"Cadbury is a great company to work for. The business operates as a real meritocracy, so if you have the capability and the drive to go onto bigger and more challenging roles, the people around you will help you to take your performance to the next level."
Location:
Melbourne, Victoria
Current role:
HR Manager, Ringwood
“I joined Cadbury on the HR graduate scheme in October 2005 just after completing my MSc. in Occupational Psychology. My first role was as HR Advisor for our Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region where I was responsible for supporting local business units by supporting their graduate recruitment agendas at a regional level and helping to select a number of high calibre graduates to join their teams. I also got the opportunity to travel to Africa for the first time when I was asked to train some of our South African colleagues to use our global graduate assessment methods. In addition, I travelled throughout Europe, first to help arrange a number of large regional conferences and then to carry out community work at an orphanage in Poland with a group of 20 graduate colleagues.
After working for EMEA, I moved to Bournville to provide HR support to the manufacturing teams at the largest factory in the Cadbury group, where all the Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Crème Eggs and Easter Eggs are made for the whole of the UK! This was a great opportunity for me to get my teeth into a frontline HR role. During my time in this team I was responsible for all recruitment across the site, introduced a new absence management process, gained some great employee relations experience and learnt first hand what it was like to work in partnership with the trade unions.
After I left my factory role, I moved into my current position as HR Advisor for Sales. This job has been my first true business partnering role and I have really enjoyed working with senior managers and their teams to enhance the performance of the business by driving management capability and refining business processes. During my time here I’ve become well versed in all aspects of employee relations, played a central role in spearheading the field sales talent agenda, coordinated our bi-annual global employee attitudes survey for the whole of Britain and Ireland and been involved in my first change management project; a £2 million restructure of the field sales force.
I’ve really enjoyed my role in Sales but now I feel like it’s time for a new challenge. One of the reasons that I joined Cadbury was that I have always wanted to live in another country. I started to talk to people about my aspiration to do a role in Australia when I started in the Sales HR team 18 months ago and at the end of 2008 I had confirmation that I’ve been appointed as HR Manager for Logistics, Engineering, Operations Development, PBS, Quality, Safety & Distribution based at our Ringwood manufacturing site in Melbourne! I start in February and I can’t wait!
Cadbury is a great company to work for. The business operates as a real meritocracy, so if you have the capability and the drive to go onto bigger and more challenging roles, the people around you will help you to take your performance to the next level. It’s also a company which believes that good ethics and good business go hand in hand and this really matters to me. Being able to go home at the end of the day and know that my company genuinely cares about its employees and respects both the environment and the communities in which it operates is one of the best things about working here.”