webdna welcomes Head of People
You don’t have to look back too far to see how quickly we’ve grown in the past few years. We’ve even had to move into a bigger space. At the time of writing, we have a recruitment drive for two newly created roles and several in the pipeline for 2025. As a service business, people are our most important asset. We’ve put significant time and effort into building our team and ensuring that webdna is a great place to work. With growth set to continue it was clear that our people needed a dedicated resource in the business. It was time to recruit an experienced HR professional. And so, it’s our pleasure to welcome Suzanne Davis-Darling as Head of People.
Suzanne brings a wealth of experience to the role. Having spent over twenty years in training and HR she’s worked in every industry from fizzy pop to chart-topping pop. She began her career as a graduate trainee for Asda. Since then she has worked for global brands such as Coca-Cola, Diageo Guinness, HMV and Britvic.
Although she’s only been with us for a relatively short time, Suzanne has highlighted the great things we already have in place and is now building a people strategy. This will align with our overall business strategy and enable us to continue to make webdna a great place to work.
During this period we’ve also been refining our wellbeing and engagement strategy. We’ve introduced the Calm app and scheduled several Mental Health master classes hosted by our partner and long-time client Paws in Work. These cover topics such as financial wellbeing and men’s mental health, and team members are free to access them as and when they choose to. It’s been a busy start for Suzanne but she’s doing some great work and the whole team appreciates her efforts!
Building a great culture has always been a core part of our vision for webdna, and Suzanne joining us as Head of People is the next phase in our journey to ensure webdna is a great place to work. She brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and just the right level of irreverence to fit into and drive forward our culture and help us fulfil our vision for the business.
It’s also been encouraging to get Suzanne’s feedback on the processes and benefits we already have in place. She’s told us that many of these, such as our holiday package and health insurance, can usually only be found in much larger organisations. People are typically looking for a good benefits package alongside salary these days, and it’s not only a good way of attracting new webdna'ers, but retaining the talent we’ve already got.
Suzanne tells us she has very much enjoyed becoming part of the team and getting to know everyone. Crucially for her, the work-life balance that we encourage is something that she values as much as the rest of us.
What’s next on the agenda? The benefits of working for a smaller company mean that Suzanne will be able to make decisions much quicker, drive strategy and make webdna a great place to work.
I’ve been busy getting to understand the webdna culture, the people and the future plans. Now I am excited to have the opportunity to help drive the people agenda and make us an even better place to work, ensuring also that we have the right systems and processes in place.
With plenty ticked off already and lots more in the pipeline, Suzanne’s showing no signs of slowing down! We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, why not find out a little more about us?