'It’s a People Business Ltd.' celebrates its 5th anniversary

Earlier this month saw It’s a People Business Limited reaching its 5th anniversary and to highlight this milestone we asked Dianne Stewart to share her story on the transition from employee to business owner.

Why I started up my own business....

So, 5 years ago (Just when the market was heading into a downturn…gulp!) I left a well-paid corporate role to start up my own business... To some, the timing of this may have looked idiotic, however for me it was absolutely the right decision as I had become disillusioned with office politics, work life balance was patchy at best and along with some changes in my personal life knew I had to take some time out to reset my focus and do something else. Doing a job, you enjoy has always been my motivation, however this should never be to the exclusion of maintaining a healthy work life balance and the latter in the last few years had very rarely been achievable. Overall, I’d spent the last 15 years in a variety of roles within HR, recruitment and operations so felt confident that my wide-ranging people management and business experience (Which further complimented my existing skill set) would be of interest to others. I also realised that I enjoyed (and learned from) listening to other peoples’ experiences, sharing and exchanging ‘War’ stories, mentoring and wasn’t afraid to ask numerous questions all in the pursuit of developing the best version of me. Yes, I was usually that annoying individual who asked for the meaning of each acronym, process or technicality in meetings, all driven by the need to know how, what, where, when and why (to be honest I’ve never been very responsive to being told to do something without understanding why….)

Reflecting back to my early days in HR, I gained experience predominantly by watching and listening to those around me; managers, peers, suppliers, clients and other HR personnel, often realising that what I witnessed was not necessarily the right way to treat people nor in fact demonstrated good practice, therefore I tended to rely on my own moral compass, common sense and integrity to navigate my way through.

Throughout my career I’ve dealt with a variety of life changing, highly emotive and complex people and business-related challenges. I've been put 'At Risk' twice and made redundant (Really poorly) once, so collectively these experiences have enabled me to further develop and hone my skills and because I've personally experienced some of those life changing moments, I can really relate to the people who are impacted.

Generally, I'm a very positive person. I wear my heart on my sleeve and have the belief that most people mirror the same values, standards and ethics as my own, however on a few occasions in the past, these same principles clouded my judgement when dealing with people. That feeling of betrayal or abject disappointment in a colleague, peer or subordinate who breaches your trust is a hard lesson to learn in life and it was a challenging learning curve for me personally. With hindsight I can say that whilst it hasn’t tainted my outlook, I learnt that not everything or everyone can be ‘fixed’, and the trick is realising this early enough, preferably before it comes back to bite you!

There will always be low points in your career and life, but these are learning curves, opportunities to change and develop - they are not who you are. I’m a good all-rounder, I’m not particularly ambitious, or hung up on titles but always seemed to be the person who got promoted or given more projects to work on or responsibility and can honestly say I love the buzz you get from working with people.

It’s often emotive, sometimes challenging, always learning but never boring. I’ve had to work hard to finesse my delegation skills and to realise that asking for help and saying 'no' are not signs of weakness or failure. In addition, I do so love a problem to solve, throw me into a mess and I’m at my happiest! I was extremely lucky to be mentored by a few amazing individuals who taught me so much about HR, business and my own self-awareness, helped to develop my confidence and capability which further enhanced my ability to manage and lead. In summary they showed me what ‘good’ looks like and I’m proud to say that their help was invaluable and still has a huge impact on me today.

After resigning from the corporate world and following a period of reflection, I decided to start up my own Limited company primarily focused on supporting and helping start-ups and SME’s with HR and workforce related challenges. I renovated the garage into a home office (its cosy and doesn’t resemble a garage…honest!), purchased a new lap top, hired an accountant, rolled out a business plan and contacted Elevator who assigned me a fabulous Business adviser called Elizabeth Pirrie who expertly guided me through some do’s and don’ts and helped me to establish my fledgling business.

Over the years I developed a wide network of contacts and dived into LinkedIn with much gusto. Within the 1st week I had my first client (Who are still with me today!) and within the first month was lucky to land a large workforce changes project, then a number of TUPE and redundancy transitions, workplace investigations, conflict resolution and many other people related projects since. I have been fortunate to work with so many great people and companies during my working life to date and particularly in the last 5 years, people have been so unbelievably kind and generous and more than happy to share their knowledge and time with me.

So, for me, being your own boss and having the ability to be in better control of your work life balance is absolutely one of the best career moves I ever made. Whilst I am extremely fortunate to have had such a strong support network from the start and have no regrets about starting up on my own, there are still those moments of self-doubt and the occasional sleepless night, but overall the benefits gained from having your own company far outweigh any downsides. Thanks for reading and I hope my story (Or at least some of it) resonates or even encourages some of you to make a change.... whatever that may be!

Dianne admits that the support of others has been (and still is) invaluable to the business and appreciates the struggle of a start-up small business.

In an effort to help other people within the sector who may be on their own journey, “It’s a People Business Limited” are offering 2 local SME’s or business start-ups, 5 free hours of consultancy, to help support and develop their people and businesses.

If you would like to receive 5 free hours of HR consultancy or know of someone who may benefit from this support, then please send a short email to askus@itsapeoplebusiness.co and 2 companies will be randomly and independently selected by the end of March 2019 by Sheryl Newman of Appetite for Business!