{"id":643,"date":"2017-02-09T04:46:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T04:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oes.public.onlineeducationservices.net\/?p=643"},"modified":"2025-12-06T02:37:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T02:37:53","slug":"hr-expert-shanyn-payne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oes.com\/uk\/hr-expert-shanyn-payne\/","title":{"rendered":"HR Expert: Shanyn Payne"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article by Kate LeGallez was originally published on\u00a0Culture Amp<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Shanyn Payne\u2019s HR career started at the cash register of her local supermarket. Today, she\u2019s Executive Director, Human Resources at Online Education Services, an Australian business that has been recognized as an Aon Hewitt Best Employer for the last four years running and named ‘Best of the Best’ for 2017*.<\/p>\n

She talked to us about what she\u2019s learned about creating loyal employees, building a people-first organization from scratch and not resting on your laurels, particularly when it comes to pay equality.<\/p>\n

Training ground<\/h3>\n

It was the industrial\/organizational psychology unit of Payne\u2019s psychology degree that first piqued her interest in HR. By the time she finished university, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in the field.<\/p>\n

She spent time gaining invaluable generalist experience, both in HR roles and as a frontline manager, at Woolworths, a leading Australian supermarket chain, and in the retail pharmacy industry. But it was joining employment marketplace SEEK as a HR Consultant that has really defined her career. The SEEK environment and philosophy was a revelation to Payne after the high-pressure operational roles and tight cost constraints she encountered in retail.<\/p>\n

Seeing the positive in people<\/h3>\n

\u201cIt was my first time working for a company that was truly, genuinely people first,\u201d says Payne. \u201cI often joke that SEEK made me a better person because I’d been trained in retail to always look for the negative. And SEEK was the exact opposite. All of SEEK\u2019s policies and processes came from a position of seeing the positive in people first.\u201d<\/p>\n

She quickly saw how this approach brought out the best in people. \u201cSeeing the positive in people first means that you can uncover so much gold,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can end up finding brilliance in people; finding talent that may have been overlooked elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, she saw how this positivity was paid back by SEEK\u2019s people and how it affected her own outlook. \u201cYou end up with a really good trust relationship. You end up with a loyal employee,\u201d she explained. \u201cAs a person too, you walk away from your job feeling like you’ve made the world a better place because you’ve helped an individual, but you’ve also been able to help the business. It’s just such a rewarding thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recruiting a people-first CEO<\/h3>\n

In 2011, SEEK, together with Swinburne University, launched Online Education Services (OES). Payne was trekking in Nepal at the time and when she finally had reception, there was a voice message waiting for her, asking her to lead the HR direction for the new venture.<\/p>\n

Among the first decisions the new OES team had to make was appointing a CEO. But before they started looking, the team sat down to work out what kind of business they were creating. \u201cWe knew that the purpose of the business was to change the lives of people through education,\u201d says Payne.<\/p>\n

When it came to building the culture to support this, Payne wanted to avoid trying to be too many different things. The steering group quickly honed in on the two pillars they wanted to build their culture around: people and service. These key decisions determined the CEO qualities they were looking for and led them to Denice Pitt.<\/p>\n

The importance of being vigilant<\/h3>\n

One of the important lessons that Payne learned from Pitt was to scrutinize every single action they took to make sure it aligned with what they were setting out to do in creating a people-focused, service-focused company.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an approach that Payne and her team continue to adhere to. She\u2019s used it to assess a new seating plan to make sure all the executives weren\u2019t sitting together on one level, wanting to avoid creating an unspoken barrier between them and the rest of the organization. It\u2019s also the reason they adopted a discretionary sick leave policy that doesn\u2019t limit sick leave to a set number of days, but will expand to cover all genuine circumstances requiring leave.<\/p>\n

Her vigilance has also served her well in making sure that OES has pay parity across genders. In this space, it means ensuring they have both the remuneration principles and processes in place to constantly scrutinize pay decisions.<\/p>\n

Prioritizing Workplace Safety and Well-Being at OES<\/h3>\n

At OES, we prioritize the safety and well-being of our team members by fostering a secure and productive work environment. We implement comprehensive safety protocols, provide regular training sessions, and encourage open communication to identify and mitigate potential hazards. By adhering to these practices, we aim to prevent workplace injuries<\/a> and illnesses, ensuring that our employees feel safe and supported in their roles.<\/p>\n

Empowering conversations around compensation<\/h3>\n

She\u2019s put policies in place around conducting pay review audits and keeping tabs on out-of-cycle pay increases to make sure gaps don\u2019t emerge, but she\u2019s also hypervigilant about how cultural norms around pay discussions are established.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith every single person, and especially females, that come to me with a question around salary increases or bonuses, I make it my mission to make sure they have a really comfortable conversation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Payne recalls a recent conversation with a young woman who\u2019d just resigned after securing her dream job, but came to Payne to ask if she was still entitled to her bonus. Payne knew they\u2019d never done this before. \u201cBut instead of saying to her, \u2018no, you’ve left, bad luck.\u2019 I said, \u2018It\u2019s fantastic that you’d bring this to me, good on you for asking the question,\u201d explains Payne. She then helped the woman put together a business case for receiving her bonus. \u201cThe answer ended up being no,\u201d says Payne. \u201cBut I hope that she now walks away feeling more empowered to have discussions around remuneration in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payne carries this same level of awareness to all decisions, pay is just the beginning. And \u00a0she doesn\u2019t plan on changing her ways any time soon. \u201cNow that we’re six years old and a AU$100 million revenue business, we still scrutinise everything,\u201d she says. \u201cBefore we make a decision, we say, \u2018is that actually aligned with our values, is that aligned with our purpose? Let’s make sure we’re sending the right messages.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

*article updated to include recent award<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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