Meet the team: Hayley Klaff, Recruitment Solutions Manager

In honour of International Women’s Day on Friday, we’re profiling some of our most talented women each day this week. Here’s Hayley Klaff, our Recruitment Solutions Manager. She also heads up our Diversity & Inclusion group and tells us why this is one of her career highlights.

Tell us about your journey so far at Lorien

I joined Lorien in April 2016 from our sister company Guidant Global and joined for an initial 6-month contract to implement a new customer.  Following on from that I was moved into another project for our largest customer to implement a new software platform and service roll-out. I was then made permanent and took on the role of Business Solutions Manager which involves managing all our client projects, supply chain, and Vendor Management systems. Outside of my daily role, I have introduced into our business a mentoring scheme and I also lead our Diversity & Inclusion group, Cohesion.

What have been some of your highlights since joining?

Being nominated for the last two years at our annual conference for Best Newcomer and Support Person of The Year was great.  In addition, I’ve loved seeing the roll-out of the mentoring scheme – we now have 25 mentoring partnerships working in our business and hopefully more to come.

Finally, seeing how Cohesion has grown in our company and the initiatives we have rolled out. A personal favourite is that we now have five Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) trained up in our business, which is a huge benefit to our employees.

What initiatives does Lorien run to encourage more women and diversity in general?

As a business, we are always looking at how we attract and retain talent at all levels and we have focused a lot on different diversity groups. We run ongoing initiatives to educate people and so they know they can bring their whole selves to our workplace. Through Cohesion, we have employee networks that focus on various diversity dimensions including Gender, Mental Health, BAME, LGBTQ+, Disability, Working Parents, Social Mobility, and Religion.

Also, with our CEO and a number of our Senior Leadership Team (SMT) being women, we lead from the top. It’s great for anyone who starts in the business to see that gender doesn’t stop you from being successful. I am also active in attending networking and industry events to be on top of what else we can do to make our company - and industry - fully inclusive.

Do you have any advice for women looking to get into recruitment?

Recruitment is a great industry no matter your gender or background.  It has many different types of roles; you don’t have to be a typical sales person. It is your skills and experience that will enable you to be a success.

Women sometimes look at a job description and think about what they ‘can’t do’. I recommend you look at things differently and remember the skills and experience you have that could let you do the job, if given the responsibility.  If you have outside commitments, don’t feel that it will stop you being successful. We don’t believe that you don’t have to be in the office till 10pm every night, and you shouldn’t either!

Most importantly – believe in yourself and know your own worth.

What do you enjoy most about working here?

The people and the culture. Everyone here is genuine and wants to do the best they can. We work in a collaborative way and people are allowed to look at things in a different way to get the best results. We are always looking for innovative ways to be the best we can be, and I like working for a company that is constantly striving for growth.