual accountability – do you use a balanced scorecard to help you with that?
We do have one.  When I first got here there was 1 set which applied to the whole organisation so on there you might have one metric you could influence but two you couldn’t.  We’ve changed it so that it is very much business specific and therefore most people have metrics on their scorecard which they can see something they are doing that impacts them.

Do they cascade from the top of the organisation down?
Yes, Mark, our MD, obviously has scorecard that is a mixture of all of the parts of the business as do  the central teams because we are supporting the whole business and then the MDs of the businesses will have metrics specific to their business which they cascade down within their businesses. 

Is there anything else you want to add about what you have been doing in response to the recession?
Well for us, the last couple of years have been change years as the whole energy market has been changing dramatically as we move to a low carbon economy. This means the UK may need more renewables, new nuclear power stations and other technologies like clean coal.   It’s been a very positive and exciting time for us because energy is top of the agenda.  

As a result of the changes you have introduced – the reorganisation, the balanced scorecard –does it feel different working in Centrica Energy?
It’s a difficult one for me to answer because I joined a year ago as the HRD from British Gas.  My understanding is that people say it does feel different.  The level of communication is very different.  The clarity is different.  I think having a clear strategy and seeing the business deliver against it really gives people a boost.  So we say that we want to grow the upstream business and in 1 year we’ve doubled the size.  People are seeing that we are delivering what we say so they want to get on board, and that makes the business feel different.

What has been your biggest contribution in the last year?
I would say driving the organisation design.  I also think capability building – asking what do we have and what do we need?  Someone once said to me that an organisation should be like a jelly and should constantly wobble slightly because if people get very comfortable in their roles, they don’t reach their full potential, they’re not being pushed to the next level. 

Who would you say from your peers have worked with you most on the cultural piece?
Mark and the leadership team have worked hard on the cultural piece.  It was on their agenda before I got here so they were very bought into it.  But from here it’s about listening to what our people are telling us – what’s right about the business, and what needs to change? If we’re serious about making it work then we have to involve everyone in the business in building our culture. For me, involvement creates engagement; if I’m involved, I feel significant and then who knows what I could achieve?

Would you say that you have brought a particular slant to the HR role here that hadn’t existed before, especially in the way you have changed the perception of the role of HR within CE from being tactical to more strategic?
I’d like to think it’s not just a question of picking up what you’ve done in 1 organisation and putting it into another.  It’s really important that you think about what the organisation needs otherwise there is a real disconnect between what you are doing and what the business needs.  I fundamentally believe that you really have to listen to what people are saying to you and think about how you approach making the changes rather than “I’ve brought my recipe and here it is”

Moving on now to look at the future, I imagine in your organisation you are very much involved in looking at future trends.  How important would you say the future is to you?
In the energy market space, it is more important than I could ever say. We have endless debates around what does the low carbon economy really mean, what renewable energy source are we missing?  A big part of my role is making sure that then translates to the people we employ and how we operate with our people.  Longer term capability and resource planning are key.   

What about your workforce?  How do you anticipate it changing?
Some parts will stay reasonably similar but looking at our graduate population coming in, we’re now getting people who really do want a different experience in the organisation, they want responsibility earlier, they are much better networked, technology is like a right hand so it is a completely different group of people who push you.

How do you see your role changing in this decade?
Being able to take capable people and make them exceptional will be one of the differentiators.  That’s about capability but it’s also about the environment you make for people, the support, opportunities and development you give them.  The organisations that will really prosper will be the ones who can create the environment to get exceptional performance out of capable people.  That will become more and more the role of HR.  How do we help managers to create that environment to get that performance?

If you could have 1 wish to improve the way work gets done in your organisation, what would it be?
How do we create more time for ourselves – there is something about leveraging technology and flexibility so you can get quality thinking time.  If you think about the questions you have asked here, how often do organisations get the time to debate those sorts of issues?  If you can create enough thinking space without affecting the day to day performance of the organisation then that would be a great improvement.

What has been the most influential business book you have read and why?
Good to Great by Jim Collins – it resonates because I see it in a lot of organisations – i.e. good is the enemy of great – we’re very comfortable, we’re delivering enough, so where’s the impetus to get to the next level?  I think also the points he makes about effective leaders – you see lots of good leaders and very rarely come across great leaders and when you do, they stand out an absolute mile.  As an organisation you need to spot and hold onto the great leaders.