Do you have what it takes to be a HR advisor for the royal family?

The Royal Family have released a job application, looking to recruit their next senior HR advisor. This comes along with a surge of celebrities getting involved in HR-related topics.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall as well as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have released a job advert to appoint a new senior HR advisor for maternity cover. It states that the role will include being “responsible for the full employee lifecycle” as well as providing an “exceptional HR generalist service to the organisation”.

The candidate should have “demonstrable generalist/operational HR experience” with an emphasis on employee relations and management coaching and hold a CIPD qualification or equivalent. The full job advert can be found here.

This search for a new HR advisor is only one example in an increasing trend of celebrities becoming more involved in topics concerning HR including gender equality, tackling sexual harassment and opening up about mental health within the workplace.

Last week (5th August 2019), HRreview reported that Emma Watson, the actress best known for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, launched a free UK helpline for women who had faced sexual harassment in the workplace, offering them free legal guidance from lawyers.

Looking further back, in March 2019, actor George Clooney attended the WorkHuman Live HR conference in Tennessee as a keynote speaker. Mr Clooney has previously spoken out about sexual harassment in the workplace, stating “we have to take it on full force” as “it is everywhere and so it needs to be addressed as if it’s a problem for all of us.”

At the beginning of this year in January 2019, Prince William stressed the relevance of HR in affirming the wellbeing of employees. He urged companies that they needed to do more to erase the stigma of mental health in the workplace. He said that it should “be easier to go to HR and talk about mental health” and that this change “has to come from the top”.

Interested in wellbeing? We recommend the Workplace Wellbeing and Stress Forum 2019.

Monica Sharma is an English Literature graduate from the University of Warwick. As Editor for HRreview, her particular interests in HR include issues concerning diversity, employment law and wellbeing in the workplace. Alongside this, she has written for student publications in both England and Canada. Monica has also presented her academic work concerning the relationship between legal systems, sexual harassment and racism at a university conference at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.