Five Minutes With...Gill Rees, executive general manager, human resources, at Bankwest

Bankwest executive general manager, human resources, Gill Rees explains why taking a risk is the best advice she's ever been given and how data and analytics are the way forward for HR.

  1. How would you sum up HR professionals in three words?
Opportunity (for business), pivotal (within a business), difference
 
  1. What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Best advice about my career was from my Dad. The advice he gave me was: “take a risk”. I still follow that advice today, and it’s the reason why I'm now in Australia.
 
  1. What are some of the biggest challenges HR deals with?
Business is about people, they are the point of difference and our role in HR is to unleash their potential starting with developing great leadership; everything else follows.
 
  1. How do you see the role of HR changing in the future?
HR needs to anticipate how business is changing and keep pace to stay relevant - data and analytics are increasingly important; technology and social media mean we are connecting differently socially and we in HR need to connect in new ways; recognising we're operating within a global workforce, competing to attract and retain the best has never been so important.
 
  1. What’s your favoured style of coffee?
Decaf long black, cold milk on the side. 
 
  1. If you could invite three people to dinner, dead or alive, and excluding family and friends, who would they be and why?
Nelson Mandela, Michelle Obama, and either Beyoncé or the Dalai Lama – as they all are incredibly interesting people.
 
  1. Complete this sentence: If I wasn’t in HR, I would be…
I would be in products and marketing - my second subject at uni and has lots of similarities with HR.


 

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