Generation Logistics Case Study

Within the People Process department, we oversee the complete employee lifecycle, encompassing everything from onboarding new hires, handling promotions and pay inquiries, to managing employee departures.

In addition, we are a cross-functional and multi-skilled department, often supporting with workforce management and systems queries. As a Senior HR Administrator, my main responsibilities include providing essential support and training on these processes to the People Process Team, the broader HR community, and the wider business. This support is instrumental in resolving any transactional issues that employees may encounter.

Excitingly, we are actively pursuing automation where possible to mitigate waste, so a key aspect of my role is to help evaluate the current processes and support with developing innovative work methods to optimise our time and resource whilst maintain our quality standards.

There were no specific qualifications required for me to join in my role; however, a keen eye for detail and an ability to problem solve and adapt in the face of change is a must. Unipart is a company that have a variety of contracts, employees and terms and it is the responsibility of our team centrally to police the data before it goes into our payroll system so we have to be on our toes!

You have to be able to adapt quite quickly to change and constantly think of solutions to problems as they arise which is definitely stimulating. Coming straight out of a neuroscience degree at University, I did not anticipate entering the HR sphere.

I have family who also work for Unipart and, when they gave me an insight into the department and suggested there was a vacancy, I was really keen to apply. I love how vast the role is and I feel like we really have to touch on lots of different areas within HR, from legal matters to being involved with payroll queries and systems.

The balance between working with data, systems and the checks that are involved in the job as well as being able to have human relations and support both within the team and the wider business is something that really appealed to me. I am also fortunate to work with a small but lovely group of people that make it easier in the stressful times!

At university, I developed strong skills in data interpretation, statistics, and learning to conduct research in a rigorous, unbiased manner which enables me to support with projects that involve collating data to improve processes.

My ability to identify subtle changes in data has enabled me to quickly spot patterns and anomalies in our current system, allowing me to help find work arounds to the issues we experience and foresee the errors before they cause a wider issue. I feel like this skill is particularly valuable in logistics, especially in a continuous improvement-focused environment as it encourages growth and forces us to really look at the work we do and if there is a way to better ourselves. 

I have always been passionate about complex problem-solving, which I am able to do whilst supporting on systematic queries. However, I also have a strong drive to support and assist others, which has proven to be a key motivator in my professional life and is something I love learning from in my current role.

As an autistic person, I am accustomed to everyone learning and communicating in a different way and I really value being in a position to help promote inclusivity within the processes we manage.

My current role supports the department to help understand our customer and maintain positive relationships with them, whilst also allowing us to leverage data driven insights to ultimately better theirs and our experience. Whilst at times it may be stressful, I also love how dynamic the workplace is and how, whilst the basics may stay the same, you never know when you’ll need to think of an alternative solution.

It’s really important to me to feel mentally stimulated in a role and with the situations we can find ourselves in, this really enables me to get creative with my problem solving. I love working in collaborative settings, working across departments and constantly seeking opportunities to learn and grow which luckily the department allows me to get involved in.

My career highlight is one of process improvement. I realised that the team would spend a lot of time on completing retention activities, so I created a sheet that would automatically populate all the documents that needed to be removed for a leaver, dependent on how long ago they left the business.

Within Unipart, there is a wide array of contracts and, therefore, terms and conditions, policies and shifts that all incur unique combinations on the system in order to function. Recognising that this is highly liable to human error, I am currently finalising a calculator that enables the team to quickly identify new policies should someone move and hopefully will eliminate rework. They have been solo projects that I have undertaken independently and I am really proud of the impact that it has had on the team.

Published On: 24/04/2025 15:00:00

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