Looking for practical HR career advice from someone who’s been there?
In this episode of the HR Engage Podcast, we sit down with Rae Headey, General Manager of People and Development, who shares her unconventional journey from beauty therapist and yacht stewardess to senior HR leadership. Whether you’re just starting in HR or looking to advance to executive level, Rae’s insights on mentorship, change management, and building resilient teams will help you navigate your own career path.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- How to accelerate your HR career through mentorship
- Strategies for managing large-scale mergers and organisational change
- Best practices for performance management and team building
- Essential skills for first-time and senior HR professionals
- Building resilience and positivity in demanding HR roles
Listen now or read the full breakdown below.
Building a thriving HR career does not follow a single script. Rae Headey’s journey from beauty therapist, supermarket owner and yacht stewardess to General Manager of People and Development shows how variety, curiosity and deliberate capability building shape effective HR leadership. Rae’s insights are practical, grounded in experience and geared towards HR professionals at every stage: newcomers, mid career practitioners and senior leaders navigating large scale change.
Why a Career in HR Matters: Expert Advice from Rae Headey
Rae believes organisations succeed through their people. HR is the craft of enabling that success. She explains that work years are long for most people so creating an environment where employees can thrive is both a humane and strategic priority. HR is not just transactional compliance. It is about helping people grow, making daily work easier for employees and influencing organisational decisions with data and practical wisdom.
HR Career Path: From HR Manager to Executive Leader
Rae’s path into HR began later than many. An executive assistant role exposed her to HR tasks and she pursued a diploma and later postgraduate study while learning on the job. Early mentoring accelerated her development, turning a role that started as HR manager into a seat on the executive team overseeing engagement, organisational development and training. Today she leads a team of 18 and describes the progression as a combination of deliberate learning and seizing opportunity.
Practical lessons from starting from scratch
- Find a mentor who will challenge and support you. Rae credits an external consultant early in her HR career with quickly boosting her capability.
- Learn the specialist practices before jumping up the ladder. Rae recommends becoming proficient in the role’s technical requirements before seeking senior promotion.
- Combine study with practice. Formal qualifications give credibility while on the job learning provides context and judgment.
HR Career Skills: Navigating Mergers and Organisational Change
Large scale mergers create uncertainty and anxiety for employees. Rae worked through a merger that grew an organisation from 1,500 to 10,000 staff. Her central lesson is straightforward but often neglected: plan communication and consult early and often.
Key elements to reduce change anxiety and maintain trust include:
- Project planning with clear milestones and timelines so employees can visualise the process and expected outcomes.
- Regular communication via email, intranet and team briefings to keep everyone informed and limit speculation.
- Accessible information hubs so staff know where to go with questions and can find factual updates.
- One-to-one consultations for individuals facing role changes, redeployment or potential redundancy.
- Rapid response to questions to reduce rumour and build confidence in leadership decisions.
These measures help keep communication focussed despite political noise and workplace chatter. Rae emphasises that employees prefer to know what is happening even when the news is limited in scope.
HR Performance Management: Best Practices and Professional Advice
Performance conversations can feel personal. Rae stresses the need to keep process separate from personal emotion. Performance management should be conducted with empathy, fairness and correct legal compliance. Her practical advice for HR professionals includes establishing clear, consistent procedures and ensuring managers follow them rigorously.
“It is important to not take it personally. Look with empathy and compassion but ensure you are going through it with a process and doing everything correctly and fairly.”
That discipline gives employees and managers confidence that decisions are well founded and defensible if challenged. It also protects the organisation in relation to awards and agreements and ensures alignment with employment law.
Building Your HR Team: Career Advice on Hiring and Development
Rae’s HR team evolved from generalist roles into specialised functions as the organisation grew. She hires for both technical expertise and team fit. In practice this means looking for:
- Specialist capability where needed, for example recruitment, organisational development, engagement or learning and development.
- Team diversity in personality and strengths: loud and quiet, event oriented and process oriented, detail focused and strategic thinkers.
- Cultural fit that aligns with the organisation’s values and the HR team’s collaborative style.
Rae also values introducing early career talent such as graduates to bring fresh perspectives once the team has matured enough to provide mentorship.
Career advice for early and established HR professionals
For people starting in HR
- Invest in formal qualifications early. Rae wishes she had gone to university straight from school, noting that combining work and study is harder than studying full time.
- Be proactive in continuous learning. Keep up with changes in legislation, trends in organisational development, and data driven HR practices.
- Find a mentor and build long term relationships with people who can provide career guidance and constructive challenge.
- Understand your manager’s preferred communication style. Aligning on frequency and method of contact helps everyone perform better.
For mid to senior HR practitioners
- Develop deep specialist knowledge in your chosen area so colleagues and leaders regard you as the go to person for sound advice.
- Obtain strategic partners such as employment lawyers specialising in workplace law. Rae describes this as a game changer. Legal advice provides clarity on awards and agreements and elevates HR decision making.
- Build capability inside the team through mentoring, training and real stretch opportunities.
Addressing a common frustration: confidentiality versus visible action
One of Rae’s candid observations is the tension between confidentiality and the perception that nothing is happening when a low performer remains in role. HR must maintain confidentiality for legal and fairness reasons. At the same time other staff want assurance action is being taken. Rae notes that while work often happens behind the scenes, she understands why employees ask “Is anything being done?”
The practical middle ground is to communicate process rather than details. For example leaders can explain that the organisation has a robust performance management framework and that appropriate steps are being taken in line with policy without disclosing private information.
Current priority: building capability for first time managers
A pressing challenge Rae faces is the promotion of technically excellent staff into management roles without adequate development. To address this, her team is building a capability framework linked to learning and development and rolling out an emerging leaders program. The aim is simple: every employee who wants development has a professional development plan to succeed.
The project aligns with organisational values and has board level support. Rae frames the investment as win win. Better managers mean better outcomes for the organisation. Even if a participant leaves, the community benefits from stronger leadership capability in the sector.
Mindset matters: positivity and resilience
Rae identifies two human traits as indispensable for HR professionals: positivity and resilience. The work is emotionally demanding and changeable. Leaders must show up consistently, handle setbacks and keep moving forward.
“It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
Rae attributes her own resilience to a mindset that looks for a shining light in difficult situations. Positivity can be contagious and it often starts with one person choosing to respond constructively.
Practical tactical checklist for HR leaders
- Create a change communications plan for any large restructure or merger. Include timelines, consultation steps and a dedicated information hub.
- Formalise performance management processes and train managers to use them with empathy and compliance.
- Recruit with a balance of technical specialisation and team fit. Consider personality mix and role preferences when assembling a team.
- Invest in legal and technical partners to back your decisions and increase the team’s capability.
- Design leadership development pathways for first time managers and link capability to career progression.
- Prioritise continuous education. Join professional bodies, attend webinars and secure mentors.
Recommended reading and influences
Rae recommends an accessible career development book that covers workplace basics and professional conduct: The Rules of Work by Richard Templar. She appreciates its no nonsense guidance on how to behave at work, how to plan, how to be diplomatic and how to shine professionally.
Final takeaways for HR professionals
Rae Headey’s experience underscores that a thriving HR career is built on practical competence, deliberate learning, human empathy and strategic influence. Whether navigating a massive merger or designing an emerging leaders program, the essentials remain consistent: clear communication, robust processes, specialist capability and the resilience to keep moving forward.
For HR professionals looking to grow their career or lift their team’s performance, the priority actions are clear. Invest in your capability, partner with experts where needed, plan communication rigorously during change and design development pathways for new managers. Put another way: focus on people, purpose and practical processes, and your HR function will move from transactional to strategic.
