How a culture of continuous improvement has led to a 15 year career at Smiths

When I joined Smiths as an HR Administrator back in September 2009, I was completely new to the world of HR, my background being in sales and recruitment. Now, more than 15 years later, I am still here, having been afforded the support to have confidence in my own ability to enable me to thrive and grow.

Smiths Medical was where it all began for me, headquartered in the US but with 8 sites in the UK, I looked after our talent attraction and onboarding process for the UK, from Ashford, Kent. In 2012 I married; and then my son Max followed soon after in 2013. Smiths were able to offer me the flexible working pattern that I needed to be able to be there for my son, and although I’m back to full time, 5 days per week now, there is always still a school play or sports day to attend!

Around that time, I also completed my Level 7 CIPD qualification at Canterbury Christchurch University, working at Smiths during the day and studying at night. Looking back, it was a packed schedule, but I had plenty of support and encouragement from colleagues and family.

Following a team restructure and the introduction of HR Shared Services in 2014 I became Team Lead for the UK and Ireland, supporting all divisions and circa 1700 employees. A few years later I became Regional HR Manager to help People Operations (Shared Services) to build better relationships with our divisional stakeholders and I must say, many of those relationships still stand today.

The time I spent in People Operations taught me many key skills such as understanding the operations behind our key processes, being able to interpret the HR data and looking through a Continuous Improvement lens to solve problems and strengthen our ways of working. I firmly believe that my early career in HR Operations helps me better support my stakeholders today, each decision or recommendation being underpinned with that foundational knowledge. In 2021 I began my next role as HR Business Partner for Smiths Group.

Over the 3 years spent in that role I supported over 400 colleagues and 5 of our Executive Committee. I worked with colleagues from across the globe with no 2 days ever being the same.

I absolutely love what I do, my HR colleagues, many of whom I now call friends, and the employees I support drive me to be the best I can be. The role can be challenging and there can be tough decisions to be made but the support and guidance I receive from my managers, peers and our COEs is 1st class. I’ve been here many years and I love to impart my knowledge of Smiths to anyone who can benefit from it.

Developing others is definitely a passion and I love to see others succeed and shine. I’ve seen many changes at Smiths and resilience, plus the ability to constantly evolve are definitely attributes that are needed. Guiding and supporting colleagues through changes, sharing successes and also being able to identify lessons learnt are important and I have never stop learning at Smiths, the key to my success is being able take those learnings and apply the new knowledge, approach and skills to situations as the arise to lead to the best outcomes.

Overall, open honesty, pragmatism and being my genuine self has always served me well and I like to think my enthusiasm encourages others to come along on the journey with me. I have stayed at Smiths all these years because I’ve always found my next opportunity and been afforded the support to have confidence in my own ability to enable me to thrive and grow.

More recently I have moved to my next and current role as HR Vice President, Group HR & Regional People Partners. There are 2 focus areas for my role, the first being to lead the Business Partnering and Generalist team for Group Functions, circa 400 headcount, supporting the Executive Committee members based in our Head Office in London.

The second part is to lead our People Partners team, situated in 20+ countries around the world,  with a focus on delivering high-quality service, enhanced stakeholder engagement, and providing value-add HR support to our businesses and employees throughout the employee life cycle.

I hope that I can remain at Smiths for many years to come, continue to add value and contribute to the company's success.

Leigh Freeman
Vice President, Group HR & Regional People Partners