Jacques Quinio, 61, has spent the last two decades working for Right Management Talent Solutions, a leading global workforce solutions provider, half of it in his native France and the rest in London, England. The father-of-two grown daughters lives with his partner and sits on the company’s UK leadership team, managing coaching and business assessment. His role as UK talent management solutions director means an early start, early nights — and lots of fun along the way.
I wake up very early — around 5am when I go to the office or 6am when I work from home. When I take the train to the office, I just can’t bear the thought of not sitting on the train, so I do tend to get the 5.43 or the 6.01 into London Waterloo. I don’t think about the day at work to come yet, and never have done, and prefer to think about what’s new in the world.
Ever since I started working — 47 years ago — and before I jump into my day, I actually need time, and take it, to keep connected to the world, reading news on my iPad or — even more valued — taking the time to read my favourite newspaper and get my brain active doing morning puzzles.
I can be very grumpy if I don’t manage to go through this morning routine. Because of this early routine I take early trains from home to Waterloo and it always brings a smile to my face when I say that I’m going to Canary Wharf. Everybody thinks I work in the financial industry and when I say no, I work in HR, people seem interested to know more.
I shouldn’t say this but the first thing I do at work is actually look at my diary as I don’t always remember what I have scheduled. A typical morning doesn’t exist, which perfectly fits with my personality and needs.
Of course I have meetings that repeat themselves week after week, but being in the HR consulting industry, my work may involve being the expert, developing business, coaching leaders and teams — internally or externally — leading my own team, connecting to our European or global colleagues, analysing data — I admit I love crunching data so much I probably spend too much time doing it.
Being half-French I try to have a real lunch break and try not to eat in the office or in front of my PC. This helps me start my afternoon better. There’s plenty on offer at Canary Wharf and I never take lunch with me from home. It can be a French baguette or a noodle pot from itsu. I like sitting down to have my lunch, so I don’t go back to the office immediately.
What I love about what I do is that I can impact individuals, teams, organisations and — more importantly — company culture.
Beyond AI, the critical thing for me in HR is the need for us to become marketing people. We cannot continue to work in a one-size-fits-all approach and we need as much as we can to microsegment how we support the workforce, sometimes down to specific individuals.
Diving into what drives people is critical to bring agility to attract, develop and retain talents. HR professionals need to continue developing greater business, commercial, digital and strategic acumen and need to spend much more time identifying the feeble signals out there that are going to have huge impact on people and culture.
My afternoons are no different to my mornings and I try to be available for unexpected tasks, calls, conversations, challenges, support. I will regularly prioritise the unexpected, sometimes at the expense of my own time, meaning I will need to find time in the evenings or weekends to do stuff. But I’m fine with that.
I believe in informal breaks with colleagues, and I will very often say yes to a tea break or a coffee break and socialise. I also try, in between meetings, to walk in the office, pretending to go somewhere but just walking, round the office floor and back to my seat. I find this helps me refocus on further meetings.
People would say that I’m an HR professional, but I don’t think of myself like that. What I love about what I do is that I can impact individuals, teams, organisations and — more importantly — company culture. Culture is back on the agendas of executive teams and this is what we should be passionate about.
Something that may surprise people is that I’m not really an ambitious person, even if I have been in leadership roles. “Doing the best I can” could be another way of saying it; and even if I may appear quite serious, I need to have fun at work. Otherwise I won’t be productive.
HR professionals need to continue developing greater business, commercial, digital and strategic acumen.
I’m really not a person set in a work schedule. I‘ll often find myself working beyond working hours and I never take the same train home. I’m regularly one of the last ones to leave the office. Same when working from home, where my working hours can be very flexible, unfortunately.
The commute back home is probably the time of day where I set my automatic pilot on. Get to the Tube, let one or two Tubes leave the station so I can sit, catch a train — 25 minutes — and get home. I need that time to free my brain from work, and I think I’m quite good at not bringing my work stuff home — not sure my partner would agree with that.
We love languages and words and we can have great discussions on the origin of words, how to pronounce them, just because they popped up in an article, in a show or playing Countdown. I have been consistent — more than 100 days — in practicing my German on Duolingo.
My evenings are actually quite short, and are a combination of discussions with my partner about our respective days, watching the news and a series or film. My partner is in charge of dinner, and there will always be green vegetables on the table — broccoli, asparagus, carrots. Unfortunately, I love cheese too much — the French part of me again — so I fight hard not to indulge, as I know it’s not too good for me.
I go to bed around 9pm or 9.30pm, so quite early. And I — unfortunately — surf the web on my iPad, sometimes falling asleep while doing so. Falling asleep has never been a challenge. I can fall asleep over a book, newspaper, iPad, TV show. I can doze off in less than five minutes in the middle of a conversation — or even before they start. My Fitbit data shows that my sleep pattern is in the benchmark for people like me, which I take to be OK news.
